Not a fan of The blue Bullet

Lager

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At the advise of more then a few people, I tried the Blue bullet in 125 gr 9 mm for my new Citadel 1911. After about 175 rounds I noticed the slide would not go forward enough and literally get stuck. With much pounding I was finally able to get it free and found that there was a lot of debris in the chamber preventing the cartridge from dropping all the way in.It took a lot of scrubbing to get the chamber clean and I tried the Blue ones again. Sure enough, just today 175 rounds later the slide is not going forward enough again. My shooting partner, who uses Berrys plated bullets tried one of his in my fouled chamber and it dropped straight in. Luckily my shooting partner, is a guy that travels with everything you might need ? He had a bore cleaning bush and some solvent and I was able to clean the barrel and were able to continue our drills.
I shouldn't have to do this. My partner has the same gun and doesn't have this problem. Has anyone else noticed this? I find it hard to believe that this blue bullet company could have gotten this large and popular if their coating creates this problem. Suggestions?
As an afterthought, when I first bought the gun I fired about 250 rounds of factory ammo in one sitting with no troubles as I waited for my 9 mm dies to get here from Dillion.
 
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At the advise of more then a few people, I tried the Blue bullet in 124 gr 9 mm for my new Citadel 1911. After about 175 rounds I noticed the slide would not go forward enough and literally get stuck. With much pounding I was finally able to get it free and found that there was a lot of debris in the chamber preventing the cartridge from dropping all the way in.It took a lot of scrubbing to get the chamber clean and I tried the Blue ones again. Sure enough, just today 175 rounds later the slide is not going forward enough again. My shooting partner, who uses Berrys plated bullets tried one of his in my fouled chamber and it dropped straight in. Luckily my shooting partner, is a guy that travels with everything you might need ? He had a bore cleaning bush and some solvent and I was able to clean the barrel and were able to continue our drills.
I shouldn't have to do this. My partner has the same gun and doesn't have this problem. Has anyone else noticed this? I find it hard to believe that this blue bullet company could have gotten this large and popular if their coating creates this problem. Suggestions?

I’ve shot them in three different calibers with no issues.

What is your COL? Have you tried different lengths?


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Whats your powder and load?
As far as the load data, I went with my friend has been doing for years with his 9mm since Im new to the 9. I reloaded more then a few hundred thou for my 45 ACP but all I used were plain hard cast and never had this trouble..
Load data is
4.2 of HP-38 Hodgdon
OAL is 1.142
Thanks for asking
 
I’ve shot them in three different calibers with no issues.

What is your COL? Have you tried different lengths?


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My OAL is 1.142 which is in spec. It feeds like butter when the barrel is really clean. I shouldn't have to play around with different lengths to see if I might make something work when there are different options out there. I just tried the coated bullets because a lot of people like them. I wanted to believe so much, I bought 2400 rounds. Think Im just going to stick my plain hardcast like I use in my 45 or maybe the Berrys.
 
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I shouldn't have to play around with different lengths to see if I might make something work when there are different options out there.
o_O

Maybe I'm reading too much into this sentence. Reloading and using different or new components will generally always take some tweaking. That's half the fun.

If you dont want to turn your seating die an eighth of a turn to fix what might be the issue and would rather just use what you know already "works" so be it. There's always factory ammo too...
 
Might be worth trying to seat them a little deeper and be sure your crimp is good. CZ handguns may need to have the bullet seated slightly deeper than normal due to where the rifling starts in the barrel. I would try to seat them at 1.11o or so before I gave up. If that charge is at or near maximum, reduce the charge slightly, say about .2 grains or so, but I don't think it would be necessary.
 
Have you tried any other coated bullets? I have never used Blue if I remember correctly, but have used plenty of coated in 45 Auto, 9mm Luger, 380, 44 Mag, 45 Colt, 40 S&W, 357 Mag, and 32/20 with no problems similar to your problem. I do wonder whether it is the Blue that are the problem or coated bullets in general. If you have tried other coated bullets with no problems, then switch brands. If you have not tried others, it might be worthwhile to tinker a bit with the Blue to see if you can get them to work as desired.

