Reloading for the Kel-tec sub 2000

[Aftrshck]

I have two customers that have these and tried running lead through them....they do not like them much....had tons of troubles...either bad feeding issues or just plain accuracy....but the lead seems to foul up the barrels alot faster then I have seen otherwise....I would recommend staying with copper jacketed 9mm....just my .02


~Aftrshck

[Pinnacle]

if it is a gas piston or a gas operated gun YOU MUST USE JACKETED BULLETS.

[cobb]

Rainers are not intended for that high a velocity. They will copper up your gun at the least and come apart at the most.

I know they are not intended for high velocities, but never heard about them coming apart at all. I know they will copper up your rifling for sure, but not as bad as plain cast would lead them. As far as accuracy, they suck in the couple of .45's that I have shot them in, but could not use cast at a couple indoor matches that I shot, so on short notice they were all I had to use.

I am not familiar with the Kel-tec barrel in comparison to the Glock or Kahr.

Does anyone know about shooting the plated bullets like the Rainer in a Glock or Kahr with the polygonal rifling?

[Molasses]

I'm going with what the manual (ARTM!) says, which is that the longer barrel length essentially gives one .357 mag. pistol velocities from 9mm loadings. Is that simplistic and likely to have a gazillion exceptions and other holes in it? Heck yes. Maybe it'd be a good idea to contact the bullet mfg and see what THEY say about both the velocity and the fact that the bullets are gonna be running down a lot longer bore, with more surface to rub the plating off than out of a pistol and see what they say? My experience with plated bullets out of carbine length barrels (back in the late '80s out of a B-92 in .44 mag using .44 Spec. load data) was that the fouling was pretty bad, but I was using the cheapest bullets I could lay my hands on, so YMMV.

On another note:

Loading a 9mm bullet into a rifle case?....That's a .380 caliber weapon. Would be a .375 H&H mag or something similar.

Uhhh, you're confusing cartridge nomenclature with actual bullet size; .380 falls into that whole misleading mess of ".38 cartridges" that aren't. .380 ACP/9mm Kurz and 9mm Parabellum bullets usually measure in the neighborhood of .355". In other words, somewhat undersized for most .35 caliber (.358") rifles.

[cobb]

On another note:

Loading a 9mm bullet into a rifle case?....That's a .380 caliber weapon. Would be a .375 H&H mag or something similar.

Uhhh, you're confusing cartridge nomenclature with actual bullet size; .380 falls into that whole misleading mess of ".38 cartridges" that aren't. .380 ACP/9mm Kurz and 9mm Parabellum bullets usually measure in the neighborhood of .355". In other words, somewhat undersized for most .35 caliber (.358") rifles.

Where did you get that quote, I didn't see it.

But some do load the .357 pistol bullet in a .35 Remington rifle cartridge. There may be others also, but you can push the .357 bullet out of a .35 Remington or even bigger cartridges like the .358 Winchester or .35 Whelen a lot faster than that bullet can take, especially a cast or plated bullet, let alone a jacketed one..

[MNBud]

Well to clear this up,I went to Bills south yesterday and fired over 130 rounds and no bulged barrels, not backed out primers,no rounds bulged that wouldn't extract and no copper build up in the barrel. Just pure fun and the Rainier bullets were absolutely dead nuts on.It did take a little bit of tinkering to get the front sight lined up. The vertical adjustment is done by sliding the blade and it is simply a feel thing, no ratchet or clicks. The worst part of the day was shooting with only ear plugs as there is no way you can see the sights if you are wearing muffs.It is almost unbearably loud in there on a Sunday as every lane was being used.

[Molasses]

Glad to see the Rainiers worked out in the Kel-tec, although sorry to hear (no pun intended) about the noise involved w. shooting it at a busy indoor range with only plugs. Looks like you're farther down the road to make having fun with that little beast go easier on the budget! Sorry about the thread hijacking in the rest of this...

Where did you get that quote, I didn't see it.

But some do load the .357 pistol bullet in a .35 Remington rifle cartridge. There may be others also, but you can push the .357 bullet out of a .35 Remington or even bigger cartridges like the .358 Winchester or .35 Whelen a lot faster than that bullet can take, especially a cast or plated bullet, let alone a jacketed one..

Hey Cobb, it was way back on the first page of the thread. Just making the point that .380/9mm bullets would be more than a bit "off" .375 bore size. I've played with .357" stuff in .35 WCF, .350 Rem mag and such with reduced loads (trying to work down to a load for grouse and squirrels with suicidal tendencies that like to come up to within feet of one during big game seasons). Mostly tried 158 gr. cast SWC with a gas check, run through a .358" lubrisizer die, just to try and get it close as possible to fitting the rifle bore, but messed w. some jacketed in there, too. Never had great accuracy results at velocities low enough that I'd trust 'em not to make little critter tatters and finally decided that's the point of Ruger's Bearcat revolver and another reason why there's CB .22 ammo. Besides, I never did figure out how I was going to surreptitously swap out a big game load for a small game fetcher without disturbing a grouse on the other end of the same log I'm sitting on. I agree that you can run pistol bullets up to lots higher velocities than the bullets are meant for out of rifle cartridges; for that matter, the 200gr bullets meant for .35 Remington can be driven faster than their best performance envelope on game (as in core/jacket separation and otherwise going to pieces instead of advertisement-photo-style controlled expansion) out of the bigger .35s.

Somewhat related, I've read that the Ruger Blackhawk convertible models with .357 mag and 9mm cylinders don't deliver stellar accuracy from most 9mm ammo simply because of the bullet diameter difference. I could see that and don't think I'd choose to use bullets meant for 9mm in reduced .35 rifle loads if I had .357"-sized stuff available for the same reasoning.

[cobb]

Somewhat related, I've read that the Ruger Blackhawk convertible models with .357 mag and 9mm cylinders don't deliver stellar accuracy from most 9mm ammo simply because of the bullet diameter difference.

I have heard that also about the Ruger Single Six with the two cylinders. A .22 WMR has a larger diameter bullet of .224, while the standard .22 rimfire has a .218, so Ruger bores the convertible Single Six for the WMR cartridge. Don't know for a fact how much this affects accuracy for sure, but my Single Six that I sold years ago wasn't very accurate and all I ever fired out of it was the standard .22 rimfire.