Hornady 180 grain HAP review

I mentioned the other day that I tried out some 180 grain Hornady Action Pistol (HAP) bullets. In one test of a 20 shot group they gave me better accuracy that any pistol bullet I can recall. I usually shoot a six shot group and “on a good day” get about a 1.5 inch group with the same load with 180 grain Montana JHPs. Using the group calculation feature of Modern Ballistics I converting the 20 shot group into the equivalent six shot group and got 1.26 inches. Hence HAP does appear to be have significantly better accuracy. I’ll shoot some more groups just for fun sometime, but the accuracy criterion for switching bullets, all other things being equal is “nearly as good” as the Montana Gold JHP. It more than meets this criterion.

I also measured the weight variation of the bullets. This is rather important because it can affect whether your ammo will “make major” power factor at USPSA matches. If the chrono man pulls a light bullet or two to compute your power factor you could end up shooting minor power factor.

Here are the results:

Mean 180.1
Std Deviation 0.224
Min 179.5
Max 180.4
ES 0.9
Bullet 1 180.2
Bullet 2 179.5
Bullet 3 179.8
Bullet 4 180.0
Bullet 5 180.0
Bullet 6 180.0
Bullet 7 180.4
Bullet 8 180.2
Bullet 9 180.0
Bullet 10 180.3
Bullet 11 180.2
Bullet 12 179.8
Bullet 13 180.1
Bullet 14 180.3
Bullet 15 180.2
Bullet 16 180.0
Bullet 17 180.2
Bullet 18 180.3
Bullet 19 180.4
Bullet 20 180.0

The extreme spread on the weight distribution would make a different of about +/- 0.44. This isn’t a big deal.

180 grain Montana Gold JHP have a tighter weight distribution but this is much better than what I measured with 180 grain .401 bullets from Black Bullet International.

The weight distribution is acceptable to me.

I loaded all 500 bullets and found something a little irritating:

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Five (only four shown here) of the bullets had the hollow point clogged with what looked like cleaning media, perhaps ground corn cobs. It was easy to remove the foreign material from the bullets but I have never seen this in the 120K+ rounds I have reloaded. It’s not a big deal but I was surprised they would have a process which would allow this to be possible.

Overall their bullets meet my criteria even though they are a little more expensive than the Montana Gold I am currently using. I am switching bullets because they told New York they would not knowingly sell products to them.

Rounds in the last month

I reloaded 3,300 rounds of .40 S&W last month. 3,206 of those rounds were 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges. 94 rounds were 180 grain Hornady Action Pistol (HAP) bullets. The HAPs were those I ordered last May in response to the President of Hornady Manufacturing Company saying they would not knowingly allow their ammunition to be sold to the Government of the State of NY or any NY agencies.

Yesterday I tested the HAP rounds and found they were nearly identical in the mean standard deviation of the velocity for the same powder charge as what I get with the Montana Gold JHP. The accuracy appears to be better. Here is a 20 round group at 30 feet (1.75” of which some of the error was surely mine):

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The price isn’t quite as good as the Montana Gold bullets but I think I will switch over to the HAP bullets when I finish up the Montana Gold bullets because of Hornaday refusing to do business with New York.

This is by far the most number of rounds I have reloaded in a single month all year. And taking into consideration that I used a lot of my “reloading time” to install and get a new reloading press set up I’m very pleased. I also spent a fair amount of time individually checking the length of about 2,300 cartridges which had the potential to have a double charge which blew up my STI DVC Limited. No double charges found so far but I have about another 2000 rounds to go.

I purchased the Dillon XL650 mostly because of the powder check stage. This gives a buzzer warning if there is no powder or a double charge in a case. This should prevent another blown up gun. A bonus is that the new press with the automatic case feeder gives me almost double the production rate of the Dillon 550B press. This is why I was able to get so many rounds out this month.

