I shot my first ever 9mm handloads yesterday.
I initially worked up some range loads in new Starline brass with Hornady 115 FMJs. Fed Primers and 5.5gr BE-86 at 1.12". I figure that 10% below max or so was conservative enough and a good starting point.
Dang, even more than half a grain below book max, these were STOUT for 9mm. I couldn't believe I was shooting 9mm, as the snap reminded me of the last 40SW loads I shot.
I don't have a chrono, so I'm only judging by recoil. If you're used to shooting WWB, Blazer Brass, Fed or Aguila (like I am) then this came as surprise. It was more like S&B's range ammo.
The powder itself seems pretty clean, and the soot is soft and dry, not the hard carbon stuff or the gooey black stuff. I don't see a lot of folks using BE-86, most Alliant users seem to be running Unique or PP.
The Starline cases looked immaculate. No signs of pressure at all, though I'll know more once I deprime and see how the primer pockets feel.
Starline is well known to be fairly thick walled, meaning it has less case capacity (and more pressure) generally. So for my mixed brass loads in used cases, I only dropped down to 5.3gr with Montana Gold 115 JHPs. (not a defensive load, just wanted to try them).
I had two feeding issues with these. Tap rack bang, etc x2. Out of 50. My OAL was all over the place with the Montana Golds. I suspect it's actually the mixed brass. I can't for the life of me figure out why I was everywhere from 1.12 to 1.13. I wouldn't sweat a few thousandths, but a full hundredth was annoying. Using the comparator to mimic the seating stem, the bullets themselves were all within a thousandth.
I can live with that for about 15 cents a shot, though. Again, the BE-86 was a good performer-- reasonably clean, mild muzzle flash, and more-than-expected recoil. Even at nearly 20% under book.
Be-86 seems like a powder that could get away from you, but I'm new to this and can't really say. I'm just struck by the 5.3gr and 5.5gr loads being so close to the "Wow, that was stout!" end of the scale.
BE-86 meters like table salt. You can trickle to 0.04 grain pretty easily and all my charges were hand-weighed on a calibrated digital scale.
I'm confident this would be a good powder for heavier bullets in 9mm, and I'm planning to work up some loads with 124/125 and 147s. It's just above PP on the burn rate chart Alliant has in their load book, so it's pretty comparable in burn rate.
I initially worked up some range loads in new Starline brass with Hornady 115 FMJs. Fed Primers and 5.5gr BE-86 at 1.12". I figure that 10% below max or so was conservative enough and a good starting point.
Dang, even more than half a grain below book max, these were STOUT for 9mm. I couldn't believe I was shooting 9mm, as the snap reminded me of the last 40SW loads I shot.
I don't have a chrono, so I'm only judging by recoil. If you're used to shooting WWB, Blazer Brass, Fed or Aguila (like I am) then this came as surprise. It was more like S&B's range ammo.
The powder itself seems pretty clean, and the soot is soft and dry, not the hard carbon stuff or the gooey black stuff. I don't see a lot of folks using BE-86, most Alliant users seem to be running Unique or PP.
The Starline cases looked immaculate. No signs of pressure at all, though I'll know more once I deprime and see how the primer pockets feel.
Starline is well known to be fairly thick walled, meaning it has less case capacity (and more pressure) generally. So for my mixed brass loads in used cases, I only dropped down to 5.3gr with Montana Gold 115 JHPs. (not a defensive load, just wanted to try them).
I had two feeding issues with these. Tap rack bang, etc x2. Out of 50. My OAL was all over the place with the Montana Golds. I suspect it's actually the mixed brass. I can't for the life of me figure out why I was everywhere from 1.12 to 1.13. I wouldn't sweat a few thousandths, but a full hundredth was annoying. Using the comparator to mimic the seating stem, the bullets themselves were all within a thousandth.
I can live with that for about 15 cents a shot, though. Again, the BE-86 was a good performer-- reasonably clean, mild muzzle flash, and more-than-expected recoil. Even at nearly 20% under book.
Be-86 seems like a powder that could get away from you, but I'm new to this and can't really say. I'm just struck by the 5.3gr and 5.5gr loads being so close to the "Wow, that was stout!" end of the scale.
BE-86 meters like table salt. You can trickle to 0.04 grain pretty easily and all my charges were hand-weighed on a calibrated digital scale.
I'm confident this would be a good powder for heavier bullets in 9mm, and I'm planning to work up some loads with 124/125 and 147s. It's just above PP on the burn rate chart Alliant has in their load book, so it's pretty comparable in burn rate.
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