By Bob Campbell

Load Development

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Handloads for the 9mm

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The 9mm Luger cartridge was developed for the P08 Luger and has prospered

ever since. Introduced in 1908, the cartridge was used by the Germans during World War I. It so impressed combatants that the cartridge was also adopted by many other nations.

The French made noise about wanting a 9mm service pistol after World War I but did not adopt the Browning Hi-Power as they had speculated upon. The Hi-Power prospered just the same. The Russians missed their chance to adopt the 9mm but went with another German service round, the 7.62x25mm (.30 Mauser). During World War II, the Brits developed the Sten machine gun and wrapped it around the 9mm cartridge. After the war, the Allies adopted 9mm service pistols largely because they had 9mm submachine guns. In time, even police agencies adopted

the 9mm Luger as a service car-tridge. During one period of the last century, the 9mm was the most popular police service cartridge in America. This is no longer true, but the 9mm remains important.

There have always been those who believe the 9mm simply can-not be an accurate cartridge. There are others who have proved them wrong, but you must proceed with careful research. It is one thing to take a top-end pistol such as the Browning Hi-Power Practical and work up a number of high-velocity, super-accurate loads. If beginning with a good quality brass, that type of project can be pure pleasure. It is quite another thing to work up loads for a mixed bag of 9mm hand-guns using “range brass.”

Loads that perform well in one handgun may not achieve the same accuracy in another. When the goal

is to load a few thousand rounds suitable for practice in any 9mm found in the safe, the task is more difficult than we might suppose.

Perhaps it is the 9mm’s popu-larity that plays against it. The cartridge has been produced in so many nations for so many years that inconsistencies have crept in. I have been able to work up good loads for eight 9mm handguns that were made in six different coun-tries. I also learned that while it is one thing to achieve good function, good accuracy is another matter. This was not a project to achieve a potent defense load or to stretch the capability of the cartridge, but rather to produce good loads suitable for practice in all handguns concerned.

The PlayersBeretta 92, 1991 version: The

Beretta is not my favorite service

Bob thinks the Czech P01 is among the most reliable and generally useful 9mm pistols, because it is light, accurate and dependable.

The P01 barrel is tightly fitted in the slide. Note the monolithic dust cover.

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pistol, but I train young soldiers. My own son is a military intelligence officer, so I keep a civilian M92 on hand for reference and practice.

Browning Hi-Power, 1980’s production: This is an original satin-nickel pistol with adjustable sights. The model of a well-behaved 9mm.

FEG High Power: This cut-rate clone of the Hi-Power is true to the original. This pistol has smoothed up considerably with use.

Walther P38: This is a wartime Walther and a true “bring back,” not an import. It was taken from a German officer, as the story goes. There must have been more officers than enlisted men, as I have yet to find a “bring back” taken from tank crewmen or enlisted men.

Walther P1: A modern version of the P38, the P1 features slightly dif-ferent slide contours and an alumi-num frame.

Czech P01: This is one of the most reliable service handguns of all time and an excellent example of the CZ 75 – among the most proven of modern service handguns.

Heckler & Koch P7: A master-

piece of the gunmaker’s art, this is a gas-retarded blowback that is not suited for +P loads. Lead bullet loads cannot be used at the risk of gumming up the system. It will not function with light bullets in the 90-grain class. The pistol also fea-tures a polygonal rifled barrel. These problems are considerable to the handloader but not insurmountable.

Helwan 9mm: This is a copy of the Beretta 951. Produced in Egypt at the Maadi plant, the Helwan is quite rough. The pistol is quite a contrast to the Maadi AK 47. The rifle is among the best fitted and fin-ished of any AK variant, while the pistol is so rough it is barely service-able.

This is an eclectic mix of pistols to say the least. The P7 is often car-ried as a personal defense handgun and the P01 is a house gun. The others are recreational handguns.