Also, if you are a reloader, get the LED lights for your press. They give you a much better view of what you are doing:

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The picture above is of both presses with only the press lights on. With room lights on as well the reloading area is exceptionally well lit which makes it easier to see if something is a little off.

This brings the rounds year to date to 12,228. With the new press it should be pretty easily to meet my goal of getting to 16K by the end of the year. I may even exceed my previous best year of 23,356.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 90,393 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 121,201  rounds

Quote of the day—Reggie Reg Davis

The bullets, they do the killing, they kill. It’s up to us to figure out a way to wrap laws around the purchasing of ammunition.

Reggie Reg Davis
Wayne County Commissioner (Detroit)
September 16, 2018
Wayne County leader wants to make it harder to buy bullets
[No.

Just as “wrapping laws” around the purchase of alcohol and other recreational drugs didn’t improve society the restriction of a specific enumerated right not only won’t improve society it will be an infringement upon the natural right to defend ourselves.

People can make ammunition from scrap metal a few relatively simple tools. Just as with recreational drugs, it won’t be of the highest quality but it will be good enough to get the job done. And it this case the job will be restoring our rights.

Reggie Reg Davis, Molṑn labé.—Joe]

Cost/benefit of reloading

The Gun Feed linked to my post about the double charge with the link text of “Reloading Kaboom: All costs savings is lost when your gun blows up…

At first thought you might agree. But it depends on how many rounds you reloaded before you lose a gun and the cost of replacement or repair of the gun. Assuming my gun is a total loss, I doubt this is true but lets go for worst case, I will have to have saved about $3200 to break even.

My worst case reloading cost (buying once fired brass) of .40 S&W is practice ammo. This is $0.24 per round. The ammo I use for matches is $0.19 per rounds. If I reuse my own fired brass then the cost drops to $0.19 and $0.14 per rounds. Let’s go with worst case reloading costs…

Getting the cheapest brand I recognize from Midway USA in one case (1000 rounds) lots results in $0.329 per round after shipping.

Hence by reloading I’m saving, at least, $0.089 per round. In order to pay for a new gun I would have to reload $3200/$0.089 rounds. This works out to about 36,000 rounds.

I have actually reloaded and fired about 84,000 rounds in .40 S&W. So by reloading, even if I have to buy a new gun, I still have saved nearly $4,500.

Plus, having learned the lesson of how a can get a double charge with this load I can either change loads to completely avoid this or modify my quality control procedures to reduce the chances.

This was using the worst case cost for reloaded ammo. It also doesn’t take into account that my reloads are lower recoil than factory loads and result in less wear on the gun. My actual savings is quite a bit greater than the calculations above indicate. Hence, in this case, the headline writer for The Gun Feed is wrong.

Double charged

Yesterday I invited people to guess what this was:

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chiefjabboby, using some rather flowerily language, got it right. Drew Rinella was more straight forward with a more complete, and correct, answer.

Below, on the left, is a normal primer which has been fired. The primer above is in the middle below. Most of what is left of the case is on the right. The rest of the case is stuck in the chamber of my STI DVC Limited (chambered in .40 S&W).IMG_0795AllCropped

I strongly suspect I got a double charge in one of my reloads. I didn’t think it was possible. It’s true, as I told myself when I started using this load, that a double charge would not allow the bullet to be fully seated. But I didn’t actually try it.The bullet compresses the double charge and the powder pushes the bullet part way out. But it’s only about 0.040 over the usual overall length (OAL). So, it’s quite possible I overlooked this during my final inspection.

The magazine was blown out of the gun and forcibly disassembled. This was essentially all I could find of the pieces. Note the spring is all crooked. What doesn’t show up is that the feed lips are quite a bit wider than a normal magazine.

IMG_0790Cropped

There was some damage to the gun. I had to hammer it to get the slide open and the ripped apart shell casing out. I suspect the slide is beyond repair. The ejector pins were sheared off but it’s possible they were broken before the incident. The extractor was loose in the slide and the metal below the head of the extractor was pushed down and slightly torn:

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I was not hurt but there were strange smoke patterns on my hands where gases came out of all the gaps between the slide, frame, and grip:

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My face got peppered with tiny bits of something and stun for a few minutes but it did not break the skin. I had a slightly shadow on my face around my safety glasses giving me a bit of a raccoon appearance.