You might want to look at your crimp. The coated bullets can have the coating damaged by excessive crimping. This could lead to buildup that might hinder chambering. Perhaps you should try applying just enough taper crimp so that they barely plunk to see what happens.
 
What they said above.

I can tell you right now, you either have a tight chamber, you are loading them too long or your crimp is all fudged-up.

As far as a crimp, coated bullets should have almost no crimp at all. Pull a loaded round and if you can see a crimp line around the projectile, then you have too much crimp.

Bullet profile and a plunk test will determine what is the correct length for your specific barrel. Bullet profiles vary wildly between manufacturers.

Based on what you wrote and absent a plunk test, load them to 1.125 and see what you get.


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I would take one that you haven’t loaded and beat the snot out of it with a hammer. If the blue doesn’t peel off, the problem is in the gun.
 
I had issues with coated bullets until I loaded them deeper as others mentioned. My glock would run fine with them, but my Canik - with a very tight chamber- would not, so I had to make bullets just for her gun. My COAL for her gun was 1.100

I've just bypassed the issue now and buy from RMR. Their jacketed bullet prices are about the same as I've been getting coated, so that's where I am now.
 
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What they said above.

I can tell you right now, you either have a tight chamber, you are loading them too long or your crimp is all fudged-up.

As far as a crimp, coated bullets should have almost no crimp at all. Pull a loaded round and if you can see a crimp line around the projectile, then you have too much crimp.

Bullet profile and a plunk test will determine what is the correct length for your specific barrel. Bullet profiles vary wildly between manufacturers.

Based on what you wrote and absent a plunk test, load them to 1.125 and see what you get.


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I pulled a head,like you suggested and found a pronounced crimp line. It didn't pull any of the coating off during the process but will do as you suggested and back off the crimp die just a tad. Then reduce my OAL to 1.125 and do another test. I would rather make these heads work for me then ditching them and buying another brand or style of heads. I still think it sucks that I have to go thru this to use up what stock Ive already bought in the attempt that your suggestions might actually work. I thank you for advise.
 
My first foray into coated bullets was Blues. I was intent on running them til the gun stopped or bore noticeably fouled before cleaning.

I got to like 2k and couldn't take the filth in the frame of the gun, bore shined, crown was blue, G17 just kept running.

I've used them many times since. Not sure what is going on with yours, maybe crimp. Doubt it's the coating.
 
I've been running 115 grain blues in both my G-19 & 48 exclusively for a little bit now. I have a S3F barrel in the 19, and stock in the 48. I load with a 3 hole Lee Pro 100, and load to 1.10 oal, and have not had one issue at all. Love these things.

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I pulled a head,like you suggested and found a pronounced crimp line. It didn't pull any of the coating off during the process but will do as you suggested and back off the crimp die just a tad. Then reduce my OAL to 1.125 and do another test. I would rather make these heads work for me then ditching them and buying another brand or style of heads. I still think it sucks that I have to go thru this to use up what stock Ive already bought in the attempt that your suggestions might actually work. I thank you for advise.

If you decide they just don’t work for you, I’m sure you could always sell them to other folks for little to no loss as evidenced by some of the posts here. I still shoot them but not as much as I used too.

Precision Delta makes a great FMJ & HP 9mm bullet that isn’t too expensive if you buy in bulk.

Good luck too you.


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I shouldn't have to play around with different lengths to see if I might make something work when there are different options out there.
I really wish this were the case, and it seems like it should be until you really dig into the finer details. I've always loaded RMR plated but then they lost their source and switched to in-house FMJ. I was having minor issues with the FMJ and found that others who made the same switch were experiencing the same. I had to tweak my load a little bit, not a big deal but was a PITA until I figured it out.

I don't load for fun, in fact I don't really enjoy it. I reload out of necessity, for flexibility, and for cost savings... and just in case the market goes crazy again.
 
