Load Development
Load Development
Handloads for the 9mm
By Bob Campbell
T
he 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 HiPower 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 P01 barrel is tightly fitted in the slide. Note
the monolithic dust cover.
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LOAD DEVELOPMENT ? Oct-Nov 2014
Bob thinks the Czech P01 is among the most reliable and generally useful 9mm pistols, because it is light,
accurate and dependable.
the 9mm Luger as a service cartridge. 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 cannot 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 handguns 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 popularity 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 countries. 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 Players
Beretta 92, 1991 version: The
Beretta is not my favorite service
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 satinnickel 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 different slide contours and an aluminum frame.
Czech P01: This is one of the
most reliable service handguns of all
time and an excellent example of the
CZ 75 ¨C 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 features 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 finished of any AK variant, while the
pistol is so rough it is barely serviceable.
This is an eclectic mix of pistols
to say the least. The P7 is often carried 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 centerfire 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
The P38 features a straight-line feed that leads
the bullet nose dead into the chamber. This design feature has been adhered to in the Beretta
92 as well.
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 recruiters into the shooting fraternity!
Making and Finding Brass
A friend recently offered several thousand 9mm cases of mixed
brands. His agency went to the .40,
and this range brass was no longer
needed. I relearned much concerning 9mm brass. I first thought
Oct-Nov 2014 ? LOAD DEVELOPMENT
2
Load Development
Some of the bullets used were (left to right): 122-grain flatnose, 125-grain Oregon Trail and Nosler
115-grain JHP.
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 headspacing 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 contained some Winchester brass from
the previous service load, but much
was mixed brass from commercial
reloads. Some had been manufactured in the Pacific Rim, others in
South America. Some was oncefired Winchester USA used in training 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
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 ¨C 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,
Both Titegroup and Winchester 231 proved adaptable to all bullet weights in the 9mm test.
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LOAD DEVELOPMENT ? Oct-Nov 2014
with some good and some poor
groups. The factory will err on the
side of function over accuracy every time. The folks shooting their
Glocks into the berm may not notice the difference. Lesson one: Sort
your 9mm brass.
Lesson Two
I 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. Remember, 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 military police officer took out a dangerous individual at a long 80 yards.
The 9mm is good and hot, and
caution is demanded in load practice. Seating the bullet just .002 inch
deeper than the loading manual calls
for may increase pressure by 10 percent. However, there is more to the
formula. We have a strong reminder
of why we should adhere to the
reasoning of carefully beginning the
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 Idiosyncrasies
The 9mm (right) and the .38 Smith & Wesson (left)
are about the same size. The 9mm is by far the
more powerful cartridge.
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 thickerwalled case with less powder capacity, expect a train wreck. Watch
headstamps and length. Weighing
the case or checking water capacity goes a long way in maintaining
safe load practice. I do not need a
There were three handguns with
certain special needs. The Helwan
will not feed anything but ball ammunition. 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 originally 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 barrel 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!
Oct-Nov 2014 ? LOAD DEVELOPMENT
4
Load Development
cycle 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 compatible 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). General-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.
5
LOAD DEVELOPMENT ? Oct-Nov 2014
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 Medium
Cast Bullet Loads
Bores 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 bullet tailored to the handgun. Oregon
Trail Laser Cast 125-grain RNL
bullets have been used with excellent
results. Winchester 231 powder is
The 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 handloading 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 ¨C and the occasional
Luger that shows up ¨C 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 usually supervise. For the P7 and for
Glock shooters, this is an outstanding load that never fails to give good
performance (see Table III).
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