Wringing out Some Steel Valley Casting Bullets

[Brick]

After some 40+ years of reloading I'm weaning myself off of cast least bullets and because of arthritis bothering my hands I going to lighter bullets and smaller calibers too. One of my first moves was to go to 9mm Luger caliber. Since those are pretty "hungry" guns finding a good supplier is important and given my own "prejudices" I prefer doing business with manufacturers in my home state. So I bought 2K of DucatiRon's product to see if I like it. So far I do and here's what I found.

The bullets themselves are well cast and in those I inspected and assembled so far I find no voids or poorly cast examples. I did 3 iterations of 10 bullets each for total weight and found the 125 gr. Round Nose presents an average weight of 127.34 gr. Bullet diameters were RIGHT ON 0.356". Very good! I foresee more bullets being shipped to Susco in the future.

I always try to hit the "old" IDPA Power Factor standard of 125,000. That means I need 984.2 FPS. I opted to use each of the three powders I have on hand. Accurate #2, Accurate #5 and VV N320. Charge weights are as shown in the pdf attached. My loads were based on Accurate Powder and VV load data.

But a quandary did arise regarding powder charges. I always prefer using more than one source and I found some striking differences between Accurate and Lee Data! Given that 9mm Coated lead is loaded using LEAD data here's what I found.

Accurate Data calls for a starting load of 3.4 grs. A#2, Lee says 4.1 grs. Max according to Accurate is 3.8 grs. Lee says 4.5 grs. (124 and 125 gr. lead bullets respectively)
Accurate Data calls for a starting load of 4.6 grs. A#5, Lee says 5.6 grs. Max according to Accurate is 5.4 grs. Lee says 6.2 grs. (bullet wts. as above)

Anyhow. Ron's bullets performed superbly! All fed well in my Springfield Range Officer 9mm. No malfunctions of any kind except for the Pact chrono misbehaving.

WRT the loads themselves Maybe loading MAX for A#2 would work, but I wouldn't bet on it. There's some room to add a couple tenths of a grain to the A#5 load and maybe gain 25 or so fps. The surprise is the VV N320. In all my 9mm loads I've never needed more than the starting load to hit the desired PF! Though I must say it is a disappointing performer in .38 Spec. with 125 gr. plated bullet. I check fired some today and got an anemic 570.5 fps avg. with 4.5 grs. of N320, their starting load according their data 960 fps! WTF?

[DucatiRon]

Brick,

Thanks for the review. I am always open to good or bad reviews. Very glad you liked the preformance of the bullets. I strive to make a quality product. If you have any questions or need anything else just contact me.

[Brick]

Holy Zot! I can't believe it! 103 "views", but only 6 bothered to look at the Chrono results in the PDF (maybe I should just paste the data in the body of the post) and no one other than Ron had a comment. I don't know if that is good or bad!

[DucatiRon]

Refer back to the "Why dont you reload" thread for your answers.

[Noah_Zark]

Refer back to the "Why dont you reload" thread for your answers.

Ron nailed it. Reloading takes people away from their cell phones, tablets, laptops, and other productive activities.

I just now looked at the data pdf myself, out of general curiosity only, because I don't use those three powders. I'm a dinosaur, and my go-to pistol powders have long been W231/HP38, 2400, 4227, and my all-around favorite, Unique. Why? Accurate and VV availability is spotty in these parts.

I just fired some Steel Valley Casting coated 240 gr 44 cal SWCs from a couple somewhat new to me 44 Special revolvers -- a 5-shot 3" stainless Ruger GP100 and an older Stratford-made Charter Bulldog with factory bobbed hammer. I use 6.7 gr of Unique under Ron's golden 240s and at 10 ys offhand I'm rewarded with groups close to POA and ~1.3 to 1.6".

What I like about the Steel Valley coated bullets is they DO NOT lead the sorta-rough rifling of the blued Stratford and stainless Shelton Bulldogs. Other cast bullets will build up lead in those two revolvers; not so with the coated Steel Valley 240s. My other 44 Specials (the Ruger GP100, a 3" S&W 624, S&W 696, 4-5/8" Ruger Bisley NV Flat Top, and a 3" Ruger Bisley SS Super Blackhawk 44 Mag in which I shoot only 44 Spls) do not lead with standard cast, but as stocks of the others run out, I'm replacing with Steel Valley.

Apologies for the hijack.

Noah

[Brick]

Gee Noah that's pretty funny! I could swear I remember you speaking about recalling a time when A#5 was ladled into containers by women working in a shop in (maybe) Tenn. But regardless of the mini-hijack, I like to actually discuss real results!

I like the idea of cleaner loading equipment and cleaner guns and hands too! I was trying plated stuff in the 3 calibers I regularly shoot and I had bought some Palmetto State stuff in .38 & 9mm. The .38 bullets were a 125 gr truncated cone, looked beautiful, and reloading was very easy, but I couldn't get the velocity I wanted out of them without loading +P. And even with a max charge of A#5 (7.2 grs) I couldn't break the IDPA 105,000 power factor! Worst performance came with VV N320 at the starting load I could only average 570 fps! So as good as it is in 9mm it sucks for .38 Spec. Anyhow its back to a heavier bullet for the.38. I want to try some of Ron's 147 gr 9mm bullets sized up to .358. I bet they run close to 150 grs in that config. But to hit the old 125K PF, I'd need 833 fps, which should be manageable. If that doesn't work out I can always go back to 158 gr standard Round Nose.

The other caliber I reload most for is .45 ACP. I want to go to a 185 gr bullet for my semi-autos. But it looks like I'll have to stay with a 200 grainer (RN) for my old 25-2, but sized up to 0.454" because of the oversized chamber throats. Round nose because SWC tends to hang on chamber mouths when trying to do a "speed reload".

Anyhow that's the plan!
Have fun!

Have fun!