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 Reloading 9mm Shotshells 
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I'm starting a new thread so I can follow up, but I posted this in the "who's reloading tonight" thread earlier in the week:

MadPick wrote:
I loaded five rounds of 9mm Luger tonight.

I started with 10 pounds of #12 shot and some Speer .38/.357 shotshell capsules:

Image

Fully loaded, each capsule is about 118 grains. I loaded them to an OAL of 1.50", with 5.5 grains of Unique. Here's what the result looks like:

Image

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Obviously these would never work in a semi-auto . . . but they do fit into the 9mm Ruger LCR revolver. By the way, Speer's load data says to use 5.5 grains of Unique and a 1.5" OAL for .38 Special, so I just did the same thing but in a 9mm case.

What say you? Am I on a path to success or a road to the hospital?


Well, tonight I made a quick trip to the range to test them out. Here's what I brought, just the 9mm LCR with five shotshells and the Cimarron 1872 Open Top Army in .45 Colt:

Image

And then came the first shot . . . with a glove, using my left (non-dominant) hand. :bigsmile:

Image

The Labradar couldn't pick up the tiny birdshot going downrange, so I didn't get any velocity data. :cussing:

Next came a shot on paper from a distance of six feet. The resulting group is about a foot across:

Image

I fired shot #2, and then I pulled the moon clip of ammo out of the revolver for inspection . . . and out came a bunch of loose shot, as one of the unfired shotshells had broken under recoil:

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I had these crimped pretty well, with a mouth diameter of 0.375"-0.376"; although I didn't see any visible cracking when I loaded them, I'll try backing off on the crimp a bit. There's plenty of tension just from jamming the cylinder down into the brass, so I don't think I need a tight crimp anyhow.

I cleaned up that mess, then fired shot #3. Here's the target after three shots:

Image

Something else to note . . . when I fired shot #2, I felt something come back and hit my cheek. With shot #3, something bounced off my safety glasses. I think I was getting pellets bouncing back from the target board, which was six feet away and perpendicular to me.

And finally, the target board after I peeled off the paper. The bigger holes are from the .45 Colt, but you can see some of the capsule residue (both the white bases and some blue shards) plus many of the pellets that just barely penetrated into the board:

Image

So . . . my conclusions are:

- Need to try to work on that crimp to eliminate breakage under recoil.
- The shot pattern seems good to me.
- Shot penetration . . . eh, not so much, and I need to watch out for ricochets if I'm shooting at a hard surface.

Thoughts, anyone?

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 7:56 pm
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I like what you have done. I would like to try those in my wife's Ruger Blackhawk.
Looks like a lot of spread for 6 feet. Might not be very affective over 20 feet, plus you would really need to be careful with the what's behind your target. How big are those targets?


Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:15 pm
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That orange target is about the size of an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper.

Yeah, it wouldn't do much at 20 feet . . . but then, I don't think I need it to. This would be for a snake at my feet, pretty much.

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:18 pm
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MadPick wrote:
This would be for a snake at my feet, pretty much.

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Looks good to me. I've only seen these commercial loaded, so good work!


Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:27 pm
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Interesting. Looks like you need heavier shot because there wasn't much damage to the board...

My next question is - Are you defending yourself from coyotes? Do ya really think this will do the trick and you wont get sued?

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:36 pm
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I used to load those speer shotshells in .357 for a TC Contender I had and .35 Remington. Being a single shot, I never had to worry about any other rounds in the gun coming unglued/ Both were good rounds for mice and any other vermin that would come hang around the campfire. Good snake round, but so is a big stick.

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:55 pm
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Thought #1- talk to mycyclonegt be reloads shot shells
Thought #2- just buy 38/357 shot shells before you hurt yourself
Thought #3- I was shooting #8 birdshot at an osb target at 15yds and getting a lot of pellets coming back, and this was from a saiga style shotgun. Wear your eye pro bud

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 10:05 pm
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Classic wrote:
Interesting. Looks like you need heavier shot because there wasn't much damage to the board...

My next question is - Are you defending yourself from coyotes? Do ya really think this will do the trick and you wont get sued?

I believe this is snake shot for fending off rattlesnakes during Montana prairie dog shooting

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 10:07 pm
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sinus211 wrote:
Classic wrote:
Interesting. Looks like you need heavier shot because there wasn't much damage to the board...

