40 cal leading (first attempt on this caliber)

[cloakndagger]

Its my first time reloading for the 40 cal, and the first batch has a leading problem.
First the load info.
Firearm: SA SD40
Cal 40 s&w.
Boolit:
Composition-straight ww, water dropped.
Lube- tumble lube, LLA before sizing.
Design- lee 178gr TC
Hardness (brinell) 13.5.
Sized- yes, lee .401 sizer
Cases.
Brand-Speer range brass.
Recipe:
4.5 gr Alliant "Universal" (with the pistol on the can)
Win small pistol primer.
OAL: 1.30

Ok, now the problem.
Description:
Lead deposits through entire barrel on lands and heavily in grooves after 25 rounds- cleanable with jacketed rounds.

Any ideas on what is going wrong here? Presently I am re-lubing with LLA to test in a couple of days.
If this does not help I Will lower the charge a bit (although recoil is normal to light)
I have another batch of boolits I rejected as "too soft" which came from donated mystery lead and rated 8.0 brinell. I may try a few just to see if Im running too hard.

Usualy straight ww and the single lla lubing works for me (that is, in my .38 spl loadings) so I am slightly stumped.
Thanks for the help

[HATCH]

Whats the as cast size?

[cloakndagger]

.4035 as cast

[9.3X62AL]

OAL = 2.25"? Huh?

I use the Lee 175 grain TC with conventional lube groove, cartridge OAL is 1.135".

[Larry Gibson]

Suggest you add 2% tin to your COWW alloy and AC, let age for 7 - 10 days before lubing, sizing and loading.

After the 7 - 10 days aging TL lightly for just a golden hue and let dry completely (24 hours at least). Size and then lube again and let dry before loading. That is as per the directions for LLA from Lee.

Note; If your bullets drop at .4035 then load a few dummy round with as cast bullets and see if they will feed and chamber. If so then lube some twice as above w/o the sizing and try them.

I suggest you up the Universal charge to at least 4.8 gr or 5 gr with the 175 gr cast bullet. Lyman calls 5.5 gr as "max".

Larry Gibson

[9.3X62AL]

I'm not a tumble-lube user, can't assist with that part of it. The 40 S&W can be a more demanding caliber than many handgun chamberings, esp. with lead boolits. For certain, you are NOT the first to be tripped up by its moodiness. My success with the caliber has been in treating it like a rifle, because its internal ballistic environment is like that of a rifle--high pressures, fast twist rates, need for strict adherence to diametric discipline between boolit and throat/grooves. I use an alloy similar to your own, 92/6/2 (BHn 14-14.5) and soft lube (50/50 alox/beeswax). Don't throw in the towel--all things excellent are both rare and difficult.

[cloakndagger]

Sorry about that oal number, i dont have any clue what I had on my mind at that time (or lack thereof)
Oal is 1.130.
The reason I am treating the powder charge as I did is the boolit dropped at 180 gr avg.

Tried a couple of unsized boolits today that I had culled and set aside (surface wrinkling) but they would not chamber in my first test gun, did chamber in a friend's sigma though.

I will try to come up with some more tin solder in this next batch as well. Eventualy this will become a large project of 3000+ so I'm trying to get it right.

Thanks for the advice so far, keep it coming!

[cloakndagger]

Ok, following the one change rule,
First I re-lubed and let cure, shot ten. Some alleviation to leading, but still signifigant.
Next, I dropped the charge 1/8 gr, which improved the leading in the grooves.
I guess next is try a "soft" lot and see what that does

[leeggen]

I have a 40 s&w PX4- water drop coww did not work, it leaded oh 7.4 gr AA5.
Adjusted bullet lead only--coww aircooled same powder 7.4gr. AA5 no leading just gray haze in barrrel. All bullets were lubed with FWL. Now I brush the barrel and swab it with FWL and a very lite oil. Have shot about 200 rounds without cleaning, but I checked the barrel and still no leading. At the begining I was useing 7.0 gr AA5 with coww ac and it also leaded upto 7.4 and it went away. As you test only change ONE thing at a time!!!! I was probably 100 to 150 rounds in testing before I hit the good spot. I broke my barrel in by using Jacketed, Then cleaned thoughly before shooting cast.
CD

[cloakndagger]

Wow, It never occurred to me that just air cooling aould have such a radical effect on leading. I am guessing this comes from the nature of the crystalization formation within the alloy?

[9.3X62AL]

C&D, I'm no metallurgist--but like any sports coach, I'll take a win any way it arrives, and piece out the Xs and Os later. I have yet to try water-dropping, all of my boolits in all alloys are air-cooled, and have been since 1981 when I initiated this Road To Madness.

