Starting out casting 9mm

[andrew375]

Thats some good info, thanks gents.

I slugged my barrel at .356, hence buying the corresponding mold, but that may not have been the right choice? I don't actually think Lee do any others than .355 or .356 for the bullet design i need so I don't think there was a lot of choice in the matter.

I know theres a million variables, but how long will the liquid lube last and still make the ammo safe to use. Say its stored either in boxes or magazines inside an ammo safe thats inside a room in a house? Is it best just to use it 'fresh' rather than having anything hanging around too long?

I have access to roofing/pure lead only (I clean it twice before using it), no range stuff but adding a bit of solder to the pot when i'm melting isn't as much of a chore as I thought it was going to be.

Forget about moulds for 9 m.m. , look at moulds for 38/357. Use as cast, the extra 2 thou' is unlikely to cause problems. Like I indicated above, I have some experience trouble shooting cast in 9.m.m. from before pistols were stolen from law abiding target shooters. The best success was with .358 diameter bullets in the 140 to 158gr. weight range, particularly in Lugers.

[mag41uk]

The Lee 6 banger 358 125gn rnfp mould was always good when I shot 9mm. If you want some to try let me know and I will send you some.
The others would be either of the 125gn RN - one of which is the tumble lube design.
Or look at the MP molds range.
I have Lee alox that is over 20 years old and is fine. I mix it with Johnsons paste wax.
If you actually do need to size the Lee push thru system is a simple as it gets.
Ideally its great if you can get a bullet thats the right diameter as cast so you can just tumble lube.
(I just sold a new Lyman 120gn TC 2 cavity 9mm mould!)

[FredB]

You can’t use a micrometer to measure groove diameter of bullets from a barrel with an odd number of grooves——which almost all of them have. If you think that you can control the rotation of the bullet in the jaws of the mic to achieve this, you are kidding yourself.
If you must measure the diameter, then the easy way to do it is to chuck up a piece of scrap metal in the lathe and then bore it out until your bullet is a good sliding fit in the hole. The measure the hole diameter.
Fred

[dromia]

Or use "V" Blocks which is what I use.

[ukrifleman]

An easy way to measure groove diameter with an odd number of grooves, is to take a piece of copy paper, wrap it firmly once around the bullet and take a measurement.
Them measure the copy paper and subtract twice the thickness.
This will give you the groove diameter.
ukrifleman.

[andrew375]

You can’t use a micrometer to measure groove diameter of bullets from a barrel with an odd number of grooves——which almost all of them have. If you think that you can control the rotation of the bullet in the jaws of the mic to achieve this, you are kidding yourself.
If you must measure the diameter, then the easy way to do it is to chuck up a piece of scrap metal in the lathe and then bore it out until your bullet is a good sliding fit in the hole. The measure the hole diameter.
Fred

Like I said, I've slugged many barrels, rifle and pistol, over the years and I've not encountered any with odd number grooves, most have either 4 or 6 grooves. So what "almost all "barrels are you referring to? A few 3 groove and even single groove barrels were used in military rifle production, but only as a temporary measure to get over the production bottleneck of the cut rifling process. I think Colt used 5 grooves in some of their revolver barrels, I had / have access to properly calibrated "vee" anvil micrometers and never had to resort to using them.