9mm info

American Handgunner, July-August, 2009 by John Mark Vaughn

First, thank you for the finest handgun magazine on the rack. I am an avid 'gunner dating back to 1973 when I entered law enforcement, and am now in my 36th year with no thought of retirement. I started competition back in the PPC days where l earned my NRA Masters. Moved to steel plates, and now looking at IDPA in the "Senior" division--ouch! I have a question I would like you to forward to Duke if possible. He seems to have done a good deal of experimentation in the last year with cast loads for his 9mm sub-guns. I would like to work up a steel plate load for my GLOCK 34 using Hornady's 140-grain lead "cowboy" load (.358" diameter, but I'm swaging them down to .356"). I prefer Hodgdon's HP38 powder for these loads, but would consider Winchester's AutoComp. I'm sure Duke has data for this type load in that weathered spiral notebook of his. Think you can get him to cough it up?

Again my compliments, and thanks for the excellence you provide in your magazine!

John Mark Vaughn, Coroner

Oneonta, AL

From Duke: I actually don't have any information I can pass on about Hornady's swaged lead bullets for 9mm. I've not had any luck at all with softer bullets in autoloaders. Personally, I use those very hard Oregon Trail. 356" roundnoses of 124 grains for my 9mm pistols and submachine guns and they, work very well. I use a charge of 4.3 grains of either HP38 or W231 (same powders, different labels) for all of them. I've also shot Oregon Trail's .356" 147 grain roundnose in .38 Super with good results, I've never so much as fired a Glock 9mm of any, variation so I really can't comment on them. They say not to use cast or lead alloy bullets in their regular pistols, but I'm not sure what they say about the M34. I think if you use a hard bullet you have most of the battle won already. Duke