Curious about bullet weights for various calibers...

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Hand_Rifle_Guy

New member
The .357 Magnum has a rather large seection of bullet weights available, ranging from 90-ish grains all the way up to 200 grains.

I was wondering what the comparable bullet spread would look like in other calibers. for instance, .32 cals would start at 60-ish grains, and top out at what? 110?

How about .44's? They could start at something like 165 grains, and run all the way up to 300 grains.

Curious I am about weight-spread for various calibers. Would like to know:

.32's.

.38/9mm.

.40's/10mm's.

.41's.

.44's.

.45's, of course.

.48's, cuz now we can.

and .50's.

If a particular caliber has an upper limit shy of it's percieved actual limit, such as 230 grains being the upper limit for .45 ACP because of OAL restrictions, mention that. Otherwise, I just want the whole range, auto, revolver, what-have-you. I want a sort of relative comparison of light vs. light, heavy vs. heavy in all of the recognized "defense" calibers, so I can make decisions about gun weight.

Thanks for your help. :)
 
A

Andrewh

New member
I can only talk about the 40's
The lightest bullet I have ever seen is the 135 grain. The heaviest is probably the 180 or 190 grain. 180 is normal, Fiochi uses a heavier one but I can't remember if it is 185 or 190.
Past that you get into 45 weight.
 
G

garrettwc

New member
I have seen 9mm in ranges from 90gr to 147 gr. And .45 from 165 gr to 250 grain.

I'm not an expert but another way of looking at the overall length would be you can only get so much charge weight in the case before you have a Kaboom. May be a case of having enough propellant to push the bullet as well that determines the max weight.
 
C

croyance

New member
I thought I saw a 158 grain loading of the 9mm Parabellum. Really, the OAL restricts the bullet weight. My Beretta doesn't feed every 147 grain.
I think there are 300 grain .44 magnums.
 
A

agtman

Moderator
The bullet weight spread for ...


...the 10mm Auto (which means all bullet-weights the .40 can use PLUS ones it can't): 135gn, 155gn, 165gn, 170gn, 175gn, 180gn, 190gn, 200gn, and 220gn (this last from a company called Rainier (sp?)).

I have yet to see a factory load for the .40 above 180gns. (The 10mm/190gn JHP was loaded by Federal for the FBI for a while).

HTH. :)

:cool:
 
K

Kcustom45

New member
Aguila's IQ round in 45ACP is 117grain going 1450fps. I don't really know much about the others. I have seen someone shoot the IQs from a 1911 w/o any problems.
 
H

Hal

New member
Most guns shows have old reloading manuals for only a few bucks or so.
I can't think of a better starting point than that to give you a good start on what's out there.
 
B

braindead0

New member
I suspect .32 will not go over 80 or 90grs.

I have loaded .380 from 85 - 115gr (you'll not likely find 115gr loads in any book).
 
H

HKP7PSP

New member
I took the weight of various bullets and divided by the area of the actual diamter (note that .44 magnum is really .429). I forgot the results, but remember learning that a 200 grain .45 is about the same as a 125 grain .357 and a 124 grain 9mm.

A 200 grain .40 S&W or 10mm is very heavy, and equal to a 250 grain .45. I decided that I would carry 155 or 165 grain for .40 S&W from now on, and 180 grain in 10mm since the extra velocity will help the heavy bullet open. In 9mm, I discovered that 9mm NATO is a 124 grain at 1220fps, which is very hot. Much hotter than commercial ammo, except for Cor-Bon and Triton. But even those are sometimes not as hot as NATO. So for 9mm, I now like GoldDots 124 grain at 1200fps or faster.
 
H

Hand_Rifle_Guy

New member
Braindead0: Thanx for the link. Very handy.

HKP7PSP: You have the right idea exactly. Which weight corresponds to which at various diameters.

It occurs to me that I can figure this out with a litle math. I shall henceforth cease to be lazy and go get my calculator.
 
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