[cloakndagger]

I finaly broke down and CUT DOWN the tree I was using as a backstop the other day and hacked out a boolit. One side was heavily damaged from the target I was shooting (an old liscence plate) but the other side was pristine. There is still lube in the groove, and it does not seem that the rifling cut the driving bands to the bottom of the groove.

[gofastman]

Are you using a LEE FCD? is so, throw it away

[cloakndagger]

Just the standard seating die, and not much crimp at that

[jmort]

"Are you using a LEE FCD? is so, throw it away"

Do your own research, as this is bad advice. Don't use it if it is swaging down your boolit, but if it is not swaging the bullet, then it will promote reliable function in a semi-auto. Do your own research and ignore opinions of non-users. You may or may not like it, 2/3 of Cast Boolit members users like it and 1/3 do not, per long-standing poll. See this for owner/user reviews/ratings:
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/289675/lee-carbide-factory-crimp-die-40-s-and-w-10mm-auto
4.9/5 star rating - among the highest rated products you can buy. 20/22 5 star and 2/22 4 star. No user dislikes it for .40/10mm. All happy campers.

[9.3X62AL]

Mr. Mortimer has a point here--the Lee Factory Crimp Dies are enormously popular. I don't use one in 40 S&W/10mm, but what I will assert here is that ANY over-application of taper crimping or factory-crimping has the ability to reduce boolit diameter--so "more" isn't necessarily "better". All case mouth crimping serves a purpose--to facilitate feeding, and/or to retain bullets in place under recoil dynamics in the case of revolvers. Too much of a good thing is TOO MUCH. Consult SAAMI charts to ascertain finished cartridge diameter recommendations for setting a taper-crimp die.

[jameslovesjammie]

I see you sized to .401, but I didn't see anywhere what the barrel slugs at.

[cloakndagger]

Lemme ask a dumb question, in the form of a rhetorical statement. I was under the impression that the 40 s&w was one of the cartridges that headspaces on the rim of the cartridge.

[9.3X62AL]

Not really. Like most modern autopistol calibers, it "headspaces" on its case mouth. 45 ACP, 10mm, and 9mm also do so. 32 ACP and 38 Super are supposed to headspace on their semi-rim, but a lot of 38 Super users adapt chambers to case-mouth headspacing in the interest of improved accuracy.

[cloakndagger]

Thats what I was trying to get out, my terminology is malfunctioning. Anyhow, my brother had made some of the same boolits the other day, but heat treated them in the oven to 22 BHN, so I figured I would give them a whirl, they reduced leading substantialy, but it is still present. As to slugging the barrel, I havent yet been able to produce a satisfactory slug to measure by on my test gun.

As an aside, are there barrels that lead easier or more often than others? Ive heard glock owners that had leading in factory barrels did not have any in lone wolf barrels.

[9.3X62AL]

My 40 S&W Glocks ALL get aftermarket barrels for shooting cast boolits with. I am not one to say that polygonal bores REQUIRE replacement in order to shoot cast boolits, but the aftermarket barrels with conventional rifling--minimum dimensions--and slower twist rates make life a lot easier for boolit casters.

My experience with a LOT of 40 S&W barrels is that they are remarkably consistent--both barrel to barrel and maker to maker--in terms of internal dimensioning. Groove diameters are uniformly .400", with only a few venturing out to .401". Throat diameters run likewise, most in the .4005" realm and a few exceeding .401" by only a few tenths.

Smoothness of finish varies from maker to maker. We need to keep in mind that gunmakers intend for their 40 S&W products to run with jacketed bullets, so the interior barrel finish standards likely subscribe to that notion. So too do the insanely-fast twist rates given 9mm and 40 S&W barrels, 1-10" or 4 turns/meter most often. A pitch of half that rate would be fine for the squatty boolits used in these calibers. My CZ-75B in 40 S&W uses a factory twist of 1-16", and it has been BY FAR the most tractable and accurate 40 S&W pistol with lead boolits that I have ever fired. The Glocks with their Storm Lake barrels do about as well, though.

My "summation" answer to your question concerning barrel finish/design for the 40 S&W is that I opt for barrels that feature traits unlike those found in a lot of OEM 40 S&W barrels. One other reason for choosing aftermarket Glock barrels in this caliber is an abundance of caution--it is Glock 40s with OEM barrels that seem to do the Mushroom Cloud Routine with reloaded and/or cast boolit ammo, so it is just easier to re-barrel than spend months trying to diagnose whatever it is that makes Glocks go kB. I should add that 3rd Generation Glock 40s have far fewer such mishaps than do earlier variants. I enjoy The Chase as much as anyone, but I also have 35 calibers to ride herd on--and hunting season approaches apace. And yellowtail are going suicidally stupid nearshore, too. One's attention can get divided easily in retirement.