What BHN number should I shoot for casting for 40 S&W

[boltons75]

I am mixing up some alloys that I have, I have pure lead and I have some unknown that I am assuming is linotype, its BHN is 22.7. The unknown I got from my uncles farm after he passed away, and it was poured in bread pan sized ignots. I have smelted it down into my ignot mold. My question is what area should I be in for casting for my 40 S&W? I got a batch to about 14 BHN, and another to about 12.5. Should I be going softer or harder? I have only cast round balls for a .54 cal Custom Hawkins, and that was where my pure lead came from. My 14 BHN came from 2 parts lead to 1 part of my unknown, and the 12.5 was 3 to1.

[jsizemore]

A general rule of thumb is to figure what your chamber pressure will be and divide by 1440 and the result will be your BHN. SAAMI specs and powder companies pressure tests is your friend.

[pdawg_shooter]

Dont get too hung up on BHN. The 3 most important things in cast bullets is fit, fit and fit! Your firearm will tell you what it likes.

[boltons75]

Dont get too hung up on BHN. The 3 most important things in cast bullets is fit, fit and fit! Your firearm will tell you what it likes.

Well I don't want the pure lead and I'm thinking my unknown alloy is too hard, so I'm mixing the two and just trying to get a rough idea, I have the Lee bhn tester, so getting the hardness is no big deal. Looking for a starting point, and I have the LAM2 with the proper die for my bore.

Sent from my rooted, mikg'd, aggressive freedom'd Evo 4g.

[Wireman134]

3:1 water dropped should do for full pressure loads should be around 18-20 bhn

[fredj338]

Depends on the powder & charge/pressures. I find ww BHN about right for most 40 loads using WST upto PP in powders. As noted, fit is more important.

[Ole]

If you're just punching paper, aim for 2% SB and as much SN as you need to get good fill outs.

Water dropped, that alloy should be hard enough for just about anything (16-18BHN)

[boltons75]

Not shooting full loads, right now with Rainier and berrys 165 gr, I'm using 4.5 gr of titegroup. So around 18 is a good starting point.

Sent from my rooted, mikg'd, aggressive freedom'd Evo 4g.

[waksupi]

Figure your desired speed, ie, 1200 fps. For this, you need around 10 bn. For 1100 fps, 9bn. For 1000 fps, 8 bn. Get the drift? Two points less on Bn hardness,than the first two fps numbers will put you on the needed hardness, and probably at the top end of what you really need. It seems the faster I shoot a boolit, the softer I can get away with on a sliding scale.

[popper]

It seems the faster I shoot a boolit, the softer I can get away with on a sliding scale. Is that backwards from the rest of your post?

[williamwaco]

You need to forget about BNH all together.

Your .40 will work fine with anything from 10 to 40 BNH.

Yes, I have one. ( Two actually, a Smith and a SIG ) My current alloy is about 12BNH.

See:

http://www.reloadingtips.com/pages/loading-40-sw.htm


For more info on the .40.

.

[evan price]

Depends on how fast you want to push those lead slugs. Sounds like with 4.5 gr Titegroup you're pretty standard velocity.

I'd make some of those 12.5 BHN ingots into boolits, size and loob them to fit your gun, and try it out. I bet you will see good results. Try the 14 BHN next if you have significant leading. Anything more than 16 BHN is really a waste in a pistol.
Titegroup burns very hot and has a sharp pressure spike so be aware you may see leading at the chamber end due to the base getting scorched. If you see that, before you change the boolit, try some mid-speed powder like HS6 or 800-X and see if the problem persists. I love Titegroup and use a lot of it, but it can be sometimes problematic with cast boolits due to the heat and speed of its burn.

[cajun shooter]

The old timers used from too soft to too hard and I remember in 1970 when I started casting that everyone was stuck on Lyman #2.
It reads at 15 BHN and is for most hand gun calibers too hard for all but the heavy loads.
The reason that things were different then as to now I feel is because of material supplies.
I could at one time go to a service or filling station as we called them and they would darn near pay you to haul away all the WW's they had. Any tire shop also gave them away for free.
Today is about conserving what you have to stretch it out as long as possible.
I would think that a alloy of 12 would suit your needs but your gun will tell you if that is enough.
There are no hard and fast rules in alloy use. It's mostly trial and error. Start some where around the numbers given by all the posters and see what you have. Later David

[waksupi]

Is that backwards from the rest of your post?


What I mean is, once I reach a certain hardness, it seems I can get more speed for the amount of hardness I have.

[boltons75]

Thanks for all of the helpful replies, I'm glad that I found this forum, looks like a big helpful community. I'll start to cast some up when I get a rain free day, then size and load em up to shoot.

Always carry, never tell.

[fredj338]

Figure your desired speed, ie, 1200 fps. For this, you need around 10 bn. For 1100 fps, 9bn. For 1000 fps, 8 bn. Get the drift? Two points less on Bn hardness,than the first two fps numbers will put you on the needed hardness, and probably at the top end of what you really need. It seems the faster I shoot a boolit, the softer I can get away with on a sliding scale.

Vel really has little to do with it. It's pressures. The 40 is a high pressure round, TG is a high energy/pressure powder. Many do not get good results w/ that combo & lead bullets. I & other prefer medium burners w/ lead bullets especially trying to get higher vel (lower pressures).

