New Twist on the 36 Cal 70 gr round balls

[Tom]

A 5 year old grandson from VA is visiting on Thursday and he has never
shot either rifle or pistol so I have an opportunity coming my way.

Both his mom and dad have their own SIG's (P230&P225) and we all did
shoot together in NC before we (me and the wife) headed west, and they
(daughter and hubby) headed north. But the "boy" has not had the
chance, yet.

I have .22's of several varieties waiting but I also want to have him at
least handle something a bit bigger. You know, take a picture of him
with my P226 ripping off a few rounds to show his teachers back home.

Most 9mm loads would no doubt leave an impression on him, and it would
most probably be on his forehead where the hammer would contact the
noggin. Not what I have in mind. So I have started loading some of my
36 cal round lead balls in 9mm cases to see what would happen. And
the happening turned out pretty well actually.

The final load, after a few trial and error attempts, uses 4.0 grs of Unique.
I put a wide bell on the case and then seat the balls with a brass
hammer to just about half way in. Then I used a real heavy crimp to
keep them from moving around.

The result is a no recoil, clean feeding from the magazine, somewhat
straight shooting round (if you aren't real concernced about accuracy
beyond 25ft), that turns my 9mm semi's into single shot pistols that
anyone can fire.

These rounds will NOT cycle the slide. In fact I watched very carefully
to see if I noticed any movement in the slide upon firing and saw none.
The leading in the barrel was minimal and took one or two runs with a
nylon brush to clear out.

They look pretty odd as they are all seated to a different depth due to my
not having a lot of control over the brass spreading when I start in with the
hammer. It only takes a couple of taps to move the ball well into the
case. And it does shave a little lead at times. But they stay put while in
the mag waiting their turn to be hand cycled into the chamber.

I also use these same rounds in my S&W 940 using moon clips and will
have the "boy" try that out as well. The trigger is a bit stiffer than on the
SIG (SA of course) so he may have some trouble with that aspect of the
revolver.

Speaking of the revolver, I have noticed that 38S&W brass is very similar
to 9mm, just a little bit longer. I have been toying with getting some of
it to use for these really light loads and taking advantage of the case rim
to eliminate the moon clips in the 940. I would trim the brass of course
to 9mm lengths.

Ideally, I would use 9mm Federal brass but haven't for the simple reason
that I cannot find any. It too is rimmed and would not only solve the
moon clip problem but would allow me to load regular rounds at higher
pressures.
If any of you know where I might find some of that I would certainly
appreciate it.

OK, that is it for now. Back to the loading bench.

Best Regards,

Tom