Casting for the 40 Smith & Wesson

[wkelley70]

Today I finally experienced satisfactory performance shooting cast bullets in my Smith & Wesson M&P 40.

Until today I have had a terrible time with leading. 100 shots would leave so much lead in the barrel that it seemed like there was enough to cast one more 180gr bullet.

I am using a NOE 180gr RF mold and sizing to .401 with a Lee sizing die.

I tried straight wheel weights, then wheel weights and super hard at 15:1. Either way there were slivers of lead towards the last half of the barrel. I also tried a very light crimp so as to not undersize the bullet. This too did not help.

I slugged my barrel and it is at .400, or a little less. Sizing to .401 was not the problem

Finally, I switched from 45/45/10 to LsStuf Whitel label lube 2500+. I just pan lubed with the 2500+ some bullets that had been previously lubed with 45/45/10. That was the magic I needed. Leading is now minimal. It is not much more than streaking that I should be able to easily remove.

The lube switch was my last straw. I was beginning to think that bullet casting was not for me. Fortunately I am not the type to give up on things.

Next, I will see what can be accomplished with straight wheel weights and 2500+. Maybe the softer bullet composition will create a tighter seal and eliminate all leading. If not, I am more than happy with my current results.

I would like to thank all of you for sharing your casting wisdom on this forum. You all are the reason that I have made it this far.

Also, if anyone is interested my load is as follows:

180gr NOE RN cast using wheel weights + super hard at a 15:1 ratio
COAL 1.125"
4.3gr Titegroup
Remington 5 1/2 primers
mixed head stamps

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

casting that hard, might be the culprit. A boolit that hard, depending on the MV could be skidding in the barrel, which would be the muzzle end leading.

What are your Bhn and MV?

[wkelley70]

A string of 9 shots averaged 916 FPS with 45/45/10 only (didn't chronograph today with the 2500+). I am not sure about the BHN as I do not currently have any tools to test it. I am thinking that the super hard was unnecessary, though.

Is it possible that I need to add straight lead to wheel weights? I would really like to get rid of that last bit of leading, but it is now very, very minor compared to what I previously experienced.

[.5mv^2]

Kelly, you might try a slower burning powder as well.

[RobsTV]

The two things that fixed all 40 S&W issues here were, remove the Lee Factory Crimp die, and slow down the boolit, keeping it at less than 960fps in 5" barrel.

[ihuntbear]

i also load for my 40 cal..I use 2/3 ww 1/3 pure lead and 12 inches of 95/5 lead free solder.water drop out of the lee mold .then pan lube with alox..no leading.i use 5.3 gns of unique powder with a 175 gn cast boolet.but with my mix it weighs 182 gns.some here say drop the 95/5 but i still use it

[wkelley70]

It looks like I have two more things to try:

Softer alloy (probably straight WW)
Slower burning powder


I really like Titegroup, so I will first try the softer alloy.

Thanks, again, for your help.

[Oreo]

I hear WSF works real nice with cast in 40. It meters well too.

[fcvan]

Lee 401-175 TC and 401-145 SWC cast with COWW, range scrap, and 50/50 WW/Scrap and sized to .401. 5 grains of Unique, lubed with Javelina, RCBS, Lyman, Home made loob from a recipe on this site, and Lars BAC. Thousands of rounds through a Glock 22C, Glock 23, and a Vaquero 38-40/40 S&W with zero leading. Everything I've tried shot extremely well and cleaned up with a dry patch. Maybe I've been really lucky because from everything I've read lead boolits in a Glock will kaboom. Of course, I didn't read that until after I had loaded and shot thousands of rounds. I do get some leading in the compensator port on the 22C but it cleans up easily enough and didn't really affect accuracy. Loading .40 has been as easy as loading .45 ACP and .38 special. I did buy barrels for the Glocks but they were 9mm conversion barrels because my collection of 9mm brass got somewhere near 20k pieces and I felt I needed to start shooting 9mm again. Frank

[sixshot]

In my competition revolvers I mostly use a 205 gr RN wheelweight slug loaded with 3.7 grs of WST, this load always made power factor in my 6 1/2" model 610. I fired 86,000 rounds in 2 years with that combination, probably didn't clean the barrel 5 times, cleaned the cylinder a lot!

Dick

[km101]

A string of 9 shots averaged 916 FPS with 45/45/10 only (didn't chronograph today with the 2500+). I am not sure about the BHN as I do not currently have any tools to test it. I am thinking that the super hard was unnecessary, though.

Is it possible that I need to add straight lead to wheel weights? I would really like to get rid of that last bit of leading, but it is now very, very minor compared to what I previously experienced.


You dont need a lot of tools to test relative hardness. You can do it with pencils!!
Tead up on it here, and you can check hardness quickly and cheaply:http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=75455

[wkelley70]

I did things in a different order than I was initially planning. I tried a diffent powder before casting "softer" bullets.

My new load was:

180gr NOE RN cast using wheel weights + super hard at a 15:1 ratio/pan-lubed with White Label 2500+
COAL 1.125"
5.0grs of Clays Universal
Remington 5 1/2 primers
mixed head stamps


Unfortunaltey there is still some minor leading. It looks like my next experiment will be to cast the bullets with straight wheel weight.

[wkelley70]

I still haven't got around to trying softer bullets, but think I found a powder that my gun "likes".

I just got back from shooting 85 rounds of the following:

180gr NOE RN cast using wheel weights + super hard at a 15:1 ratio/pan-lubed with White Label 2500+
COAL 1.125"
5.0grs of WST
Remington 5 1/2 primers
mixed head stamps


With WST there was only a very, very small amount of lead streaking. This load is quite acceptable to me.

I am not done experimenting, though. Next I will load bullets cast using straight wheel weights/2500+ lube and try Titegroup and WST. I am guessing that there will be too much leading with Titegoup, but that the WST load will be acceptable. If I did not like the economy of Titegroup so much, I would just settle on WST right now.

[canyon-ghost]

Sounds like Bullseye could be a viable powder although I haven't looked it up in .40 S&W.

[happy7]

In my springfield xdm which has very minimal lands, I found that I needed a slow burning powder. I switched to true blue and that helped a lot. I then also started water dropping the bullets to make them hard. This also helped and together the problem is completely fixed. Before the bullets were stripping through the rifling and tumbling (and leading the barrel).

[willy3]

I have not started reloading for .40 yet but I have all the gear. I'll take into account some of this information. Thanks guys!

[wkelley70]

I have finally settled on Winchester WST. It does well with my M&P 40 as well as my .45ACP 1911 when shooting cast bullets.

I did try the M&P 40 with straight wheel-weights and found a little increase in leading over the wheel-weight/Super Hard mix. The increase in leading was not much and is still acceptable.

My final load, which I found quite acceptable, is as follows:

180gr NOE RN cast using wheel weights with White Label 2500+ lube
COAL 1.125"
5.0grs of WST
Winchester Small Pistol primer
mixed head stamps