Seating Depth - 40 S&W

[DeskPop]

I'm just getting into Bullet Casting and my first mold is a Lee 6 cavity 175 gr TC. I loaded up 50 rounds as cast with the data from the 4th edition Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook for the Lyman #401638. I started with the minimum load of Blue Dot and increased .2 gr for each group of 5 rounds until I arrived at the max. When I shot these I kept watch for signs of excessive pressure and leading but saw none. My problem was with function. The gun jammed twice over the course of my testing. The rounds were stuck in my chamber pretty good, and it would not close. I had to tug pretty hard to get the slide to come back and eject the round.

I shoot a Glock 23 with a Storm Lake Barrel for my reloads.

I sized my next batch of bullets with my Lee pass through sizer. I loaded up 150 and had only one jam. It was not the same jam with the round stuck in the chamber. It seemed to just be a misfeed.

I'm loading to the prescribed OAL of 1.1". I'm thinking of not seating so deeply to see if that will make the feeding more reliable. It looks like OAL ranges all the way out to 1.135 with other bullets on the page. I intend to tinker with a few dummy rounds to make sure they will load into the mag and chamber. Here is what I want to make sure I'm thinking correctly about: As seating depth decreases pressures should decrease as well so I shouldn't need to go through the process of working up the load again, making sure there are no signs of excessive pressure.

Any comments on my assumption above or anything else you see which I might have missed along the way would be apprectiated.

[runfiverun]

nope it should work that way.
and your doing it backwards kinda, the first thing I do is establish my oal and then do my load work up.
oal isn't the only reason for a jam it can be caused by other stuff like limp wristing, or just a round with a slightly lower powder amount, or missing a crimp by that much.

[Blackwater]

Run's comments are dead on. All I can add is that all autos CAN sometimes be finicky about OAL. I know my two old Colt .45 Combat Commanders seem to want a shorter OAL than what tends to work and feed well in other .45's. The Lee 230 TC has to be seated as deeply as possible to function well in both guns. Newer guns seem to be more forgiving of that, but mine aren't. Each gun has its own requirements, and the only way to learn what your particular gun wants with any particular bullet it to just vary OAL until you find what works best. This is just another excuse to shoot more, and it also broadens and deepens your understanding of your personal guns - always a good and useful thing. It'll also, when you KNOW your loads are primo, allow you to have the utmost confidence when you shoot, too - never a bad thing.

My grandson just won both games of a double header yesterday for the playoffs of the state High School Varsity playoffs, and they've got a coach that has worked their butts off. The smile on his face afterward showed VERY clearly that he's coming to understand the real and abiding value of EARNING things. We reloaders can learn a lot from that type thing, too. Good advice can help lead us to the right area to experiment, but EVERYTHING has to be proven in our own individual testing. I'm betting that a little experimenting will lead you to some loads you can and will have 100% confidence in. There's really no substitute for that, and as with the grandson, there's GREAT satisfaction in getting there.

[Garyshome]

I have to seat the TC's lower then the round nose. Seems the case in all pistol cal's that I load.

[blikseme300]

Hmm, what I read is that the first lot of boolits were unsized and 2 stuck in the chamber when the slide could not go into battery. Sizing is not always needed but it does eliminate over sized boolits such as those that are caused when the mold was not fully closed due to some reason or other.

OAL: each boolit design and/or chamber affects the OAL for that particular pistol so the published OAL's may or may not work for your pistol. I like and use the Lee TC molds extensively for 9mmP, 40S&W & 45ACP and use the barrel of the pistol as the gauge using the "plunk test". My CZ pistols all have a short leade so the seating depth is deeper than published OAL for consistent cycling. I make dummy rounds first to determine seating depth before doing load work-up.

