Multiple Cast Boolit / Reload Questions

[Huntsman52]

So I have finally been able to cast some .40 S&W Boolits. Used 50/50 clip wheel weights and stick on, water dropped. Have a mix of Lee 175 Tumble lube TC and Lee 175 TC conventional lube groove casted. (Recommendations from forum Members)

-tumble lube casts are around .4015 to .4025 on average
-conventional cats are around .403 to .404 on average

I did a quick check on the bore at the business end with the inside measure part of the Calip. and got .401 bore. I will slug this afternoon to double check. Will resizing be required of the conventional casts? How much over sized is over sized? I am using the Lee (4) die set and will crimp with the Lee factory crimper.

I tumbled lube with melted Johnson Paste Wax just because it was all I could find locally last night. I have read where it works fine, but never hurts to ask.

Lastly plan on reloading on 4.7 grains of Hod. Universal with an OAL of 1.125, slight taper crimp. I got this load form the Hod. website for the 180 grain XTP. Figured 5% lower than the starting load. Does this seem ok to start with? Been looking through multiple reloading manuals and have not found a load for Universal.

Thank you in advance.

[243winxb]

.403 to .404 on average

This will be to large for some firearms. The loaded rounds must fit the chamber first, then worry about the groove diameter. Dont use the Lee FCD.
Lastly plan on reloading on 4.7 grains of Hod. Universal Looking at the 200gr data on Hodgdons site, 4.7gr is the maximum loading. I would load a few at 4.0gr to see if it works the action. Start low, work up the powder charge.

[462]

Huntsman52,
I don't own or load for a .40 S&W, but I've listed a few concerns that are applicable to auto-loaders

1. Measure your bore slug and boolits with a micrometer and your measuring accuracy will increase by a factor of ten, over that of a caliper
2. Your slug will indicate if boolits require sizing.
3. A boolit .001" to .002" over nominal dimension is, generally, not considered oversize.
4. There has been many threads and much discussion about Lee's handgun Carbide Factory Crimp Die. You may want to do an extensive search before you use it.
5. Cartridge over all length and amount of crimp is best determined by removing the barrel from the gun and dropping a dummy round into it. When the dummy round seats to the full battery position, you are good to go. (A factory loaded round can be used to visualize the full battery position, and case mouth dimension for proper taper crimp amount.)
6. Pull the boolit from a dummy round and measure its base...it should measure the same as it was prior to loading. You want to be sure that the boolit is not getting swaged down, during the seating and/or crimping process. (See number four, above.)

I hope this helps.

[Huntsman52]

I did a few sdummy round and they fit the chamber just as my factory FMJs did. They also sat as the factory ammo did. I hand cycled from the mag and had no hiccups either. (forgot to add to explination above)

Will check into the Factory Crimp Die issues. When I made my dummy rounds I did run it throught the die, but had a slight crimp. They was next to no required fore to push the round into the die via the carbide resizer.

I based my starting load off of the 180 xtp load for Universal which was 5 gr. Figured 5% less so 4.7.

[RobS]

The FCD may have very well swaged down on your dummy round and is why it will chamber like a factory/jacketed round. The FCD was intended for jacketed bullets in meeting factory specs. This is not good news for a cast boolit that is larger than a jacketed bullet, nothing is worse than shooting an undersized cast boolit…..boolit fit to firearm is a very critical step to cast boolit success. Do yourself a favor, measure your bore slug when you get to it and then use the same measuring tool to measure a pulled boolit from your dummy round (measure specifically the edge of the base and turn the bullet to measure in different areas). Your best results will come from boolits leaving the case .001 - .002 over groove diameter and in some instances with as large of a bullet that can be loaded and chamber freely.

The FCD:
If you felt any resistance just as the seated bullet/round makes entrance into the mouth of the die then the carbide ring in it could very well give you undesirable outcomes. There are threads here that talk about modification of the die, purchasing an extra expander/powder through die body and transfering the crimp sleeve from the FCD die to the expander die and there is also the option to buy a standard 40 S&W auto taper die (not a FCD, no post sizing the round i.e. swage of the boolit).