I disassembled the gun to examine everything carefully. Here is what a mostly disassembled STI DVI Limited looks like:

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I plan to reassemble it and ship it off to STI to see if they can repair it. And before I use any more of  that ammo I’m going measure the OAL on every cartridge (I think I can use a case gauge). I have a backup gun which I used at a USPSA match today. And I expect I will be using is for a quite a while. STI is notoriously slow in turn around time and I may have to buy a brand new gun. And the last time I checked the wait times were quite long for new guns.

I put about 45,000 rounds through it. This is more than the approximately 40,000 rounds I got out of my STI Eagle 5.1 before it had a serious failure and became my backup gun.

It’s probably time for me to buy another gun regardless of whether the DVC Limited can be repaired or not. Heavy sigh…

Rounds in the last month

I reloaded 2396 rounds of .40 S&W last month. It was all 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges. I just brought home another 7,500 of these type of bullets as I was getting really low.

This is the most number of rounds I have reloaded in a single month all year but it’s about 400 fewer than I reloaded in August of last year.

This brings the rounds for the year to date to 8,928. I hope to break 10,000 rounds for the year this month and maybe get to 16K by the end of the year..

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 87,093 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 117,901  rounds

Rounds in the last month

I reloaded 1193 rounds of .40 S&W last month. It was all 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges.

This is just two rounds short of the maximum number of rounds reload in a single month all year. Still, it only brings the rounds year to date to 6,532. By this time last year I had reloaded 12,712 rounds. I probably will make it something over 10,000 rounds for the year but it will be a lot less than the 23,356 I did last year and the 18,265 I reloaded the year before that.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 84,697 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 115,505 rounds

Rounds in the last month

I reloaded 797 rounds of .40 S&W this month. It was all 180 grain Montana Gold JHP to be used for practice at indoor ranges. This was not nearly as much as I had hoped for. Things have been very busy on a variety of fronts and I just didn’t have the time to reload as much as I wanted. I did most of my practice with a .22 pistol instead of the .40.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 83,504 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 114,312 rounds

I found another one

A little over three years ago I reported that I found a Winchester primer without a anvil. I found another one today. The primer on the left is normal. The one on the right is missing the anvil:

IMG_9718Cropped

I searched through my log files for all the rounds I have reloaded with WSP (Winchester Small Pistol) primers. I have reloaded 62,719 of them and found two missing anvils. While rare it does seem like a more frequent event that I would have expected.

Rounds in the last month

In May I didn’t start reloading until the 15th. Boomershoot recovery contributed to the late start. As did another trip to Idaho to replace some Wi-Fi equipment at the Boomershoot shooting line, Boomershoot inventory, and cleaning up things at Mecca.

My supply of practice .40 S&W ammo got to emergency levels with as little as 200 rounds at one point. I reloaded 1499 rounds in May and even with using the .22 for much of my practice I still consider my practice .40 S&W ammo to be at critical levels. I’m hoping to catch up soon.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 82,507 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 113,315 rounds.

Rounds in the last month

After reloading 300 rounds of .223 I started reloading .40 S&W to practice for Steel Challenge and USPSA matches. I reloaded 750 rounds before Boomershoot consumed all my spare time.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,813 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 81,080 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 111,816 rounds.

Rounds in the last month

I still did a lot of prepping of .223 brass this month but I also did a fair amount of reloading. I reloaded 1195 rounds of .223. I’m going to do a little more .223 then I have to switch back to .40 S&W as I am running out of practice ammo.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 4,513 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 80,258 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 110,766 rounds.