[DeskPop]

your doing it backwards kinda

It is a little backwards. I have never had an issue like this. I have been loading for my Ruger P-85 for years and it has hobbled everything up, but they were all FMJ, or JHP. I did load 500 cast RN when I first started loading. I just had one of those lee kits you have to use a hammer to operate, no press. I didn't know what I was doing at all. The guy sold me 38 special bullets, I loaded them over a single scoop of Win 231 ( wonder how many grains) and shaved off a ring of lead and bullet lube on every one. They leaded up my barrel like crazy. It's a wonder the gun held together with those hot loads and the barrel full of lead. I tried some store bought cast a while back and had better luck with a much improved technique. I decided to give casting a try. Thanks for all your help.

[ioon44]

I'm just getting into Bullet Casting and my first mold is a Lee 6 cavity 175 gr TC. I loaded up 50 rounds as cast with the data from the 4th edition Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook for the Lyman #401638. I started with the minimum load of Blue Dot and increased .2 gr for each group of 5 rounds until I arrived at the max. When I shot these I kept watch for signs of excessive pressure and leading but saw none. My problem was with function. The gun jammed twice over the course of my testing. The rounds were stuck in my chamber pretty good, and it would not close. I had to tug pretty hard to get the slide to come back and eject the round.

I shoot a Glock 23 with a Storm Lake Barrel for my reloads.

I sized my next batch of bullets with my Lee pass through sizer. I loaded up 150 and had only one jam. It was not the same jam with the round stuck in the chamber. It seemed to just be a misfeed.

I'm loading to the prescribed OAL of 1.1". I'm thinking of not seating so deeply to see if that will make the feeding more reliable. It looks like OAL ranges all the way out to 1.135 with other bullets on the page. I intend to tinker with a few dummy rounds to make sure they will load into the mag and chamber. Here is what I want to make sure I'm thinking correctly about: As seating depth decreases pressures should decrease as well so I shouldn't need to go through the process of working up the load again, making sure there are no signs of excessive pressure.

Any comments on my assumption above or anything else you see which I might have missed along the way would be apprectiated.

One thing to watch for on .40S&W is brass with the Glock bulge, some times the sizer die won't take it out.

The after market barrels are tighter chambered than the factory Glock barrels.

[Tenbender]

If it will fit here it will work in the Glock.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/582052/lyman-max-cartridge-gage-40-s-and-w?cm_vc=ProductFinding

[DeskPop]

If it will fit here it will work in the Glock.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/582052/lyman-max-cartridge-gage-40-s-and-w?cm_vc=ProductFinding

Thanks. I added it to my wish list.

[prs]

If it will fit here it will work in the Glock.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/582052/lyman-max-cartridge-gage-40-s-and-w?cm_vc=ProductFinding

Well, even if won't work in a gauge it may still work in a Glock barrel. But the OP notes using an aftermarket barrel and some of those are pretty tight of chamber and it really could be better to use the actual barrel as the test gauge. The method stated was bassackward, get a good dummy round that fits and do the case prep and boolit fitment ahead of time. My Lee 6 cav traditional lube grove TC 40 cal mold fits both my OE 23 Glock barrel and the Wolf barrel I did not need, but purchased anyway. No need to size if tumble lubed. But that depends upon the individual mold, casting technique, and alloy type. When we change a variable in a loading, we are supposed to work up the loading again, at least drop the charge below max a couple of steps and work-up. I have never even done max loads in the 40, but that is just me.

prs

[W.R.Buchanan]

I load my .40's at 1.115-1.125 OAL 5.4 gr of W231. 165 gr plated boolits. The one thing that kind of needs to be there, is a taper crimp that measures .417-.418. All this is done on a Dillon SDB.

I run all my brass thru a Lee Carbide FCD first and then tumble,,, that way I'm feeding nice clean brass to the SDB. I have never gaged a case or loaded round yet, simply because with the procedure I use and if you pay attention, you I don't need to.

The Glocks will shoot just about anything as long as it is close to factory loaded dimensions.

This is a simple round to load, however due to it's inherently high pressure it has to be done right.

Glock Bulges need to be dealt with. If they are not, and the same case is reloaded several times eventually it will fail. If they are debulged each time the risk of this happening is greatly reduced.