[geargnasher]

The FCD may have very well swaged down on your dummy round and is why it will chamber like a factory/jacketed round. The FCD was intended for jacketed bullets in meeting factory specs. This is not good news for a cast boolit that is larger than a jacketed bullet, nothing is worse than shooting an undersized cast boolit…..boolit fit to firearm is a very critical step to cast boolit success. Do yourself a favor, measure your bore slug when you get to it and then use the same measuring tool to measure a pulled boolit from your dummy round (measure specifically the edge of the base and turn the bullet to measure in different areas). Your best results will come from boolits leaving the case .001 - .002 over groove diameter and in some instances with as large of a bullet that can be loaded and chamber freely.

The FCD:
If you felt any resistance just as the seated bullet/round makes entrance into the mouth of the die then the carbide ring in it could very well give you undesirable outcomes. There are threads here that talk about modification of the die, purchasing an extra expander/powder through die body and transfering the crimp sleeve from the FCD die to the expander die and there is also the option to buy a standard 40 S&W auto taper die (not a FCD, no post sizing the round i.e. swage of the boolit).

+1.

Huntsman, do a search for .40 S&W here on this site, there are tons of information on this caliber, how to measure for it, load for it, lube for it, and all the particulars of custom expanders and the damage done to cast boolits with the FCD. You picked the worst possible caliber to begin with, if you can make it work (and with the right information and techniques found here you can) you can shoot cast in anything.

Gear

[theperfessor]

Just judging from the number of posts on the subject, it seems as if the 9mm and .40 are the two handgun rounds that cause the most problems to boolit shooters. Gotta agree with Gear, if you can get either/both of these cartridges working right you're probably not going to have any insolvable problems with other handgun calibers.

[Huntsman52]

Ok so looks like I will remove the FCD from the line up. I noticed on the Lee instructions I could add a Crimp with the bullet set die. Will try that out. Will also pull my dummy rounds to see where thay are at and compair to the bore slug.

I did notice that the .40 S&W was a difficult round to mess with, but if I am going to learn might as well challange myself!

SH

[RobS]

I did notice that the .40 S&W was a difficult round to mess with, but if I am going to learn might as well challange myself!

SH

That a way to look at it..............never say never!!! I believe you are meant for casting already as many of us here carry the same motto which gives us the joy of casting, reloading and shooting our own creations.

[geargnasher]

Let me shorten the learning curve a bit.

First, the .40 and 9mm are MAGNUM pressure cartridges. Whether you load them to full potential, or just fun plinking levels or anything in between doesn't change the fact that the BRASS IS VERY HARD AND SPRINGY compared to, say, .45 ACP or .38 Special, as it must be to handle factory-level pressure loadings. This presents a challenge to cast boolits, especially softer ones at lower pressure, because the case can and will swage the boolits undersized as they are seated, causing poor bore obturation upon firing, gas cutting of the boolit, and certain leading.

The reason the brass swages the boolit is usually because the cast reloader is using standard reloading dies, which are designed for jacketed bullets that are usually a thousandth or more under groove dimension. To maintain safe levels of case tension in an automatic, the sizing dies size the case smaller than it needs to be for cast, and the "expander" usually is too short and too small to stretch the case "neck" enough to allow seating of a cast boolit without letting the brass swage the driving bands. You can get away with standard dies in other, milder-pressure calibers because the brass is tempered slightly, and is often thinner so the boolit can stretch it without much damage during seating, even if the brass isn't opened-up enough.

As a general guideline, you want your .40 boolits to be about a thousandth over groove dimension when they enter the barrel, and you need NO MORE than .002" interference fit (or "tension" to retain the boolit. An example, my Lee expander and Speer brass has an ID of .3965", and with a groove of .401" I try to seat a .402" boolit in the brass with a .0065" interference fit. What happens is the case expands to around .399" and the boolit to about .399", which is now .002" UNDER groove diameter. It leaded like the dickens.

My solution was to have a custom-made expander plug fitted to my Lee Powder-thru-Expander die that would expand the case and leave it .400" ID after retracting, the spud is .401". The expander spud is also longer than the Lee, expanding the case to .400" for .025" or so past where the base of the boolit will reside when seated to the correct cartridge overall length for my particular gun. Now I can seat a boolit of any reasonable hardness, pull it, and it isn't swaged a measureable amount. The leading went away.