The 9mm is a great pistol for breaking in new shooters on cen-terfire handguns. As an example, a group of teens was introduced into the world of good handguns. If you have never seen a 14-year-old

girl smile while firing a P38, it is a worthwhile experience. We simply have to introduce young shooters into the game and let them enjoy it. The 9mm is a big step up from the .22 and one they can enjoy. But with the high and ever-increasing price of factory ammunition, many of their opportunities are limited. You and I had best serve as recruit-ers into the shooting fraternity!

Making and Finding BrassA friend recently offered sev-

eral thousand 9mm cases of mixed brands. His agency went to the .40, and this range brass was no longer needed. I relearned much concern-ing 9mm brass. I first thought

The P38 features a straight-line feed that leads the bullet nose dead into the chamber. This de-sign feature has been adhered to in the Beretta 92 as well.

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perhaps some .380 ACP brass was mixed in, but no, the 9mm brass varied almost .02 inch in length. Some loads had to have been head-spacing on the extractor, not the case mouth. The longest brass was just fine, according to industry specification, but the shorter brass was not. The treasure trove con-tained some Winchester brass from the previous service load, but much was mixed brass from commercial reloads. Some had been manufac-tured in the Pacific Rim, others in South America. Some was once-fired Winchester USA used in train-ing exercises.

I hit upon a big reason for 9mm inaccuracy. In previous testing of a Browning Practical, a good amount of brass that had been under my personal control for some time was

Load Development

used, and also new Starline brass. As often occurs, on the way to working up one good load for two pistols, I was sidetracked by an experiment.

I decided to load and fire a few rounds from range brass – just pick it up from the bucket, clean and load it without measuring case length. Next, a few loads were fired in the short brass and finally a few rounds loaded in the ideal length Winchester brass. Only 200 rounds were used, but the results were very interesting. I used a proven load involving Unique and the Hornady 124-grain flatpoint jacketed bullet. Using the Browning Hi-Power and the Beretta, groups ranged from 6 inches with the too-short brass to 3 inches with the Winchester brass. The range pick up that was not sorted ran into 4.5 inches average,

with some good and some poor groups. The factory will err on the side of function over accuracy ev-ery time. The folks shooting their Glocks into the berm may not no-tice the difference. Lesson one: Sort your 9mm brass.

Lesson TwoI have not blown a 9mm cartridge

case, and the 9mm is a hot little number with NATO specifications that call for an allowable pressure of 36,500 psi. That is squarely in .357 Magnum pressure territory. Re-member, it is all about performance. NATO forces are expected to wear guns out at some time or another, and the high pressure is a tradeoff. The cartridge must penetrate web gear and always function the action. In 1922, the French specified that John Moses Browning design a pistol for military use with lethality at 50 yards. I have on hand a confirmed report of an incident in which a mili-tary police officer took out a danger-ous individual at a long 80 yards.

The 9mm is good and hot, and caution is demanded in load prac-tice. Seating the bullet just .002 inch deeper than the loading manual calls for may increase pressure by 10 per-cent. However, there is more to the formula. We have a strong reminder of why we should adhere to the reasoning of carefully beginning the

Some of the bullets used were (left to right): 122-grain flatnose, 125-grain Oregon Trail and Nosler 115-grain JHP.

Both Titegroup and Winchester 231 proved adaptable to all bullet weights in the 9mm test.

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load program at 10 percent below the stated maximum. There is a reason, and the 9mm is a good example of the vagrancies of components. We all know powder may vary as to blend, but cartridge cases vary as well. When cases are the same length but weigh in at different weights, then it stands to reason that the case that weighs more is thicker. I weighed a few cases and came up with the following results: Federal Classic 9mm Luger, 62.0 grains; Hornady Custom 9mm Luger, 60.0 grains; Winchester 9mm Luger, 55.4 grains; and Speer 9mm Luger, 55.1 grains.

If you are running at a maximum charge and change cases to a thicker-walled case with less powder capac-ity, expect a train wreck. Watch headstamps and length. Weighing the case or checking water capac-ity goes a long way in maintaining safe load practice. I do not need a

NATO pressure load, far from it; I only need a load that performs well in every handgun. The goal was more elusive than I first thought.