In somewhat related news a co-worker told everyone at the team meeting today that if there were a zombie apocalypse he was going to find me. As he is about 6’ 6” tall, smart, and regularly practices martial arts I could see there being some potential for their being a mutually beneficial relationship in such an event.

Rounds in the last month

This month I only loaded a 180 .223 rounds. Part of that was because I spend a long weekend visiting Xenia in Kentucky and part is because I finished up most of my new .223 brass and started in on my used brass. The used brass needs more prep and with my hand powered tools it took a lot of time. The new electrically powered tool helped a bunch and I have been been prepping brass and, essentially, not reloading as I go through the backlog of used brass to clean and prep.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 3,318 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 80,258 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 109,571 rounds.

Rifle brass prep

I decided to use up a bunch of the rifle reloading components I have laying around and quickly found I was spending way more time than I wanted. Using hand powered tools trimming the brass to length and cleaning the primer pockets was taking, on average, about a full minute for each round. Also, my hands ached after about 100 rounds and I would have let them recover for an hour or more before continuing. With many thousands of rounds in my immediate future I decided I needed another solution.

I purchased the Frankford Arsenal Platinum Series Case Trim and Prep System (see video at the link):

This cut the one minute down to about 15 seconds. I can still get an ache in my hands if I’m not careful to mostly press the brass when trimming rather than trying to grip it tightly. But if I pay a little bit of attention it hasn’t been a major problem.

I have processed over 1000 rounds with it now now I am very pleased.

Rounds in the last month

The only caliber I reloaded this month was .223. I reloaded 418 rounds.

It was slow going with a lot of case prep on the used brass. I also loaded up a few test rounds of some new bullets. These were Berger 75 and 80 grain VLDs, and the Berger 82 grain Long Range BT. With my target AR I get good results with factory ammo with 77 grain Sierra Match Kings but the Berger’s have higher ballistic coefficients and if I get as good as accuracy from them as the factory ammo and the expected velocities then I will have more wind resistant ammo than the factory loadings. The problem with the two heavier bullets is they take up so much space that if you load them to max over all length you can’t get as much powder in the case as you can if you load them to significantly over the max overall length. But if you load them over length then you have to feed them into the chamber one at a time by hand because they won’t fit in the magazine.

I decided to load my test round to spec with reduced charges and see what I end up with. I’m expecting it will be disappointing. I’m more excited about the 75 grain VLDs. They have a G1 BC of .421 compared to the 77 grain Sierra Match King’s .362. That’s significant. And with a slightly lighter bullet I might be able to get a little higher velocity as well.

I haven’t fired any of them yet. I’m going to wait until I go to Idaho again so I can do some accuracy testing at the same time as the chronograph tests at about 200 yards.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 3,138 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1,591 rounds.
40 S&W: 80,258 rounds.
45 ACP: 2,007 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 109,391 rounds.

Shooter report

Paul and Louise visited us from Canada this weekend. Paul was in the U.K. military and had a fair amount of experience with rifles but very little experience with handguns. Recently they purchased handguns and took some classes. Then Paul decided he would like to get into reloading. I showed them my reloading set up and talked quite a bit about it with them. Why I reload, some tips on reloading he probably won’t find in the YouTube videos, and why I have some of the equipment.

Barb and I took them to the range and Paul had his first experience shooting an AR and Louise shot a rifle for the first time. Among other firsts were shooting a gun with a suppressor.

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I did a little coaching with Louise but Paul was doing very well without much input from me. We probably went through about 400 rounds total of .22LR and .40 S&W. It was a good day and you can see the indicator of that with the new shooter smile on Louise’s face.

