380 or 9mm brass for 40 cal

[jacksonsmith]

Do you use 380 or 9mm brass to make 180 gr jacket for 40 cal?
Any input please?
Thanks

[tiger762]

9mm brass because:

1. It is cheap and plentiful. 380 is neither cheap nor plentiful
2. 9mm brass is 0.394" diameter whereas 380 is 0.374" diameter. The finished product needs to be 0.400"
3. For 180 grain, the 2mm longer length of the Luger would be beneficial.

[andyt53]

Sorry for the thread hijack OP, but Tiger762, do you trim the 9mm brass? Im using the CH4D 101 dies and cant seem to keep the projectile around the .700" length unless I trim to around 380 length. I'm using 120 grain soft lead cast boolits as cores. Again, I'm sorry to hijack your thread OP.

[tiger762]

Oh, I long since gave up on using cartridge cases with RCE offering jackets so cheap. With the #101, keep in mind that the core seating punch being concave requires that the finished product will have more exposed lead and a shorter jacket. Others are having luck using the punch of a Lee sizer die instead. In this case, a 0.355" punch. That way, you can have a longer jacket because there's no concave shaped cavity that needs to fill with lead. If you want the lead to be seated below the jacket mouth, then you're looking at a stepped diameter punch. Turning down a Lee sizer punch would be needed. I personally am OK with the amount of exposed lead with the #101 38/357 set. All I ask for in a swage point form is to have an honest to God ogive. I find the wadcutter and SWC shapes look like @ss...

[anotherred]

I use any 9mm cases, 120 gr slug and the bullets average around 187 grains. No time to trim. Swag, shoot and be happy.

[Cane_man]

^^^ exactly what he said... its so simple its almost free, why mess up a good thing!

[andyt53]

I've been using 9mm for jackets since I have a pretty large stash of them and don't even own a 9mm firearm. And I turned down the core seat punch that came with my 101 dies, turned down to fit perfectly snug in a 9mm case. The Lee push thru sizer punch worked okay. But I get a better end product when I use the turned down CH4D punch with the dome shape and flare the case mouths. Made up roughly 300 of them so far and havent had a problem. Im going to make a few without trimming the case and load up some tests. I just remember reading a post from BT saying to keep the bullet under .700" and my end product ends up around .720-.740" if I remember correctly. I wrote down notes on everything while testing, but I'm away from the notes since I'm at work.