Handgun IdiosyncrasiesThere were three handguns with

certain special needs. The Helwan will not feed anything but ball am-munition. It will not feed a lead semiwadcutter or flatpoint but will feed the Hornady FP. No problem, as that is the type of load I origi-nally intended to work up. The P7 is not suited for lead bullets due to the gas system and polygonal rifling. With handguns of the same bar-rel length, polygonal rifling may produce an advantage in velocity over standard rifling. Still, there are no magical properties apparent, and Glock owners fit conventionally rifled Bar-Sto barrels by the case to

their Glock pistols in order to enjoy lead bullet economy. No such unit is available for the P7. I shoot this handgun regularly but limit range sessions to 100 rounds. The area in front of the trigger guard where gas bleeds becomes very hot and limits long-term firing sessions. Also, only relatively fast burning powders are suitable. A slower powder such as Blue Dot or Accurate No. 9 would not be a choice. The gas system may or may not work and could batter a fine handgun. You really have to love this pistol to work with it.

The CZ P01, like the P7, is among the most reliable handguns of all time, but the chamber is tight. When loading the XTP to 1.3 inches OAL as an experiment, the load proved unsuitable. While it fed and fired, I discovered it jammed in the chamber! I simply could not

This is what the 9mm is all about. A quality, reliable and accurate handgun and lots of ammo!

The 9mm (right) and the .38 Smith & Wesson (left) are about the same size. The 9mm is by far the more powerful cartridge.

Load Developmentcycle the slide and unload the pistol and had to fire the round out. So, I had several limits on the program out of hand. First, I did not desire a high-pressure loading but one that would be safe to fire in each pistol, but in respect to the P38 and others, the load would have to be full power in order to function. For economy, a JHP bullet was unnecessary. OAL had to be compatible with the P01 and powder selection compat-ible with the P7. A bit of research led to good choices. As predicted, Unique gave good performance while Bullseye ran cleaner. Most of the preliminary work was done with the Browning (see Table I). Gen-eral-purpose loads were worked up, and this handgun was used as a test bed for working up a suitable load for the others. This program served well, as seen in the related tables.

Cast Bullet LoadsBores in the 9mm run from .356

to .358 inch. While the average 9mm will do okay with .356-inch bullets, best results come from a bul-let tailored to the handgun. Oregon Trail Laser Cast 125-grain RNL bullets have been used with excellent results. Winchester 231 powder is

versatile and clean, and I had a good supply on hand. I really wanted to use the starting load of 4.0 grains, but the P38 would not function with this light load. I began testing lead bullets with this handgun for that reason. As it turned out, the first efforts produced a good solid load (see Table II).

The Happy MediumThe pistols tested here included

single-action and double-action examples, short-barreled pistols and military pistols. One was produced in the 1940s, two in the 1970s and one in the 1980s. The hand-loading program had a few bumps along the way, but with an open mind and good loading practice, the results will be good. You may note that I did not use 147-grain loads. While it is true these loads sometimes give good accuracy, my fixed-sight handguns are sighted for 115- to 124-grain service loads. There is also some evidence that the increased momentum of the 147-grain load is particularly hard on the oscillating wedge lockup used in the P1, P38, Beretta and Helwan.

In the end, two loads were selected for volume production. First is the 125-grain Oregon Trail bullet and 4.4 grains of W-231 for an average velocity of 1,180 fps in the seven 9mm handguns. This is hotter than some feel is necessary for practice, but with the military pistols on hand – and the occasional Luger that shows up – this level of momentum ensures function.

Second is the Hornady 124-grain flatpoint jacketed bullet, at only slightly less average velocity. This load has the edge in accuracy if it matters in the type of practice I usu-ally supervise. For the P7 and for Glock shooters, this is an outstand-ing load that never fails to give good performance (see Table III).

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