Detonating Boomerite with a pistol

We have long known that Boomerite detonates at lower velocities if the bullet has a flatter tip. But we have never had reliable detonation with a pistol. As I reported a few days ago I made up some 145 grain loads for my .40 S&W gun. I bought the bullets 10 to 15 years ago just for this but I it wasn’t until now that I finally got around to loading them for Boomerite testing. With a near maximum load I get just over 1400 fps at the muzzle. The truncated cone bullets have a pretty wide flat area:

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I visited Boomershoot last weekend and among other things I mixed up a batch of Boomerite and tested the hot 145 grain loads. With the weather being a little cold, 34 F, I expected I would have to be pretty close to get detonation. And maybe I wouldn’t be able to get detonation at any safe distance. I put on my flak jacket, eye protection, ear protection, and got back 15 yards. This should be a target velocity of about 1330 fps. I squeezed off a shot—BOOM! Okay, that worked.

How about 25 yards? That would result in about 1280 fps at the target. Another squeeze yielded another earth shaking boom from a seven inch target. Okay then. It’s good enough.

This means I can use my handgun for Boomershoot cleanup if I want to.

Rounds in the last month & yearly report

This month I finished reloading all the .45 ACP bullets I had—1507 of them.

In .40 S&W I reloaded 502 rounds of 180 grain TCFM (I presume this means Truncated Cone Full Metal jacket) Zero Bullets. These are a little cheaper than the Montana Gold bullets I usually use and I decided to try them. They seem accurate enough and reloaded just fine, but until I had one in my hand I forgot one of the reasons I was using the JHP Montana Gold bullets. The JHP’s do not have exposed lead in the base which means there is less lead put into the air when I’m shooting.

Also in .40 S&W, I reloaded 270 rounds of truncated cone, 145 grain, Master Blaster (the company went out of business years ago but I still have the sample I purchased from probably 10 or 15 years ago) polymer coated lead bullets. These are hot loads with a muzzle velocity of nearly 1390 fps. The intent is to be able to detonate Boomershoot targets from my handgun. I’ll have to be close, perhaps as close as 15 yards, but I think they might work.

I reloaded 296 rounds of .223 Remington. These were all SS109 bullets. Last year, among other things I did in preparation for a Clinton presidency, I purchased a large number of these bullets. They are taking up space on my shelf of bullets and I had many pounds of powder for them on another shelf. It’s time to reduce my inventory of components. I expect the next few months will be spent reloading .223.

Combined that is 2,575 rounds I reloaded in the last month.

2017 was a very good year in terms of reloading. I reloaded over 23,000 rounds. Nearly 21,000 rounds were in .40 S&W.

My life history of hand reloading ammunition by caliber, month, and year:

