Idaho Silver 9mm 111 Round Nose *2nds* (Read Full Description Before Ordering!)

Description

Idaho Silver 9mm 111 grain Round Nose Seconds (Same dimensions as the 115 Grain RN) Use load data for a 115 grain bullet.

Unfortunately, these aren’t actually silver bullets.  These jackets are made with a zinc and copper alloy (very high % of zinc and low % of copper). They look absolutely beautiful and they shoot really really well.  They are jacketed to the same thickness as our copper jacketed bullets.  They are also made to the same dimensions as our copper jacketed bullets.  However, zinc has some differences that you will want to be aware of if you are going to buy and load these.  First, zinc is lighter and softer than copper.  That is why these are less weight than our other copper jacketed bullets even though they are the exact same dimensions.  We recommend that when loading these you use load data for the heavier bullet that has the same dimensions.

Furthermore, zinc is about half as hard as copper.  Being a softer material, it requires some special care when reloading.  First, you will not want to overcrimp these at all.  Zinc does not have the elasticity of copper so whatever you crimp into it, it will go down to. You can actually undersize the bullets just by crimping too hard.  Secondly, you will want to only load these in brass cases.  We tested these in aluminum cases and because both zinc and aluminum don’t have much elasticity, we experienced very excessive bullet setback.  This wasn’t entirely unexpected since the companies selling aluminum ammo load only copper jacketed bullets for that exact reason.  Aluminum cases are tempermental.  We haven’t had a chance to test them in steel cases but I assume they will probably have similar issues as the aluminum.  If you decide to try it in anything other than brass, do it at your own risk.  We’ve tested thousands and thousands from brass cases and they load and shoot very similar to the copper jacketed ones.

We did notice that in some guns the fouling was variable.  It doesn’t foul quite like copper does.  In some guns we found little to no fouling at all.  In other guns it left little flakes of the jacket that look like fine glitter when you pull a bore snake through.  What fouling is left, looks very similar to copper fouling (maybe a little more).  We tested the Montana Xtreme Copper Killer solvent on the fouling and it seemed to work really really well on the zinc. We followed the directions on the bottle and let it soak for about an hour or two and 100% of the zinc came out.  No scrubbing or elbow grease required.  Because of the variable fouling from gun to gun, we recommend that you run a bore snake through the barrel every couple hundred rounds or as needed.  Also, if you experience heavy fouling we have found that running a magazine of copper jacketed bullets after a session shooting these gets most of the fouling out.

Tarnish is a concern with zinc.  We use a car wash wax on all our bullets to help prevent oxidation, but if you leave these in a wet or humid environment they will tarnish rather quickly.  Like with all ammo components, store these in the driest conditions possible.

One last thing.  We sent a bunch of these to a couple competitors to run them through their paces.  We got a report that the grease rings these left in paper targets are much harder to see and a grumpy RO might not want to give you the points if it’s close to the perf.

So, why zinc?  Well, it’s much cheaper than copper and I’m so sick of inflation that I just felt that if there was a way I could make the price go DOWN instead of up, then I had done my duty to mankind.  Anyway, if you buy these please come back and leave a review after you’ve received and tested them.  This could be a real game changer.

Oh, and if you have a question about barrel wear, we shot about 7000 of these through a single firearm and saw no noticeable wear.  Zinc is much softer than copper and it is supposed to be slicker as well.  If you buy enough of these to wear out your barrel, I would love to know how many it took to wear it out.