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After a discussion the other day with an ex pistol shooter where he said he used to have a revolver with 2 cylinders 1 for 9mm and the other for 38 special/357 I wonder if you can use 38 special bullet heads when reloading for 9mm? I ask as I have around 900 copper plated fmj 38 special heads brought for doing 357 mag reloads but don't really have the call to make magnum loads.

See picture below

Specs are L to R

38 special 158gr hard cast .358" 9.09mm
38 special 125gr fmj flat nose .3575" 9.08mm
9mm 125gr hard cast .3555" 9.03mm



So can the fmj's be used ?

If my memory serves me correctly, one of the Ruger Blackhawk revolvers had such a combination of two cylinders and thus three calibres, i.e. .357 Mag/.38 Special & 9mm Parabellum.

I would say no but depends on your chamber and barrel and type of rifle.

140 grain 38 hard cast just would not work in my LRR had to set them so deep so they did not cycle properly. I did carbide size with factory crimp but the few drill rounds I made were a non starter.

TW

The nominal dia of a 9mm bullet is .356", the 38special is usually .358". However, Colt revolvers, including the Python, had a groove diameter of .356". As a result, we routinely used the same 125grn bullets in both calibres without problems. The 9mm round is a relatively high pressure one and bullets heavier than 125grn should not be used.
Fred

toffe wrapper wrote:I would say no but depends on your chamber and barrel and type of rifle.

140 grain 38 hard cast just would not work in my LRR had to set them so deep so they did not cycle properly. I did carbide size with factory crimp but the few drill rounds I made were a non starter.

TW

Potentially a 9mm lever release.

Upto now I've only done the 125gr hard cast round nose 9mm loads as in the finished round in the picture, so more of a feasibility question otherwise I will just sell the fmj's and buy more 9mm

Lots of record long distance work was done using 357 bullets in the 9mm by Gilly Howe.

100%Bollox to 125gr as max. weight too...used to use 147gr in my P38

If in doubt look in some reloading manuals and do some digging in old shooting publication articles

I don't see why the cast boolits cannot be used providing they don't open the case when being seated to the point they won't chamber.
I wouldn't fancy trying the jacketed bullets though.

I'm with Rog. Cast .358 in a 9mmP not an issue, I would be wary of jacketed/plated.

Likewise with Maccem, rubbish that 125gn is heaviest for 9mm. 147gn was the weight touted for the best service cartridge in 9mm and some IPSC shooters in the US are loading 9mm with 180gn bullets as loads with such make the required power factor easily.

used to use 147g in my glock , even managed to use 158g(.358) lswc but they were unreliable and didn't always go fully into battery but my goodness they were accurate !

now you've got me thinking about the good old days and I'm sad because our idiot government chopped up a .455 webley I had and that little piece of history made it through the wars but didn't make it past some spineless lickspittle law makers ,