[boltons75]

Vel really has little to do with it. It's pressures. The 40 is a high pressure round, TG is a high energy/pressure powder. Many do not get good results w/ that combo & lead bullets. I & other prefer medium burners w/ lead bullets especially trying to get higher vel (lower pressures).

So, what powder do you suggest?

Always carry, never tell.

[canyon-ghost]

Bullseye or similar fast burning powder.

Since the 40 S&W is supposed to imitate the performance characteristics of the 41 magnum (didn't know that until I read it), you can shoot anything from wheelweight to linotype. The smaller case means you need a fast burning powder. 2400 would be one choice.

I think it would be great to try loading 40 S&W, like to try that myself.

[Hounddog]

Listen to father Fred.. He knows his stuff. He has converted me to the straight and narrow path Of WSF and WST for 40 cal loads and lead. Unique is also an excellent choice but doesn't seem to meter as well for some folks.

Can I get an AMEN!

Hounddog

[RobS]

So, what powder do you suggest?

Always carry, never tell.

Look at the reloading manuals and find the powders that are on the slower end of a burn rate chart.

Winchester WSF, Alliant Power Pistol, Hodgdon Longshot and HS-6 come to mind. They also meter well.

[BulletFactory]

The .40 is a real PITA

What dies are you using?

What is your bore dia. ?

what is your boolit dia. ?

what is your pulled boolit dia. ?

Lube?

[4719dave]

Is that backwards from the rest of your post?

Funny i read that 3x

[BulletFactory]

I got results with

WDWW, HS-6 @ 7.3, BAC lube, +.001 pulled

[468]

Listen to father Fred.. He knows his stuff. He has converted me to the straight and narrow path Of WSF and WST for 40 cal loads and lead. Unique is also an excellent choice but doesn't seem to meter as well for some folks.

Can I get an AMEN!

Hounddog

AMEN!

I use Unique in .40 and 10mm...

[sixshot]

I've burned over 30 lbs of WST in my 40 & 45 caliber revolvers, great powder! I mostly shoot straight WW alloy, 3.7 grs of WST & a 205 gr RN cast in the 40 revolver (actually a 10MM) will easily make power factor & shoots terrific.

Dick

[geargnasher]

The .40 is it's own beast, and will kick your **** if you don't have your ducks in a row and a good understanding of what you're doing.

FIRST, decide what you want your load to do, THEN build the load from the ground up to achieve this.

If you want to plink at 700-800 fps, use something like 10-13 bhn, but make certain you do NOT have a significant amount of boolit swage from those hard, tough .40 cases and inadequate factory die expanders that don't expand the case enough for our oversized cast boolits. Like Bulletfactory mentioned above: Pull a seated boolit and make sure it's still larger than your barrel slug.

Most, not all, but most boolit alloys containing antimony require a period of "age hardening", the will be soft after casting, then gradually get harder over a period of days, weeks, or months depending on alloy. Don't load them the day after you cast them, they will get swaged in the cases, and boolits that are too small for the gun's barrel will gas leak and LEAD. FIT FIT FIT.

If you want to go balls-out, you need a 18-22 bhn alloy, sloooooow powder like BD, HS6, or Longshot, and a premium, high-pressure rifle lube.

If you want somewhere in the middle, like 900-1K fps, 11-16 bhn will work great propelled by something like Unique or Universal.

What ever you do, make sure your case expander is doing its job. Most .40 caliber ones don't and won't work unless you use really hard boolits.

Gear

[popper]

Case swaging down bullets? Ran an experiment with 1 week old 50/50 Pb/#2 (AC ~12 BHN) Lee TC bullet. Sized to .401, seated in many-times fired RP&Win case, expanded with .397 RCBS die. Cut the case with Dremel cutoff disk and wow, the CB was still .401! Did the same thing with SWC T/L (melted MBC 9mm AC ~ 18 BHN) CB sized .400, same results, .400 so I will reconsider getting a larger expander until I shoot some of these. I haven't had much trouble with leading using MBC #5 at .401.

[Lloyd Smale]

you guys make this tough. I load thousands of 40s for my neighbor who has a couple glocks and a couple ruger carbines. I load 180s cast out of ww with a bit of tin and 5.5 grains of pr200 (surplus aa2) Goes bang every time, shoots pretty good out of his guns and doesnt lead any of them even the glocks.

[shootinxd]

+1 what Gear said.It seems that the 40 can be the biggest pain in the butt.

[BulletFactory]

I hate loading for the .40. Try everything you can, they still lead. Once, I got 50 to shoot without leading in an XD, then blew the barrel. The new barrel wasnt cut right, so it leaded. I found a buyer for the gun, so I lapped the throat, it worked after that, but the gun was gone a couple days later, so I dont know if it still works. I got the M&P going once, 100 rounds, but now its leading again. I think its a lube issue, so now Im waiting on the mail. Trying new lubes with it. I'd like to make the bullets a little bigger, but dont want to screw up the die, or lap the throat o this one, because the thing is pretty accurate for the first 50 rounds or so, and I don't want to mes up a pretty good barrel.

Sorry for complaining, not enough sleep I guess. After a couple years, you get frustrated.

[popper]

I guess I'm just fortunate or lucky, no problems here. Now 9mm is another story.