Unfortunately, my chamber is a bit tight in the front, and sometimes wouldn't go fully into battery after some fouling built up, so my solution was to apply enough taper-crimp to compress the boolit and case just for the first 1/16" or so, or most of the front band, so the boolit was actually about groove diameter at that point. Since the rear band is still over groove a bit I've had no problems.

Most boolit designs for the .40 don't use gas checks, so that can present a challenge with high-pressure loadings. I've had good luck using a high-pressure rifle lube like White Label Carnauba Red, 20+ bhn boolits (either low-antimony alloy that is water-quenched and aged, or high-antimony alloy like Linotype that air-cools very hard) and SLOW powders like HS6 and Blue Dot up near the top of the list for charge weights. I've also had good luck with straight, air-cooled wheel weights and Unique or Universal, loaded to around 850-900 fps. You can go softer and slower for some really fun plinkers, but stick with fast powders and make CERTAIN your dies aren't swaging the boolits when seating. Load and crimp a dummy round, pull the boolit and measure it. If it's smaller when pulled than it was before being seated, then you will have to get a larger expander, one that stretches that hard brass so it has an inside diameter around .002" smaller than boolit band diameter, and deep enough that the boolit can be seated all the way down to final depth without being swaged undersized on the base band.

Finally, DON'T use the Lee FCD on the .40 or 9mm, the sizing ring will swage brass and boolit together so that the boolit will be too small for the groove dimension upon firing. It's a fine tool for jacketed ammo, and a terrible one for cast boolits unless you're talking about the collet-type FCD that comes with rifle sets, and it is a wonderful tool.

Hope this helps some,

Gear

[Huntsman52]

Gear,

Thanks so much for taking the time for a very through explanation. What you stated explains changes I was noticing last night. I ended up getting some load data from a Lyman manual that had a charge for Universal and 175 gr cast. Ended up being 4.6 grains starting charge, which ended up being 5cc scoop from lee. Scaled the charge and it was consistent. Funny how that worked out.

I loaded up multiple dummy rounds to run tests. I ended up expanding the case mouth to just accept the Lee TL cast bullets. Then set the casts with the set die and also used the same die for a tapper crimp. The first thing I noticed was the difference in the diameter of the new dummy round vs. the dummy rounds that where pushed through the Lee Factory Crimp. The difference was the outline of the cast bullet in new dummy round was more profound. The round that ran through the Factory crimp die was smoother from base to cast bullet, so it did get swaged. Confirmed this by pulling the bullet and measuring. I slugged the bore and got an accurate reading of the bore. Compared it to the new dummy rounds and the dummy rounds where still a little over bore when pulled. .001 to .002 over bore. Tested the dummy rounds for fit in the barrel and they sat as needed. I only did this to the Lee TL casts. The others need to be resized and I do not have boolit seizer yet. Bore ended up being .401 and the rifling at .393 off of the slug. Barrel is from a Walther PPS.

All rounds where crimped with the bullet setter die and NOT the pistol FCD. You could see the slight crimp at the top of case. Cycled the rounds by hand and checked for setback. Set back was nonexistent.
I loaded up 100 rounds last night and will try them out to see happens. Will report the results.

[RobS]

Gear,

Thanks so much for taking the time for a very through explanation. What you stated explains changes I was noticing last night. I ended up getting some load data from a Lyman manual that had a charge for Universal and 175 gr cast. Ended up being 4.6 grains starting charge, which ended up being 5cc scoop from lee. Scaled the charge and it was consistent. Funny how that worked out.