223 Remington Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1998 160 0 0 0 0 0 0 140 20 0 0 0 0
1999 1777 0 0 181 578 25 0 0 0 0 140 653 200
2000 43 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 43 0 0 0
2001 47 0 0 0 47 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2016 397 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 140 257 0 0
2017 296 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 296
Total 2720
30.06 Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1997 180 0 0 40 20 79 41 0 0 0 0 0 0
1998 150 0 0 0 80 0 0 0 0 0 40 0 30
1999 90 20 70 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2003 47 0 0 0 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 0
2016 76 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 76 0 0 0
2017 213 0 0 0 0 0 0 65 148 0 0 0 0
Total 756
300WIN Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1999 250 0 0 0 0 0 151 60 0 0 39 0 0
2000 460 50 120 142 0 57 0 0 0 0 20 60 11
2001 382 25 0 0 185 15 20 0 73 0 0 0 64
2013 499 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 399
Total 1591
40SW Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1997 31 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 31
1998 11537 570 258 718 1850 1812 1710 402 0 0 1200 900 2117
1999 2795 0 894 0 299 693 506 0 0 0 0 0 403
2000 3187 795 0 0 0 0 1095 400 396 0 501 0 0
2001 2295 0 300 497 300 0 0 1198 0 0 0 0 0
2002 898 0 0 0 0 0 0 198 0 200 300 0 200
2003 602 0 300 302 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2004 1345 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 300 600 445 0
2005 1059 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 659 400 0 0
2006 1000 0 0 0 0 400 0 0 0 0 200 400 0
2007 1136 0 0 0 0 0 0 118 518 300 200 0 0
2008 2398 0 300 0 0 0 0 900 399 0 200 0 599
2009 1702 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 102 300 900 400
2010 1400 0 0 0 0 100 200 700 0 200 0 200 0
2011 2300 300 0 400 100 0 500 500 200 0 0 0 300
2012 399 0 200 0 199 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2014 530 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 530
2015 7012 1699 1630 1137 0 0 0 547 200 400 100 200 1099
2016 17792 2197 700 1462 837 1899 1999 1000 1500 1000 1700 1500 1998
2017 20840 3300 975 525 200 1899 3700 2048 2644 2063 1015 1699 772
Total 80258
45ACP Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2017 2007 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 500 1507
Total 2007
9MM Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1996 11274 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10944 141 189
1997 7374 300 0 0 1190 640 65 0 100 1088 804 1060 2127
2015 2993 0 1066 1927 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 21641
Yearly and
Monthly Totals
Year Rounds Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1996 11274 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10944 141 189
1997 7585 300 0 40 1210 719 106 0 100 1088 804 1060 2158
1998 11847 570 258 718 1930 1812 1710 542 20 0 1240 900 2147
1999 4912 20 964 181 877 718 657 60 0 0 179 653 603
2000 3690 845 120 142 0 57 1095 400 396 43 521 60 11
2001 2724 25 300 497 532 15 20 1198 73 0 0 0 64
2002 898 0 0 0 0 0 0 198 0 200 300 0 200
2003 649 0 300 302 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 0
2004 1345 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 300 600 445 0
2005 1059 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 659 400 0 0
2006 1000 0 0 0 0 400 0 0 0 0 200 400 0
2007 1136 0 0 0 0 0 0 118 518 300 200 0 0
2008 2398 0 300 0 0 0 0 900 399 0 200 0 599
2009 1702 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 102 300 900 400
2010 1400 0 0 0 0 100 200 700 0 200 0 200 0
2011 2300 300 0 400 100 0 500 500 200 0 0 0 300
2012 399 0 200 0 199 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2013 499 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 399
2014 530 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 530
2015 10005 1699 2696 3064 0 0 0 547 200 400 100 200 1099
2016 18265 2197 700 1462 837 1899 1999 1000 1500 1216 1957 1500 1998
2017 23356 3300 975 525 200 1899 3700 2113 2792 2063 1015 2199 2575
Grand Totals 108973 9256 6813 7331 5903 7619 9987 8276 6198 6571 18960 8787 13272

Because the case preparation required to reload for rifles takes more time than pistol I doubt I will produce nearly as many rounds in 2018 as I did in 2017. But still, it should be enough to give the anti-gun people severe stomach cramps and/or high blood pressure.

Rounds in the last month

This month I reloaded some .45 ACP for the first time. I bought the dies and supplies years ago after I got the Para Ordinance Gun Blog 45 pistol. I ended up not shooting it very much and finally stored it as a “Safe Queen”. I still had all the equipment and supplies for the ammo so, mostly to clear out space, I decided to go ahead and assemble the ammo. I reloaded 500 rounds and ran a few rounds over the chronograph to verify the expected velocity and functionality.

I also reloaded 1699 rounds of .40 S&W this month. 1400 rounds were 180 grain Montana Gold JHP for practice at indoor ranges and 299 were 180 grain Black Bullets International bullets for USPSA matches. This finished off all the bullets I have in these types.

Year to date I have loaded 20,781 rounds.

This brings my lifetime reloaded ammunition totals to:

223: 2,424 rounds.
30.06: 756 rounds.
300 WIN: 1591 rounds.
40 S&W: 79,486 rounds.
45 ACP: 500 rounds.
9 mm: 21,641 rounds.
Total: 106,378 rounds.

Low velocity 9mm self-defense loads

A while back I made up some .40 S&W loads with “Gold Dot® Short Barrel®” bullets (it appears they have been discontinued) and then did velocity and milk jug penetration tests. I was very pleased with them.