I seldom reload any of these cases more than twice, and usually not more than once simply because they are shot on a range during a competition where I can't retrieve them. As a result case failures are a non issue for me.

Randy

[popper]

Ya sposed to do the plunk test on all rounds for a semi.

[Petrol & Powder]

I'm going with runfiverun. Establishing cartridge OAL should sort of be a starting point with the other variables falling into place after that. With semi-auto pistols It is a good idea to find a bullet profile and OAL that is known to function and mimic that set up in your reloads. You still have to stay within the guidelines but it gives you a starting point that should function. You can then fine tune variables like OAL, charge weights, crimp, etc. as long as you don't ignore safety. It's easier to start with something that works and make it better than to first try to make something work and then try to improve it.

The Glock 23 is very tolerant and will feed damn near any bullet profile. In addition, the truncated cone profile is very common in the .40 S&W family of cartridges. If you're getting cartridges that will not chamber and are difficult to extract after the slide is partially closed, I'd be willing to bet the problem isn't the bullet profile but rather the crimp or resizing operations. A property reloaded .40 S&W with a 175gr TC bullet should function all day long in that pistol.

[rodsvet]

My Glock 23 with stock barrel feeds anything I feed it. The Wolf barrel is way tighter and I'm sure Storm lake is too. If your hold is correct, you will, at least I will get an occasional misfeed. I plunk test every round and have a Redding bulge buster so I know all rounds drop freely into the chamber. My 22 and Sig229 are much more reliable with lead, especially the Sig. My .02

[ItZaLLgooD]

I have the traditional lube groove 175 and my friend has the tumble lube version. I can seat out to a more "normal" length of 1.130-1.135. These run well in a 27, 35 and a 22 with a Lone Wolf barrel. With the tumble lube version my friend has to seat the bullets to 1.100 to get them to run in his XDm.

Definitely check for bulged brass in the 40. I run all of my brass through a bulge buster everytime.

I just use the Lone Wolf barrel for a case gauge. It is definitely tighter than the stock Glock barrel. I only plunk test 1 out of ten or so for practice rounds.

[flintlock62]

I like and use the Lee TC molds extensively for 9mmP, 40S&W & 45ACP and use the barrel of the pistol as the gauge using the "plunk test".

I said the same thing in another forum, and was told I'm nuts, not by one person, but almost everyone. I gauge all my reloads using my barrel it's going to be fired out of.

[ioon44]

I use the barrels to "plunk test" my reloads, especially the ones going to IDPA matches.

[guncheese]

you dont shoot from a gauge !
you shoot from a barrel
the only gauge i own is a pistol barrel

[tazman]

All my semi auto ammunition is set up to work in my handguns. It has to feed through the action as well as chamber in the barrel. Sometimes the OAL has to be tweaked to get the rounds to feed as well as chamber.
I will admit that my guns have generous chambers and will feed most boolit designs, so I get off easy in this respect. I do run into some boolits that just simply will not work reliably.

[michiganmike]

I cast and reload for my Ruger SR40. I began by trying Lee's 401-175-TC 175 grain die. I had a lot of failures to chamber with the bullets it produced. I finally gave up on it because I was having to seat it too deep in my opinion. This bullet has a larger meplate and a more obtuse angle to the meplate. My conclusion was that the SR40's chamber was a little tight.

Next I purchased the Lee TL401-175-SWC 175 grain mould. This has a smaller meplate and a more acute angle to the meplate. This seats at 1.11-1.12" and chambers and shoots just fine.

If anyone wants the Lee 401-175-TC 175 grain mould, I will be posting it in the for sale/trade/etc. section. It will be priced reasonably. It has seen little use.

MichiganMike

[michiganmike]

Well, that didn't work. The 401-175-TC 175 grain mould is very lightly used, in the original box, with the instructions. I likely did not cast 100 bullets in it before learning that the bullets this die produced would not work reliably in my Ruger SR. I would like someone to be using it and shooting the bullets it drops.