I loaded up multiple dummy rounds to run tests. I ended up expanding the case mouth to just accept the Lee TL cast bullets. Then set the casts with the set die and also used the same die for a tapper crimp. The first thing I noticed was the difference in the diameter of the new dummy round vs. the dummy rounds that where pushed through the Lee Factory Crimp. The difference was the outline of the cast bullet in new dummy round was more profound. The round that ran through the Factory crimp die was smoother from base to cast bullet, so it did get swaged. Confirmed this by pulling the bullet and measuring. I slugged the bore and got an accurate reading of the bore. Compared it to the new dummy rounds and the dummy rounds where still a little over bore when pulled. .001 to .002 over bore. Tested the dummy rounds for fit in the barrel and they sat as needed. I only did this to the Lee TL casts. The others need to be resized and I do not have boolit seizer yet. Bore ended up being .401 and the rifling at .393 off of the slug. Barrel is from a Walther PPS.

All rounds where crimped with the bullet setter die and NOT the pistol FCD. You could see the slight crimp at the top of case. Cycled the rounds by hand and checked for setback. Set back was nonexistent.
I loaded up 100 rounds last night and will try them out to see happens. Will report the results.

Yep, the FCD woes it appears from your description. From my angle, and I could be reading things wrong, it sounds like you are seating the bullet and then coming back and using the same die to crimp???? If this is what you are doing it is possible to setup the seat/crimp die to do this in one step. It sounds like you are taking care of boolit fit. Keep us posted if you run into problems.

[MikeS]

I don't know if your seating die can roll crimp or not, as I have no experience with that cartridge. But, if it can, be sure that you don't! You want only a taper crimp, just to close the flare that you put in the brass to to be able to seat the boolit. In 45ACP (what I load) the Lee dies are designed for both 45ACP and 45AutoRim, which is a revolver round, so the die can roll crimp. Perhaps the .40 dies don't have the ability to roll crimp as I don't think there's a revolver round that would use the same dies, and if that's the case, disregard everything I've said! I use a Lyman M die for expanding case mouths, so don't use the Lee powder thru expander die, so I took the expander plug out of it, and replaced it with the crimping plug from the FCD. Now it does a great job of putting a nice taper crimp on the cartridge without any chance of it swaging down the boolit in the case. You might want to look into adding a Lyman M die to your setup as it works better IMHO than the original Lee expander. Then if you have any problems with cases getting bulged you can get the Lee Bulge Buster kit, and attach it to your FCD body, and leave it setup that way if you switch the crimper plug for the expander plug, You now have 2 fully functional dies (3 if you count the Lyman M die), I hope I didn't confuse you any.

[geargnasher]

I don't know if your seating die can roll crimp or not, as I have no experience with that cartridge. But, if it can, be sure that you don't! You want only a taper crimp, just to close the flare that you put in the brass to to be able to seat the boolit. In 45ACP (what I load) the Lee dies are designed for both 45ACP and 45AutoRim, which is a revolver round, so the die can roll crimp. Perhaps the .40 dies don't have the ability to roll crimp as I don't think there's a revolver round that would use the same dies, and if that's the case, disregard everything I've said! I use a Lyman M die for expanding case mouths, so don't use the Lee powder thru expander die, so I took the expander plug out of it, and replaced it with the crimping plug from the FCD. Now it does a great job of putting a nice taper crimp on the cartridge without any chance of it swaging down the boolit in the case. You might want to look into adding a Lyman M die to your setup as it works better IMHO than the original Lee expander. Then if you have any problems with cases getting bulged you can get the Lee Bulge Buster kit, and attach it to your FCD body, and leave it setup that way if you switch the crimper plug for the expander plug, You now have 2 fully functional dies (3 if you count the Lyman M die), I hope I didn't confuse you any.

Why not, Mike? If you're saying that because you think the case headspaces on the mouth, I'm going to have to disagree, despite all the published hooplah that it does. Have you ever trimmed a .45 ACP case? .40 is a little closer, but not much. If the case were to headspace on the mouth, it would likely never fire because the chamber is so much longer than the case. The trick is to get the cartridge to headspace on the boolit. The extractors on most pistols will hold the case against the breech face anyway, and that's most of the reason why they work, not because of the mouth of the case bottoming on the chamber. If the brass headspaced on the end of the chamber, fouling would soon make it impossible for the breech to lock. There has to be a fudge factor. But if there is enough room for the fouling, there is enough room for the cartridge to slam forward far enough that it exceeds the firing pin protrusion, thus causing misfires. To ensure reliability, the extractor claw ends up being the tool that makes the whole thing work. There are exceptions with a few odd guns, but for the most part roll-crimping doesn't hurt anything, and with hot rounds a roll crimp into the side of the boolit ensures zero boolit setback in the case and no Kabooms. I've had a Kaboom in a .45 ACP from boolit setback in the magazine, it ain't fun.

