9mm Reload Question

wittyusername

I recently got some 9mm ammo from a friend that he had stashed in his house for a while. It includes some reloads that he can't remember who loaded them. One box has "Hot Loads, 9.0 Gr Blue Dot" written on it. The bullets are 115 grain HP. Can someone tell me how hot these loads are??? I don't want to shoot something unsafe in my pistol.

rg666

9 grains is about a half grain too much with a 115 grain bullet. I would toss them in the trash. You could get hurt. RG

Blanchee

The Hornady Handbook shows the max load for 115 grain using Bluedot to be 8.9 grains. Your gun might go 9.0 or more, but it should be worked up to that much looking for pressure signs. There are a lot of factors in excessive pressure, too many to list here. A good rule of thumb is: ammo is cheap, guns are expensive, and body parts can be irreplaceable, but it's your call.

jonk

If you have a modern gun that can handle +P or better yet, +P+, I would bet that it would be safe. Still, don't pitch it. Someone out there would like it for components at least.

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"...hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil his prisoners in oil- if you take any- and torture his women and children. Then people will keep clear of you..." -Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, speaking at the Hague Peace Conference in 1899.

ericthered

I have a bunch of manuals in order to get a cross section of data. My Speer Manual #9 says that for a 100 gr bullet the high end is 9.8 and for a 125 gr bullet the high end is 8.4. That would put a 115 grain in the middle of that somewhere.My Hornady calls 8.9 the high end for that bullet.My Speer # 13 says 8.5.My Sierra says 8.1Therefore my conclusion is that you probably can shoot it out of a GOOD quality 9mm but it is definitely on the high end. I don't think I would use it just because I don't need ammo that hot. If you really want to research it, look at the velocities of hot factory ammo and the velocities of manual ratings for the powder to bullet ratio. See if the factory is unafraid to load hotter than the manuals like to go. But again, I generally find that a load that is about 80 to 90 per cent of the way to the hottest load is plenty for harming live things in a big way. And is certainly not a practice load. All any bullet needs to do for practice is 900 to 950 fps to get a nice group. Thats where all my practice loads end up. That functions the weapon fine and does everything I need.Hope that helpsEric