9 mm reloading oddysey - NEED HELP!

[fenderstrat]

Hi guys, I've been reloading rifle cartridges for a few years, never had any real issues. I finally started to reload 9mm for my Colt government 1911 in 9mm. So I got some Hawksbury river bullets, 9mm, 115 gn round nose. I used a single stage Hornady press and the Lee carbide 4 die set. When I sized the cases, I removed the barrel off the pistol and used it basically as a gauge. The newly sized cases fitted fine, and would drop out of the barrel when I tipped it upside down. I then primed, powdered, seated the bullets, then used the factory crimp die (following the instructions that came with the dies). The cases seemed a little bulged, and when I tried dropping some completed rounds into my barrel, they seemed to barely chamber, and would not fall off when I tipped the barrel upside down (factory rounds did). I wasn't too sure on what to do then, and I wasn't keen on trying to chamber live ammo at home, so I just waited until I could go to the range to test out my loads.
When I went to the range, I wasn't sure if the pistol was chambering properly. When I tried to extract the rounds, it took quite a bit of force to get the slide back. I did not try to fire off any rounds, just to be safe.
Went back home, and did some measuring. The Hawksbury bullets measured .356.5". I thought that the Hawsbury bullets might be a little bit too big, so I ran them through a lee bullet sizing die, and they came out measuring .356. I did some dummy rounds with empty cases and the new resized bullets, but they still would not chamber. I pulled factory round (geco 124 gn FMJ) and that measured .354.5". Made a dummy round with that and that chambered fine.
Finally I made another Hawsbury dummy round and covered it with marker, put it in the chamber, then moved it around a bit using pliers. I could see a shiny ring where the marker got rubbed off on the bullet, just above the case mouth. Is my COAL wrong? (set at 1.110" right now) Should I seat the bullet deeper? Am I using the wrong bullet? Did I do anything else wrong? Any help will be appreciated.
Cheers

[wanneroo]

I load a lot of 9mm with a lot of different types of bullets and powder, thousands a year.

A couple of things here I see:

1. 9mm is not a straight walled case, it's a tapered case, so a completed coke bottle type shape is not uncommon.

2. Spend the $30 and get yourself a 9mm case gauge. I shoot a lot of different 9mm pistols so I expect all my ammo to fit in all of them. Case gauges are cut to SAAMI spec, so that gives you another data point to go off of. If your completed round doesn't fit in a case gauge then that tells you something right there. If it fits in your case gauge but doesn't fit your pistol barrel that tells you it's more an issue with the barrel/chamber rather than the round itself.

3. I find some variance in 9mm barrels. Duty pistols like Glocks seem loose and very tolerant of variances in dimensions of ammunition, while pistols oriented towards competition use seem a bit tighter in spec. My 5 inch Walther PPQ does not like 9mm ammo with a longer OAL for instance. I hear this about CZ 75 and 1911 based 9mm pistols too.

4. I find with the 9mm factory crimp die from Lee that you need to tighten it down a touch more than the instructions say. How about you take that crimp die and tighten it down another half a turn on some of that completed ammo and see if it will fit then?

5. COAL seems fine. I've loaded anywhere from 1.10 to 1.14 depending on the bullet. That is something you can adjust if you want.

[No1Mk3]

G'day fenderstrat,
I would agree mostly with wanneroo, but would seat the pills another .015 to .020, tighten the crimp another 1/4 turn, try for fit, then another 1/4 if needed. I load HRBC 125g SWC in 9mm and to avoid the shoulder of the pill hitting the rifling in my Colt 1911 have to set COL at 26.7mm (1.04") When I loaded 115g RN I set COL at 28.2 and crimped in the factory crimp die fairly tight to have no feed issues at all. Getting a case gauge is a good idea if you have several handguns, but not really necessary, I know the Colt is the tightest chamber and if my ammo fits that it will fit the other 9's also. From your range description I would be fairly confidant your pills are jamming in the rifling so setting back should help a lot, Cheers.

[Blr243]

Been many yrs since I loaded 9 mm. I remember crimping caused me chaos weather rifle or pistol so I just gave it way altogether ..., if u can’t resolve by what others have said maybe try seating them without crimping to isolate whether or not the crimping is causing a problem....that’s al I can think off atm

[fenderstrat]

Just to update, I emailed Hawksbury River and I got a call the next day. With their help I managed to find the problem, the the throat on my pistol is pretty tight, so I ended up seating the bullet a bit deeper (about 1.065"). Now it chambers properly. The guy from Hawskbury also took the time to help me figure out if I would have any overpressure issues (I shouldn't). So I'm pretty happy now.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!