Urgent question: will 9mmPara ball ammo work in a tube mag?

[jimmarch]

Folks,

I am hoping some experienced levergunners can help me. I am wondering if 9mm ball ammo is to "pointy" to be safely used in a tube magazine.

I have succeeded in building a magazine-fed revolver out of a Ruger NewVaq. It uses tube mags of either 2rd (short, to top off five in a cylinder for belt carry) or 9rd (a foot long for reloads). But I've been feeding it cheap JHPs so far as those ball rounds look a bit too "pointy" for safety.

Does anybody with more levergun experience have an opinion on this? Am I worrying for nothing?

Pics and descriptions of "Maurice the FrankenRuger" are here:

singleactions.proboards.com/thread/11573/perfect-packing-pistol-preferenc-haves?page=4

Yes, I can stack a 9rd mag on the five in the cylinder and get off 14 rounds with no reload. It works by injecting rounds into the cylinder from the rear just left of the hammer, and then the firing chamber has it's gas pressure tapped at the muzzle to auto-eject shells just right of the hammer (shooter's POV) through a loading gate that has the upper half on a hinge, lowered automatically on firing shot one to allow auto-shell-ejection on shot two (shell one) and subsequent.

[magnumwheelman]

well... a tube fed magazine rifle, wouldn't be exposed to as much recoil, as your frankin revolver... but your revolver is going to transfer a lot more energy upwards, than a rifle would ( which would reduce the chain fire effect ) also the 9mm uses small primers, "most" tube fed rifles use large primers...

I don't consider myself an expert... but I think you'd be OK

[Deleted]

If the tip of the bullet is smaller than the diameter of a small primer, I'd have to say no, don't do it. The revolver is much lighter than a rifle, and recoil will be more pronounced. I see a real possibility of a potential discharge.

[jimmarch]

The two middle rounds in this pic are the type that concern me:



If you look at the example of the .30 Pederson in this image, that's the kind of "point" I'm dealing with in a lot of these 9mm cheap ball rounds:



It's not THAT "pointy" but there's a bit of a "tip".

I think it's "probably OK" but I was hoping some people with more stick-time and learnin' on leverguns might chime in.

Oh...as to the recoil level, remember, it's a very heavy gun by 9mmPara standards. Started life as a 357Mag and has been "throttled back" from there. In 9mm standard pressure it's a pussycat. I do load heavy +P for carry (and I think it can handle an unlimited diet of +P+ given that the Bowen cylinder can handle 41Mag as a sixgun...).

[Paden]

Ref: "probably OK".

Suffice to say I wouldn't want to stand next to you while you shoot it.

[jimmarch]

Well I *have* run 40 rounds of ball of this sort through it, but got to thinking and switched to low-end JHPs.

One interesting point: because the rounds are rimless, the tube is a pretty close fit to the shells and the rounds are lined up mostly straight fore-to-aft. Moreso than, say, 357 rounds would be. Now, for JHPs and flat-nose that's great. For these "kinda pointy ball rounds" not so much.

[tek4260]

I guess since they are rimless, spiraling the tube like the old Remington pumps wouldn't help

[tek4260]

On second thought, the rounds for the Remington 14/141 were rimless, so check into that design Jim.

[jimmarch]

Well I've been considering a really serious "ram horn coil" mag with roughly 20+ round capacity? Is that what we're talking about?

[tek4260]

No the Remington mag had ridges pressed into the tube, much like rifling in a barrel. This let the cartridges sit offset in the tube preventing the nose of one from being on the primer of the round ahead of it. They sat sort of like this, /\/\/\/\/\, but to much less of a degree of offset. Google the Remington 14 and look at the pictures of the mag tube to get an idea.

[tek4260]

Of course there are tons of folks that shoot Marlins in 35 Remington and use the 150 PSP's with no issues. The point is "sharper" than your 9mm and the recoil is greater. FWIW of course.

[subsonic]

If it looks like a bad idea, it probably is.

With that said, I can think of several ways to quickly flatten those noses....

[jimmarch]

Well for my next trick I intend to get ahold of some of Penn Bullet's 100gr full wadcutters sized .356 and load them at least a bit shorter than a normal 9mm, in an attempt to get 10 rounds into each of the long mags. That would really help in Steel Challenge revolver class - I could start loaded 15-up, swap to a 10rd mag and have 25 on tap with just one reload. Mag-fed revolvers aren't (yet) banned in Steel Challenge because hey, who's got one of those? But I don't know if I can make a power factor of 120...1200fps with a 100gr slug sounds doable except I won't have a lot of case capacity to work with...I'd be up into +P territory for sure . But the safety factor would be no problem at all with flat-nose, and "Maurice" will feed empty 9mm shells all day long...this design doesn't care about OAL in the slightest. (Shell length for headspacing matters of course!)

I could also do a whole SASS stage with one gun, one reload while everybody laughed their butts off. SASS has been joking around about a "Steampunk Unlimited" class for years.

[curmudgeon]

With all the pro's and cons why chance it??? We have all heard those stories about, " I did it for years" and besides even if you don't place any value on your own well being, think about someone standing beside you. It only has to happen ONCE. Food for the anti gunners.