So, if you are interested, the price is the cost of shipping to you by USPS X 2. So, if it costs $7.25 to ship it by USPS, you would pay $14.40. PM me if interested.

MichgianMike

[W.R.Buchanan]

Mike : I sent you a PM

Randy

[fredj338]

I'm just getting into Bullet Casting and my first mold is a Lee 6 cavity 175 gr TC. I loaded up 50 rounds as cast with the data from the 4th edition Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook for the Lyman #401638. I started with the minimum load of Blue Dot and increased .2 gr for each group of 5 rounds until I arrived at the max. When I shot these I kept watch for signs of excessive pressure and leading but saw none. My problem was with function. The gun jammed twice over the course of my testing. The rounds were stuck in my chamber pretty good, and it would not close. I had to tug pretty hard to get the slide to come back and eject the round.

I shoot a Glock 23 with a Storm Lake Barrel for my reloads.

I sized my next batch of bullets with my Lee pass through sizer. I loaded up 150 and had only one jam. It was not the same jam with the round stuck in the chamber. It seemed to just be a misfeed.

I'm loading to the prescribed OAL of 1.1". I'm thinking of not seating so deeply to see if that will make the feeding more reliable. It looks like OAL ranges all the way out to 1.135 with other bullets on the page. I intend to tinker with a few dummy rounds to make sure they will load into the mag and chamber. Here is what I want to make sure I'm thinking correctly about: As seating depth decreases pressures should decrease as well so I shouldn't need to go through the process of working up the load again, making sure there are no signs of excessive pressure.

Any comments on my assumption above or anything else you see which I might have missed along the way would be apprectiated.

You've made some incorrect assumptions. In handgun rds, as OAL decreases, pressures go up, not down. Case volume is less, pressures are higher. The other is OAL itself. There is no correct book OAL. The round MUST fit your gun. Unless you are using the exact bullet & exact gun. your OAL will vary. OAL is always gun & bullet specific, REGARDLESS of data.
Your bullet wedged into the rifling tells me the OAL is too long for that bullet. If you reduce OAL from book data, then you also need to reduce the powder charge. How much is the issue, as it varies with the powder type. Load to the longest OAL that fits your bbl & magazine. If it is wedging onto the rifling, it's too long.
There is no such thing as too shallow, as long as you adjust the powder charge accordingly. You really need a chronograph to do this properly. Everything being equal in a given load, vel increase = pressure increase. So seating deeper 0.010" at a time should show incremental vel increases. So say you are loading at 1.130" & getting say 1000fps, then you would want to reduce your powder charge a bit with each 0.010" increment to achieve the same vel.
The 40s&w is no more high pressure than the 9mm & also no harder to reload. Just keep in mind that small volume, high pressure rds like the 9m 357sig & 40, respond more quickly to powder charge wts & OAL diff.

[dondiego]

I also thought that he misstated the seating depth to pressure idea but when read correctly, he is right. He states: "as seating depth DECREASES......" meaning that he is seating the bullet out further, not deeper.

[DougGuy]

OP if you are having issues with rounds plunking at your COA or OAL whichever way you like to call it, you could send the barrel and get it throated, I finish .40 throats at .4025" with a 3° leade in to the rifling so you could size to .401' or .402" and choose whatever COA you want to and all the loaded rounds will plunk. Very affordable and fast turnaround. Less pressure, more velocity, less leading and smaller groups are the usual result of having a barrel properly throated.

[W.R.Buchanan]

The 40s&w is no more high pressure than the 9mm & also no harder to reload. Just keep in mind that small volume, high pressure rds like the 9m 357sig & 40, respond more quickly to powder charge wts & OAL diff.

The .40 S&W runs at 35,000psi just like the 9MM does, however the case is not nearly as strong as a 9mm case simply because there is more surface area inside for the same thickness of brass.

This is why bulge removal is a good idea. Case failures generally occur just above the web, and usually on cases that have been fired and not had the web area repositioned back to original form. IE; prebulged and weakened cases.

