Practice loads for my .40S&W Shield

[prs]

My Glock 23 functions with unfailing reliability with a charge of Trailboss just shy of compression. When the family shoots together, most of the clan prefer that pistol with that load. Have no idea how it chronys, but you could shoot it all day without stressing your wrist.

prs

[oldfart1956]

Blanco, I should think any of the powders you have listed will work in the Shield. Just start with the starting loads and see what cycles and maintains some degree of accuracy. I load some light loads for every gun I own from .38 special to 45/70....including my Shield in .40 S&W. I don't recall if I even shot any factory fodder thru it as of yet. I tried the Rainier plated rounds from Midway and am so happy with them I ain't even casting for .40 yet. At under 10 cents a bullet I can't see it happening any time soon. I used Winchester WST with 4.4 and 4.6 gr. loadings and I'm 1/2 way thru the 1000 rds. I loaded up. I actually enjoy shooting it and not getting beat up doing it. After the break in I'll load some full-house but always keep several hundred light loads for plinking. Yes, you can plink with a .40. I'm getting a lot of trigger time. practice on drawing and re-holstering and working off all the rough edges in the process. Go for it. Audie...the Oldfart..

[Blanco]

A really bad guess, No one puts 5# springs in anything but a 22lr.
The Shield is quite a bit smaller than the XDs45. I got to shoot one last month, a beast in 40 with full power ammo. If I bought a Shield, it would likely be in 9mm for that reason. Same thing for the G26 vs G27, the 9mm is just a lot easier to shoot well in a small/light gun.

Yea there were a bit of confusion on that, I was thinking trigger pull weight, for some reason my wires got a bit crossed.

The idea of using Trail Boss is unique. I had not given that one a thought but it is very interesting.

OLd Fart
Thanks for the encouragement.

I did find that Barnes has some copper solids for .40 in 125 Gr. I also picked up some Berrys 180 grain to test the heavy bullet light charge end of the spectrum.

[Blanco]

I got a bit of range time in finally.
I did not get to test all the powders, but I need to put down the info I do have before I lose it.
Just so we are on the same page what we are looking for a balance between recoil and accuracy... In my Shield.
In the first set I tested Unique and Bullseye with the 175 gr. Lee TC and CCI small magnum primer.I had 10 rounds of each loading and there were 5 different loadings of each powder. The loads that shot well for me with controllable recoil
Unique 5.2 Gr
Bullseye 5.2 Gr
I also tested 3 loadings of Power Pistol with the 180 Gr. Berrys TC
None of which were accurate, However, the lower loadings were very pleasant to shoot. As the powder charge moved up it became very flashy. The recoil went up also but it was a quick snap that was fairly easy to control and not unpleasant. Power Pistol shows promise and I will test it further with some lighter boolits.

[pjames32]

Blanco-I have an S&W compact .40 and my wife bought s .40 Shield. We have run a bunch of rounds thru them. Full power is not fun after 50 or so. I have a bunch of Blue dot so I started at the bottom load in the Hornady handbook, WSP primers and load 10 each, adding 0.1 gr each time until I found a round that would feed reliably. The Sheild took 0.2 more than my compact so I've settled on that load and we have fired 500 or so. The load is really a pussycat in both guns.
FWIW-I would suggest you take your CCW class with a .45 auto and a .45 revolver so you can carry up to .45 on your CCW. YMMV

[Doby45]

This is the same ole song and dance, using tools for tasks they were not intended to be used for. I had to explain this to my wife when she got here Kel-Tec 380 for dedicated concealed carry. She always wanted to take it to the range and shoot hundreds of rounds through it and she would make it through about 25-30 before she started to complain about how uncomfortable the little firecracker was to shoot.

Finally, I explained to her that should not be shooting that many rounds through a "get off me" gun. The intent of the weapon is to empty the magazine into a center mass target at about 3 yards max. It is not designed for dead-eye shooting at 20 yards and should not be used as such. Can you take it out while you are at the range and do some "trick" shots, sure. But, that is not what it is designed for.

Once she realized she could control a mag dump into a center mass target at 3-5 yards she was good to go and no further training is needed for the little guy.

If you want to use your tiny conceal carry weapon as a target weapon prepare to be punished. If you simply want to be proficient with your tiny conceal carry weapon, each time you go to the range make sure you can control it with a mag worth of ammo at 3-5 yards. Clean it, load it and put it back in your holster. YMMV


One other quick point to cement the thought process here. If you owned one of those crazy elephant guns would you take it to the range and put 200 rounds through it per visit? I think not. I would think that you would go and make sure it was sighted in at the range you would like to engage your target at and then you would clean it, and put it away until it was time to go hunting.