At the advise of more then a few people, I tried the Blue bullet in 125 gr 9 mm for my new Citadel 1911. After about 175 rounds I noticed the slide would not go forward enough and literally get stuck. With much pounding I was finally able to get it free and found that there was a lot of debris in the chamber preventing the cartridge from dropping all the way in.It took a lot of scrubbing to get the chamber clean and I tried the Blue ones again. Sure enough, just today 175 rounds later the slide is not going forward enough again. My shooting partner, who uses Berrys plated bullets tried one of his in my fouled chamber and it dropped straight in. Luckily my shooting partner, is a guy that travels with everything you might need ? He had a bore cleaning bush and some solvent and I was able to clean the barrel and were able to continue our drills.
I shouldn't have to do this. My partner has the same gun and doesn't have this problem. Has anyone else noticed this? I find it hard to believe that this blue bullet company could have gotten this large and popular if their coating creates this problem. Suggestions?
As an afterthought, when I first bought the gun I fired about 250 rounds of factory ammo in one sitting with no troubles as I waited for my 9 mm dies to get here from Dillion.
I loaded about a thousand moly coated bullets that worked fine in my glock. But if I try to shoot them in my CZ they did the same thing as you described even when the gun is clean. When I compared the ogive of of the moly coated bullets to The Copper plated or jacketed bullets there was quite a difference. The ogive is the profile or curvature of the nose of the bullet. Your blue bullets maybe contacting the rifling and thereby keeping the bullet from going all the way into the chamber. The plunk test should tell you this. If I load a jacketed bullet and a moly coated Bullet to the same oal the jacketed bullet will pass the plunk test and the Molly bullet will not. Powder residue and lead fouling certainly could be the problem as well as a tight chamber. Sometimes there's more than one fly in the ointment.
 
I loaded about a thousand moly coated bullets that worked fine in my glock. But if I try to shoot them in my CZ they did the same thing as you described even when the gun is clean. When I compared the ogive of of the moly coated bullets to The Copper plated or jacketed bullets there was quite a difference. The ogive is the profile or curvature of the nose of the bullet. Your blue bullets maybe contacting the rifling and thereby keeping the bullet from going all the way into the chamber. The plunk test should tell you this. If I load a jacketed bullet and a moly coated Bullet to the same oal the jacketed bullet will pass the plunk test and the Molly bullet will not. Powder residue and lead fouling certainly could be the problem as well as a tight chamber. Sometimes there's more than one fly in the ointment.
Ahhh Bahamadon,, you the gent that fixes my Square deal. Good to hear from you..
To answer your statement,, When my bore is clean,, every cartridge passes the plunk test . After 125 rounds, the gun starts to have a No fire, the hammer falls but no joy. A whack with my hand on the back of the slide and a hammer reset will send the round off. but that only happens maybe once 2 mags. By round 175, its toast, the slide is stuck back a good 1/8 inch and needs to be pounded free,. Disassemble gun, plunk test with the blue bullets has it sticking up at least 1/4 inch. But a factory or a berry plated round with still pass the plunk test.
 
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I really wish this were the case, and it seems like it should be until you really dig into the finer details. I've always loaded RMR plated but then they lost their source and switched to in-house FMJ. I was having minor issues with the FMJ and found that others who made the same switch were experiencing the same. I had to tweak my load a little bit, not a big deal but was a PITA until I figured it out.

I don't load for fun, in fact I don't really enjoy it. I reload out of necessity, for flexibility, and for cost savings... and just in case the market goes crazy again.
Im with you brother, I don't load for fun either. Doing this for the past 30 years, all the fun ran out long ago. I do it for all your reasons too. That's why this problem is annoying to me..
 
Berry and plated, shorter o.a.l, especially when measured from the bullets ogive.
Yep, agree completely. Its gotta be that blue coating shedding itself and stinking up the chamber. My initial run of 250 factory with no issues has me convinced that,with this gun I just need to use plated or factory ammo. Im ok with that, might cost me a lil bit more but worth it since I don't have to wait till the gun starts locking up again.
Appreciate everyone responses and comments,Great forum..
 
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