Anyone having trouble with reloads in XDM9?

[Hazcat]

Bunker,

Sounds like you 'been there, done that'.  Good advise.

Welcome to DRTV!  We have a 'New Member Into" thread that you can tell us about yourself in (yes there has been 'thread drift' in it but that is the 'norm' here )

[azshooter270]

I've had the lead/crimp problem you've described, but for some time I have been seating and crimping in two separate operations.  I haven't had the problem since.  btw, I would say the failure to go into battery is more like 1/4".
Thanks

[bunkeru2k]

I also seat/crimp in two seperate steps. I taper the crap out of my brass as compared to how they set it up at Lee. What crimp die are you using? If it is not the factory crimp die, then I would switch. As someone said earlier, you can take the barrel out to see how well they headspace. I would try that factory crimp die and I bet they start seating much better.

And yea.....I have been there and was going nuts trying to figure out what was going on. The tighter the barrel specs, the worse the problem. I had a taurus 1911 that ate everything I threw at it and my Kimber refused. Took me some doing to discover the little issues.

[azshooter270]

I have used the rcbs taper crimp die.  I just got the Lee die and haven't loaded yet with it.  Definitely gonna try it.

[azshooter270]

Finally got to reloading this weekend to follow some advice...
1. I bought the Lee die and the Dillon case gage.
2. Belled the cases and most cases would still fit into the case gage all the way.  This was a little surprising as I thought the bell would prevent all of them from going into the gage.  Some took light finger pressure and ranged up to moderate finger pressure to get to fit in all the way.
3. Then seated cast bullets, jacketed bullets, and "plated" bullets.  These mostly fit/dropped into gage.  Some would not, and even as far as the rim still sticking outside the gage so that I could put fingernail under rim to retract the case from the gage. 
4. Lastly, used Lee "factory crimp die" to crimp/size finished cases.  These almost all fit into the gage all the way.  Some were still barely sticking out of gage maybe .020". 

Now I can get out and shoot these and see if I have any more failures to go into battery.  I'll post when I shoot them.

By the way, using my range "pickup" brass, I did have some that had a ferocious ring around base, maybe 90 degree arc and .100" forward of rim channel.  I've heard people describe this as a "Glock" ring because the case isn't fully supported by Glock chamber?  Anyway, no sizing would fix this, so they were throwaways.

[Sponsor]

[PegLeg45]

Good luck, AZ....and yes, please do let us know how it went when you shoot the reloads.

[azshooter270]

My wife and I went out this a.m. and shot up the loads I referenced above.
1. 100 9mm 125g LRN hardcast
2. 100 9mm 115g "enclosed" Hornady FMJ
3. 100 9mm 115g "plated" Berry's bullets

All had been reloaded per the above process.  Not one failure to feed or failure to go into battery!  My wife shot all jacketed/plated and I shot the cast bullets.  I did have most where the slide failed to lock back on last round.  I'll chalk this up to very light loads.  Maybe I'll add .1-.2 grains of powder and see if that solves the problem. 

I think the Lee factory crimp die may be the trick here.  I'm also thinking maybe I was crimping too heavy with the standard taper crimp die and distorting the cases.  Dunno, but since I have the Lee die I'll just use that from now on.

By the way, I "chased" my lead loads with a magazine of the plated bullets, and the barrel is very clean.  Not as clean as the wife's but pretty clean.  Very little leading.  I've seen warnings of this but since I'd only shot 100 rounds, it didn't seem as though the leading could've been too bad.  Also shot 40 rounds of Win factory self defense loads and of course these shot great.  They are +P, but I can't say they seemed all that stout.  I guess the XDM handles +P pretty well. 

Since my wife and I bought identical XDM9's at the same time, I think I'm gonna run an experiment where I shoot cast almost exclusively and she'll shoot jacketed/plated exclusively and we'll see what long term effects I can notice on barrel.

[TAB]

be very carful "casing" lead with either played or jacketed ammo.   Its best not to do it, but if your going to do it, keep your loads VERY MILD.

[bunkeru2k]

My wife and I went out this a.m. and shot up the loads I referenced above.
1. 100 9mm 125g LRN hardcast
2. 100 9mm 115g "enclosed" Hornady FMJ
3. 100 9mm 115g "plated" Berry's bullets

All had been reloaded per the above process.  Not one failure to feed or failure to go into battery!  My wife shot all jacketed/plated and I shot the cast bullets.  I did have most where the slide failed to lock back on last round.  I'll chalk this up to very light loads.  Maybe I'll add .1-.2 grains of powder and see if that solves the problem. 

I think the Lee factory crimp die may be the trick here.  I'm also thinking maybe I was crimping too heavy with the standard taper crimp die and distorting the cases.  Dunno, but since I have the Lee die I'll just use that from now on.

By the way, I "chased" my lead loads with a magazine of the plated bullets, and the barrel is very clean.  Not as clean as the wife's but pretty clean.  Very little leading.  I've seen warnings of this but since I'd only shot 100 rounds, it didn't seem as though the leading could've been too bad.  Also shot 40 rounds of Win factory self defense loads and of course these shot great.  They are +P, but I can't say they seemed all that stout.  I guess the XDM handles +P pretty well. 

Since my wife and I bought identical XDM9's at the same time, I think I'm gonna run an experiment where I shoot cast almost exclusively and she'll shoot jacketed/plated exclusively and we'll see what long term effects I can notice on barrel.

Most of the issues with slide lock that you described are not due to your loads....so do not change your powder charge for those. If you want to change something, change the magazine followers or magazine itself. That just screams to me that the follower is not engaging the slide stop.

[tombogan03884]

Most of the issues with slide lock that you described are not due to your loads....so do not change your powder charge for those. If you want to change something, change the magazine followers or magazine itself. That just screams to me that the follower is not engaging the slide stop.

I'd try upping the charge first as a couple friends of mine who had the same problem solved it that way, one went 1/2 a grain, don't know how much the other guy went.