As for the .40 Lee seater die, it has a really lousy excuse for a crimp ledge, it more or less crimps, but is hard to get consistent. I wouldn't say it's a taper crimp OR a roll, kind of just a "cram" crimp. My solution was to drive out the carbide post-sizer ring in my FCD die and use the nice crimp ledge in that die to take care of the bellmouth. In some guns, just removing the bellmouth is plenty, but in others with tapered or tight chambers, it may be necessary to taper the mouth a bit with the crimp.

Gear

[RobS]

In some guns, just removing the bellmouth is plenty, but in others with tapered or tight chambers, it may be necessary to taper the mouth a bit with the crimp.

Gear

+1 on this note. I say go for the enough to take the bell out with no set back and see if it works and if not just keep adjusting the crimp tighter a little at a time until a dummy round chambers and test firing confirms reliable cycling/chambering. Of course seating to the right COAL should be taken into account first.

[Huntsman52]

RobS, Used the bullet set die to seat the bullet and crimp at the same time. With a few dummy rounds I was able to get the die working well in setting depth and a good crimp.

MikeS, No confusion at all. Good idea for using the FCD and expander die. Will give it a try on the next go around.

Once I get a chance to get to a range will be trying these guys out. Will let ya'll know it turns out.

Thanks agian for all the help. Great site here.

[RobS]

I like the FCD's crimp sleeve's crimping abilities (what a mouthful :) ) and ease of adjusting with the turn knob so you may very well think about using the expander die and moving the FCD's guts over or modify the FCD by taking out the carbide ring. You can also just keep three dies set up if you like it. I prefer to seat and crimp in two different stages but either way does work just fine.

[noylj]

Don't guess at a starting load and don't use jacketed data to guess at a starting lead load.
Here is my data for lead bullet. I would start at 4.0gn (as I like to start low and work up) and work up to 5.1gn (i.e., I would load rounds at 4.0gn, 4.5gn, and 5.0gn to start). I also load all my cartridges (and the 9x19 and .40S&W in particular) to the longest COL/OAL that functions in my guns.
.40S&W
Bullet Weight Powder Weight Velocity Start/Max Power Factor COL
Cast 175 Universal 4.6 825 Start 144
Cast 175 Universal 5.3 1022 Max 179
L-SWC 180 Universal 3.8 750 Start 135
L-FP 180 Universal 5.1 Major 0 1.1900
L-FP 180 Universal 5.5 Major 0 1.1900
L-SWC 180 Universal 5.7 950 Max 171

[OuchHot!]

I greatly appreciate this thread! Gear, did Lee make the custom powder through spud for you? I think that I need to do this for several applications.

[geargnasher]

I greatly appreciate this thread! Gear, did Lee make the custom powder through spud for you? I think that I need to do this for several applications.

Nope. Doby45 and I commissioned Superior Quality Manufacturing of Phoenix, AZ to make them. I had some made in other calibers as well. Contact JimInPhx to see if he's interested in making one more. They cost more than the die sets in the end, but are well worth it. I think Deltaenterprizes (member here) has made some, but I could be wrong. I'm sure anyone here with a lathe would take your money and make you one. If you need drawings, see the link below, lots of good pics:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=93108

Gear

[Huntsman52]

Finally got to the range yesterday afternoon. All (100 rounds) of the casts functioned perfectly. Just a few things to button up. I had some leading, but I expected that and it was easily removed. Did not get it all out of the barrel, but about 95% of it. The JPW as lube was smoky to shoot. Did not bother me, but would get some funny looks by nearby shooters. Based on how the pistol operated, I should be able to back off the powder some more. Maybe try as NOYLJ suggested and start at 4.0gr. I did notice a different if power between factory loads and my loads. Thanks again for all the help.