lee bulge buster

[heat833]

I was wanting to buy a lee bulge buster to try and get rid of those bulges at the rim for 40 s&w. But when i was reading about what they did i seen something about not using it on brass that is going to be used in glocks. But the paragraph was kinda confusing. Just wandering if somebody knows what they were talking about.

[44Vaquero]

They iron out the bulge but not the underlying weakness in the case. The bulge is the result of being fired in an unsupported chamber, once done the damage it also, so to speak. So if fired in another unsupported chamber and the weakened area happens to line up correctly the case MAY fail.

Hence the warning.

[heat833]

So i have about a 1000 brass casings that were shot out of a glock and have that little bulge. Once fired are these no good to reload period.

[starmac]

My understanding is don't use it in a glock again.

[W.R.Buchanan]

The case bulging problem is not peculiar to just Glocks. Many pistols have relatively unsupported chambers and usually this area is where the feed ramp intersects with the chamber.

Pushing the case thru the Lee die is a simple way to remove the bulge and I do it as a part of case prep for all .40 S&W cases I reload and shoot in my Glock and Sub 2000 rifle (which has a Fully Supported Chamber)

It helps with chambering to remove the bulge. Also if the case is not debulged it is already expanded, so from there a blow out can occur much easier than from a debulged case which essentially is starting from a close to new dimension.

More importantly the vast majority of Glock blow ups have been caused by early Federal cases marked FC or FC-10. These cases were made in 1995 and 96 and the web in the case was much lower than subsequent versions. As a result the web of the case did not back up the area of the case that was not supported by the chamber resulting in blow outs when pushed with stouter loads. These blow outs always seem to occur in the area where the Feed Ramp intersects the chamber. You can see how this area can be a problem when shooting stout or +P loads in the gun there will be a noticeable coined area at that place on the cartridge.

The accepted way of avoiding this problem is to not reload the $40 S&W above Mid Range velocities. Also scrap any bad cases or ones marked as indicated above. The .40 S&W is a high pressure round loaded to 35,000 psi. This is the same pressure as the 357. & .44 Magnums are loaded to, however they are nearly always fired in revolvers which have completely supported chambers.

A .40S&W loaded to Mid Range velocities will do anything you need to do with this type of gun. It is much more pleasant to shoot and you can concentrate on actually hitting the target instead of worrying about blowing up you and the gun.

If for some reason you feel the need for +P style ammunition to deal with some imagined threat, then I would suggest buying a box of Factory Loaded +P ammo and using it for when that circumstance arises. That way you are not at the mercy of used cases that you will never know the actual condition of.

I would also submit that hitting the target with a midrange load will do more damage than missing with +P, and even if you do hit with the +P I doubt anyone would know the difference.

It is pointless to debate the various degrees of deadness. Kind of a "one size fits all" type of thing.

Randy

[44Vaquero]

Heat, That's a loaded question! (Pun intended) The answer depends on lots of variables: Do you shoot a Glock or another unsupported chamber auto? Do you load to Max pressure/velocity for your reloads? Etc.

I am sure some of the others will eventually chime in on this question. It's not something that I worry about I do not shoot/reload for a glock and seldom reload at max listings. YMMV

See I told you someone else would jump in! W.R. did while I was typing.

[Bonz]

I prefer the Redding G-RX Carbide Base Sizing Die Kit for 40 S&W but I have both. The Lee Bulge Buster works ok with the .40 but is kinda funky with .380 brass. Sometimes the .380 brass cases tilts when pushing it thru the bulge buster which trashes the case. Personally, all of my .40's have fully supported barrels so I don't worry about the .40 cases being stretched out before "de-bulging" it.

[heat833]

Thanks all i only load mid range if not lower, this is the first ive ever heard of this with the 40 s&w