40 S&W bullet selection?

[barnabus]

whats a good bullet/mold for a 40 that yall are having sucess with? Any special problems with this caliber? Thanks

[TexasGrunt]

Lee 145 or 170. I use both in my 10mm pistols. I got rid of all my .40 Short and Weak pistols.

[Beef15]

The Lee 175 is all I have at the moment. Works well.

Will get something heavier eventually.

[kmrra]

I have the Lee 175 as well , no problems with it at all

[RobS]

The Lee 175 TC traditional lube groove is a good inexpensive means to working through cast boolit madness. If with a 6 cavity, one can run a bunch of boolits in a short amount of time too.

[Moonie]

I have both the lee's, the 175 TC I use most as it is a 6 cavity, I do wish they made the other in a 6 cavity. I use them in both the 40 S&W and 400 Cor-Bon.

[ghh3rd]

+1 The Lee 175 ... no problems in my Glock

[Tackleberry41]

The Lee 175 works, but I use an NOE 200/180gr mold. 200gr works good for subsonic in a carbine, with hollow point pins they are 180gr.

[TexasGrunt]

NOE has some 200 gr WFN molds on special this month.

[Boolseye]

I have felt no need to look beyond the Lee 175 non-TL for my .40.
It dropped a little undersized when I bought it. nice boolit, shoots great.
The .40 wasn't hard to set up for, casting and reloading.

[BattleRife]

Cast bullets for .40/10mm is not a hot topic on the forum now, but a few years ago there were several threads on the issue. Several veteran casters described it as a very challenging calibre to cast for, with a number of unique obstacles that one might encounter. Some people get lucky and their guns are totally plug-n-play with cast bullets, but apparently for every guy that gets lucky that way another guy gets one that cannot be made to shoot cast well, no matter what. In between are a large number of folks who can get good results eventually, but they have to work for it.

Geargnasher wrote a number of excellent posts on the topic, I suggest you dig them up.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Ditto on the Lee 175 gr TC boolits. Work great after Powder Coating.

Randy

[nannyhammer]

I use the Accurate Molds 40-165B in the .40 Glock. I've had less trouble getting it to work than I did boolits with the 9mm Glocks. Use a moderate load of Unique or HS-6 and everything works fine. Have it currently running about 1050fps out of a Model 23.

[rsrocket1]

I've seen that 9mm is the challenging bullet to cast for, not the 40. Mostly because the barrel diameters are all over the map from 0.355" to 0.358" while most 40's are very close to 0.400". The six cavity Lee 401-175-TC is very easy to cast bullets with. If detractors bemoan the 40 as being a compromise cartridge, the 40 bullet mold is the ideal balance between being big enough to hold heat unlike the 9mm mold which tends to cool too fast but not too much heat like the 230g 45 ACP mold which tends to get too hot and needs a press into a wet sponge every few casts.

After powder coating them, load 'em up and 'choot 'em. I've cast and shot about 50k in the past 6 years.

[Taterhead]

I have a Lee 401-175-TC in 2 cav. Good bullet, but I dislike the mold. I much prefer the NOE 403-180-RF 5 cav mold in aluminum. Much much better mold.

[Shiloh]

LEE 145 gr. I have a LEE 175 trimmed to drop at 163. The NOE 150 FN is one I'd like to try.

SHiloh

[308Jeff]

I've seen that 9mm is the challenging bullet to cast for, not the 40. Mostly because the barrel diameters are all over the map from 0.355" to 0.358" while most 40's are very close to 0.400". The six cavity Lee 401-175-TC is very easy to cast bullets with. If detractors bemoan the 40 as being a compromise cartridge, the 40 bullet mold is the ideal balance between being big enough to hold heat unlike the 9mm mold which tends to cool too fast but not too much heat like the 230g 45 ACP mold which tends to get too hot and needs a press into a wet sponge every few casts.

After powder coating them, load 'em up and 'choot 'em. I've cast and shot about 50k in the past 6 years.

Look at all those boooooooooolits! That's what I want to see in MY house.