My next question is - Are you defending yourself from coyotes? Do ya really think this will do the trick and you wont get sued?

I believe this is snake shot for fending off rattlesnakes during Montana prairie dog shooting

I'm heading to Montana next week for gophers. Just using a .22 w/ birdshot for snakes, although I wouldn't hesitate to use a 9mm loaded with birdshot as the first round in my Sig 9mm for snakes. Hmmmmm......... icon_eek

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I always thought growing old would take a lot longer.....

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 10:45 pm
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Could use them to shoot "mini trap"?

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:00 pm
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PULL!

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I always thought growing old would take a lot longer.....

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I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.


Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:03 pm
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I've experimented with and used shotshells for a bunch of different pistol and revolver rounds. A couple thoughts:

- Too much crimp on those will break the blue shot capsules, as you found out. The correct crimp amount can be very tricky in a light revolver. You might consider no crimp at all, and superglue the capsules in place.
- Velocity is pretty low if some of the shot is bouncing off the board. The loads I've used that are really effective on snakes would all fully penetrate that board.

Less specific to your application - CCI's 9mm shotshells aren't that impressive either, and aren't designed to feed and function in a semi-auto. The .40 and .45 versions however, are very good in the semi-auto's I've used, cycling reliably, and do well for snakes. They seem to give exceptionally good patterns in Glock barrels, with that smooth polygonal rifling. I've used them for "stunt shooting" clays with a pistol; it looks really impressive to your buddies if you can throw a clay by hand, draw, and break it. Especially if they don't know you're using shotshells. :bruce:

Bigger bores are definitely more conducive to effective shotshells. Just for fun, here is the result of one round of my .460 S&W shotshell load at 21 feet, fired from 6" X-frame revolver. Would be a nice snake gun if it didn't weigh 19 pounds... ok maybe more like 4 pounds, but still. The tracing on the paper is an outline of my hand for reference, not a drawing of a turkey. I can't draw turkeys that well.

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:12 pm
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Traut wrote:
sinus211 wrote:
Classic wrote:
Interesting. Looks like you need heavier shot because there wasn't much damage to the board...

My next question is - Are you defending yourself from coyotes? Do ya really think this will do the trick and you wont get sued?

I believe this is snake shot for fending off rattlesnakes during Montana prairie dog shooting

I'm heading to Montana next week for gophers. Just using a .22 w/ birdshot for snakes, although I wouldn't hesitate to use a 9mm loaded with birdshot as the first round in my Sig 9mm for snakes. Hmmmmm......... icon_eek

I carry a keltec pmr30 for snakes. Muzzle blast shocks them then the vmax 30gr perforates them to death

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Fri Apr 28, 2017 11:36 pm
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9mm doesn't seem worth the hassle, but man I admire your tenacity.

Still need these:

http://www.wideopenspaces.com/check-new ... ll-action/

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Sat Apr 29, 2017 4:17 am
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sinus211 wrote:
Thought #1- talk to mycyclonegt be reloads shot shells
Thought #2- just buy 38/357 shot shells before you hurt yourself
Thought #3- I was shooting #8 birdshot at an osb target at 15yds and getting a lot of pellets coming back, and this was from a saiga style shotgun. Wear your eye pro bud


sinus211 wrote:
Thought #1- talk to mycyclonegt be reloads shot shells


Yep, I read his thread as I was preparing to do this: viewtopic.php?f=74&t=21176

sinus211 wrote:
Thought #2- just buy 38/357 shot shells before you hurt yourself


:gibbs:

With these capsules, I can load .38 or .357 also. I also have .45 capsules that I could use for .45 Auto (revolver) or .45 Colt. However, my rationale for going with 9mm is that I really like that little LCR and I like the idea of being able to use it for both shotshells and regular self-defense ammo. I do have a little Taurus 85 in .38 Special . . . but . . . well, it's not quite the same.

sinus211 wrote:
Thought #3- I was shooting #8 birdshot at an osb target at 15yds and getting a lot of pellets coming back, and this was from a saiga style shotgun. Wear your eye pro bud


Always. thumbsup

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Sat Apr 29, 2017 8:27 am
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