Also Fred: you might want to look into some other more better powders for this application. HP38/W231 is a much better choice than Blue Dot as are just about any of the normally used pistol powders like Bullseye. Blue Dot is way down the list.

I also hope you are Taper Crimping these rounds. You are looking for .417-.418 at the case mouth. Having bullet setback under recoil on this round can turn ugly very fast.

Randy

[fredj338]

The .40 S&W runs at 35,000psi just like the 9MM does, however the case is not nearly as strong as a 9mm case simply because there is more surface area inside for the same thickness of brass.

This is why bulge removal is a good idea. Case failures generally occur just above the web, and usually on cases that have been fired and not had the web area repositioned back to original form. IE; prebulged and weakened cases.

Also Fred: you might want to look into some other more better powders for this application. HP38/W231 is a much better choice than Blue Dot as are just about any of the normally used pistol powders like Bullseye. Blue Dot is way down the list.

I also hope you are Taper Crimping these rounds. You are looking for .417-.418 at the case mouth. Having bullet setback under recoil on this round can turn ugly very fast.

Randy
Not sure where you get the idea about any powder choice, I never started what I use. I agree, W231 is a better choice for general purpose 40 loading than BD, but IMO, still too fast for safe full power loads. Maybe that is why you have bulge issues?? I like medium burners for gp loads like Unqiue, WSF, & PP. For 40 minor, anything W231 & faster works great.

I've been loading the 40 since it's inception, never found it diff to load for. Yes the case head is slightly thinner, why one should stay away from dubious +P designations, but I've never used my bulge buster, ever. Stick to book data, stay well off the max book loads, all is good.

Yes, all semiauto rounds should get a taper crimp. I never measure, I can eyeball 0.002" & that is close enough.:wink: FWIW, taper crimp can't effectively hold a bullet in place unless over done to where it deforms the bullet. It's case neck tension, same for any semi round. Think about how a TC works, the crimp starts at the case mouth & tapers away from the bullet as it goes further down the case. So it's not holding the bullet in place at all & too much TC can actually cause a loss of case neck tension. Keep that in mind.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Fred: I was referring to the OP using Blue Dot. I don't hot rod my .40 S&W reloads and I urge others not to do it either. Simply no reason to since paper or steel targets will never know the difference. Lets face it the vast majority of .40S&W rounds fired are fired at paper or steel targets. If you included tin cans and bottles then it is probably close to 99.9999 %.

My standard load for 165 gr plated boolits is 5.4 gr of W231. Functions fine in all my guns and is not terribly hot. I was looking for 850 to 900 fps. It even runs my Kel Tec Sub 2000 carbine.

The reason why I get bulged cases is because I pick them up off the ground at my IDPA shoots. Most are once fired factory rounds shot thru Glocks or other Striker Fired Semi Autos which all have generous chambers. But since the Factory rounds are around .420 in dia. and the chamber is @.435+ something has to give. Simply full length resizing fired brass will accentuate the bulge.

Luckily most of my Brass is only reloaded once as I don't go looking for it after it is fired.

I have a Storm Lake Barrel for my G35 and it has proven to be completely unreliable. Any Malfunction during a stage and you just lost, since it throws your shot count off and generally results in an extra Mag change that kills your time. This is all a result of a tighter chamber.

I am about to shoot about 800 of those reloads in the next two weeks and I doubt I will see any malfunctions.

The purpose of Taper Crimping the bullets is to prevent them from being pushed back into the case in the magazine and during feeding. Case neck tension also plays a big role, however if Taper Crimping really didn't do that much, No Factory Auto Pistol round would have it. It must do something as ALL Factory Loaded Auto Pistol Rounds have a taper crimp. Believe me if they could get away without doing it they would, as eliminating 1 step from literally Bazillions of rounds loaded would definitely save them some money.

For those who can't eyeball how deep the crimp is,,, it should be .417-.418. I'm a machinist and my eyeballs are precisely calibrated,,, I can't eyeball it. :bigsmyl2:

Randy