A couple days ago I received an email from Drew Rinella. Here is part of it:

I met you very briefly a couple/few years ago at a Boomer shoot, so it was cool to find your site while researching low velocity results for speer gold dots. I saw that people were giving you shit in the comments about your low velocity 40 s&w gold dot SB loadings. I want to let you know that my terminal performance testing results have so far been great with loading the standard 147 gr 9mm gold dot at a low velocity.

I like the properties of the 147 grain 9mm gold dot bullet but I have always been frustrated by the challenging recoil impulse and inconsistent accuracy with their factory loading at nearly 1000 fps muzzle velocity, so I’ve been experimenting with loading at lower velocities. Despite the fact that they do not yet market a SB version of this bullet, I received an email back from that factory recommending a minimum of 850 fps for consistent expansion.

4.3 grains of Silhouette gave me 885 fps from a Glock 17. This was the most accurate and softest shooting load I tested which gave me the min recommended velocity. With this velocity I get consistent penetration of 4 water filled milk jugs, with the bullet puncturing a small hole into and bouncing off of the 5th jug. Assuming a 1.8x ratio of water to ballistic gel this slightly exceeds the FBI standard of 12″ ballistic gel.

Test #1: 2 layers denim

Penetrated 4 full milk jugs; bullet fully intact with signs of stress on the petals Expansion 0.525″

Weight 147.5 grains

Test #2: 4 layers denim

Penetrated 4 full milk jugs; one petal ripped off and stayed in first milk jug; signs of stress on remaining petals Expansion 0.563″

Weight 143.8 grains

As soon as the kids can drink more milk I’ll be testing with more materials including quilted denim, metal, wood, wallboard, and glass. I hypothesize less expansion and deeper penetration through these barriers based on observations of online video testing of factory loadings with this bullet, which I don’t necessarily consider to be a bad thing.

Silhouette was one of the few powders my thrower was able to throw consistently at these low charge  volumes, and gave me a small red fireball with some yellow sparks in low light shooting. CFE Pistol (my favorite powder for nearly everything else) wouldn’t throw consistently. Titegroup accuracy was very poor. AA#2 & 5 were consistent but wouldn’t give me the velocity I wanted without going into +P or +P+ territory.

Hornady XTP 147 grain at low velocity wouldn’t open up and looked like I could reload it and shoot it again. I definitely think Gold Dot is the way to go when downloading self defense rounds.

I figured there had to be other powders which would give the desired velocity so I went looking through all the sources on my book shelf. Here is a complete list of the powders for 9mm, 147 grain bullets, which yield velocities in the range of 850 feet per second.

Powder weight is in grains. Expected velocities are in feet per second. Some of the data is quite old and you should verify it with your own loading manuals or online to make sure the data is current and I have not made a catastrophic typo.

Powder C.O.L. Minimum Load Velocity Maximum Load Velocity
HS-6 1.100 4.3 773 5.0 885
Universal 1.100 3.0 803 3.3 869
Titegroup 1.100 3.2 855 3.6 929
SR 4756 1.100 3.2 800 3.8 950
WSF 1.100 3.3 800 4.2 950
AA #5 1.100 3.8 800 4.6 950
Solo 1500 1.100 3.8 800 4.6 950
HS-6 1.100 4.4 850 5.1 975
Blue Dot 1.100 4.2 800 5.5 1000
HS-7 1.100 4.4 800 5.6 950
AA #7 1.100 5.1 800 6.6 1000
Power Pistol 1.130 4.5 872 5.0 975
3N37 1.130 4.4 886 4.9 969
AA #7 1.130 6.1 867 6.8 961
SR 4756 1.130 4.2 841 4.6 957
HS-6 1.130 5.0 845 5.6 956
Unique 1.130 3.8 852 4.3 954
HS-7 1.130 6.1 866 6.8 953
WSF 1.130 3.6 840 4.1 931
AA #5 1.130 4.5 821 5.1 931