.40 cal Boolits quench or not to quench

[JOptionPane]

i am making .40 cal boolits with a hardness of almost 11 and i was wondering what you guys think should i quench or not?


Thanks
Kyle

[truckmsl]

Depending on what dies you have and how much they are expanding the case, 11BHN could get sized down when seated, causing leading problems due to an undersize boolit. I shoot a lot of cast through my glock 35 and water drop, and have no leading or accuracy problems. Lyman M die is a good way to go, especially with softer boolits.

[sqlbullet]

Try them and see.

I shoot 10mm. I have two different bullet designs cast from three different molds.

Lee 175 gr SWC TL lead when water dropped except at the very top end of loads. No leading when air cooled

MM 205 grain RFN lead when not water dropped, but lead some when air-cooled.

So, there you go. Sized the same, lubed the same different results.

[Char-Gar]

Not.....

[mooman76]

Try both. I started water quinching my 40's because I was having feeding issues on a new gun and it seemed to help. Then I loaded some and forgot to use the water quinched boolits and they did fine without. If you don't plan on pushing them too hard(I used medium loads) they should do fine without but only trying will tell.

[plainsman456]

Nope shouldn't need it.

[geargnasher]

Ok, you have to give us more than that.

Your load, whatever it is, needs to be balanced to work well. That means the powder burn rate, and pressure/time curve it generates in your caliber and gun, peak pressure level, lube, primer, and alloy/alloy hardness need to be working together correctly or you'll have troubles.

You can shoot either 11 bhn boolits, or much harder (probably near 20 bhn if you quench them very quickly from a hot mould, which most people have trouble doing consistently). The choice is yours, so you tell us which way you want to go, and we'll make recommendations to balance the rest of the load and pressure/velocity to make it work.

As has been mentioned, the .40 might need a larger/longer expander plug than you die set contains in order to load softer boolits without the tough, magnum-pressure brass squeezing the boolits undersized which is a sure recipe for barrel leading.

Gear

[JOptionPane]

This is all the info i got on the load

175gn
11 bhn boolits
4.4gn Tightgroup
26500psi
877 Vel. (ft/s)
Winchester primer

[geargnasher]

What do you WANT to do with the gun, and what kind of gun is it? Titegroup is a plinking level ONLY powder for the .40, I've used 4.0 grains before but pressures get spikey above that, and it doesn't leave much safety margin with variable seating depths.

I'd recommend Unique, Universal, or similar for boolits that soft, and I think the 800-900 fps range should be quite achieveable. If you want to go faster, I can just about guarantee you will need slightly harder boolits and much slower powder to keep things working right.

Here's what I would do: First, find some soft lead fishing sinkers (barrel weights work well), oil your bore and drive one through the barrel from the muzzle end with a brass rod. Measure the slug at it's largest point to determine groove diameter.

Next, cast some boolits if you haven't already, and measure twenty of them at the driving bands. You want them AT LEAST .001" larger than the largest part of your barrel slug. After that, load one of the boolits in a sized/expanded/bellmouthed case (no primer/powder), set to the correct seating depth using your barrel as a case gauge, crimp as you normally would (very slight taper crimp, just enough to straighten out the bellmouth), and then pull the boolit with an impact puller. Measure the boolit again at the driving bands. If the case made the boolit smaller, you will need a custom expander and/or harder boolit. If it didn't make it smaller, you're good to go. Use a good lube, not liquid Alox, and try some out with a medium burn rate powder like I mentioned above.

Gear

[JOptionPane]

Thanks for all the info i am only loading plinkers anyways i just didn't want them flying apart on me or leading.

[williamwaco]

One man's opinion.

Unless you just want to get them cool quickly, quenching is a waste of time.

I get best accuracy with any BNH from about 9 to 15.

[HammerMTB]

I shoot a lot of .40 ( in fact I'm going to a pin match right now) in the 900-1000FPS range. All of it is ACWW. I think quenching is too inconsistent for my taste. If I want hard boolits, I oven heat treat them. I do that for heavy magnum loads of .44M and .45 Colt. Other than that, I don't waste my time with it, not even for 10MM loads. Your 800-900 FPS loads should be fine, as long as your boolit fits the gun as it should. I prolly wouldn't choose Titegroup, but you'll sort that out.

[XWrench3]

i used to water quench everything. mostly because it was easier to drop them into water, than make sure that the hot boolits would not burn or scorch anything else. and it was easier to keep them from mashing into each other while still hot and getting deformed. water dropped boolits are cool enough by the time they get to the bottom of a 5 gallon pail so you don't have to worry about ANY deformation. now, i know better. pistol boolits, with the exception of the magnums, i let air cool to keep them as soft as possible. i dont think there is enough pressure to obituate(?) hard boolits in most handgun loads. but never substitute hardness for fit. fit is king in the world of cast or swaged boolits. i really have to believe that is why jacketed bullets have such a following. ease of use. just load them, and forget them. if the bullet is a thousandths small, no big deal. you will never know it as far as a mess in the barrel goes. accuracy may suffer a little, but how many jacketed bullet users do you know that slug their bore to see what size boolit they need?!

[JRR]

Hello everyone,
I recently went through the whole inside neck expander hassles. My Dillon exp./powder funnel measures .395". My RCBS measures .396". My cast bullets need to be .401 for my CZ75bsa.

RCBS makes a neck expander for the 38-40 in their cowboy dies. It measures .399" and is perfect for my .401 bullets and still allows great feeding into the chamber.

I set up an extra position in the turret press just before the Dillon powder measure to inside size the case with the .399". Then use the Dillon to drop the powder and gently flair the case. It's an extra step but works great.

No more undersized bullets, even with very soft lead.

Jeff

[geargnasher]

Now THAT'S a great piece of information, I'll have to pass that on to the next guy who'll be along in a week or two needing help with his .40.

Gear

[white eagle]

fur just plinkin no need to quench
for serious work you may want to go a different route

[truckmsl]

Why worry about bumping up diameter, if your boolits are already the proper size?
I find water quenching very convenient for handling purposes and get very good accuracy without leading, even with target loads. But they are sized correctly to begin with.

[Doby45]

I find water quenching very convenient for handling purposes.

+1.5 If you please..