Oal when loading handgun rounds.

[LAKEMASTER]

I'm a little confused on oal. I have my press loading 5gr of unique behind a 165gr Lee bullet.( 40 s&w ) I read people seating from 115 to 145. My main concern is obviously blowing up myhand. Can someone help with determining what I need to do ?

[rancher1913]

your reloading manual should have dimensions, and will tell you the factory oal, I try to match it so I know the ammo will work in all my guns, you do have a good manual don't you?

[DerekP Houston]

I either go by the manual oal for the bullet if I can find it, or I find as similar as possible and use that. For standard rn and tc I keep a few factory rounds laying around. I use that to set my seating depth the same.

[LAKEMASTER]

I have hundreds of factory rounds laying around. I was just worried about all the different information I'm seeing

[justashooter]

unique is a very forgiving powder that tops out at less than 22KSI pressure in most handgun applications. it is hard to blow yourself up in medium bore applications above 35 caliber in short barrels with lead bullets of reasonable weight. it is even hard to blow yourself up with smaller bore rifle length heavy bullet applications with unique. OAL is more important to autoloading feeding reliability.

[Yodogsandman]

If no load book lists the O.A.L. of your boolit, let your pistol chamber and magazine tell you, to a point. Seat your boolit to fit the magazine length and then try the "ker plunk" test into your barrels chamber with a dummy round. Adjust the length as needed. When the round fits flush with your chambers end, it's good. I would also check that the boolits base is not below the base of a factory round as it's seated in the case. That would reduce the amount of powder space causing excess pressures depending on the charge.

[DougGuy]

It also depends on what you size your boolits to. For a .40 S&W, if you size to .400" you shouldn't have any issues passing the plunk test with the barrel removed from the gun. If you size larger than .400" and your rounds won't go into the chamber fully, you may want to consider having the barrel throated so you can use the COA that you choose. If you have to seat deeper in the case, all this does is present a second problem as a workaround to the first in that you usually have to compensate your load data so you don't get excessive pressures. It's better to have the barrel throated then you can use whatever diameter boolit you choose, seated to whatever COA you choose.

[bangerjim]

Go by the loading manuals. Data abounds.

And what you gun will eat.

Semi's can be very picky and NOT even cycle with factory-spec OAL. You just gotta mess with what you are doing.

Revolvers will eat just about anything you stuff in the cylinders, as long as diameter is not too big.

Bottom line is......you gotta figure it out for YOUR guns, and not rely on a "fix-it" mentioned on here.

Works for me and all my guns..........and I still have both hands, ten fingers, two eyes, etc!

banger

[runfiverun]

how I do this.
I make a couple of dummy rounds.
I drop them in the chamber.
then I feed them from the magazine.
I'm looking for scuff marks in the throat area on the boolit and for the round to chamber fully.
now I have an established oal.
on the 40 rounds I'm loading, the oal is short because the 401 diameter boolit hits the rifling.
this means I need to lower my powder amount.
I'm running 3.6 grs of titegroup with 100% function and feeding [200 gr rnfp] and pretty darn good accuracy.
I could get the load down even more if I want to adjust the poi on target some, adjust the ejection distance
if I wanted to improve the slides inertia for better feeding, I could take the load up a bit more too.

[Old Coot]

I would not use any load or cartridge oal unless it was published in a reloading manual. The internet is full on typos and fools (not you run fiver run) who will type or mistype anything and have no responsibility if something should happen.

[Good Cheer]

Nothing to add except sometimes I load long to have the shoulder of the slug to engage the rifling.
That of course depends upon the chamber, the mold design, the OAL dictated by the cartridge geometry and clip, whether that long would feed to start with, whether shorter is good enough to start with.

[6bg6ga]

I've seen 40's that were blown up before so make sure the bullet is tensioned/crimped enough that it will not move. Consult the reloading manuals that state the proper length. Keep samples on hand if possible and start a reloading manual of your own so you can record different loads/lengths and such. Don't be afraid to ask the guy next to you at the range what he loaded. Any bit of information is good to have.

[farmersamm]

I feel your pain. There's not too many loads listed for the Lee molds. Spotty at best.

OAL sort of dumbs down reloading IMHO. A better set of data would be more helpful. Complete dimensional specs for various bullets would give a person an idea of SEATING DEPTH, not OAL. All bullets aren't created equal, even those that weigh the same. Seating depth determines just how much pressure you'll be dealing with. Sorta important in my book :grin:

OAL doesn't take into consideration the position of your crimp groove, or lube grooves, if dealing with a bullet SIMILAR IN WEIGHT. They can both be constructed different. PITA really.

Pistols confuse the issue more than revolvers. In addition to feeding issues, and magazine dimensions, you also have cycling issues. Just what charge weight will generate enough oomph to cycle your action.

I've found that finding something similar in OAL, at my bullet weight, is a start. Check all available data to find the absolute lowest charge weight listed for that particular set of parameters. Start there, and work up slowly, until the action cycles properly,, while staying within MAX charge weights.

Chrono will help you determine if you're pushing too much velocity, and possibly too much pressure, when nearing the top end.

I run two Lee molds thru my Citadel 1911 9MM. The 102gr round nose, and the 120 TC. Using HP-38, I had to do the seek-and-ye-shall -find method. Find similar weights, OAL's, and similar charge weights. Then work it up to where I had reliable cycling.

They wound up at..................

Lee 102gr RN, 1.030 OAL, 4.9gr HP-38, about 1350fps

Lee 120 TC, 1.065 OAL, 3.9gr HP-38, about 1150fps

Note of caution...... This is MY gun, with MY recoil spring. Everything else out there is possibly different. These are minimum cycling loads which will reliably run the action, and lock the slide open on the last round. The load for the 120gr TC bullet is, by far, the most accurate.

I can't see running hot loads thru a semi auto pistol. Keep it warm enough to reliably cycle, and the gun will last a LOT longer.

IMHO:-)

Any day above ground is a good day

[LAKEMASTER]

Right this second, my loads are 5gr unique seated to .140 I believe I'm safe to start here.from what I can tell, the slide closes.

[farmersamm]

I can only find 3 Lee molds for the .40 S&W. 145gr SWC, 175gr SWC Tumble Lube, and a 175gr SWC. (confused as to your 165gr weight)

Heaviest bullet will generally always take less of a given powder than a lighter one. So....if you're dealing with a bullet that's not on the charts, go with the minimum load for the next heavier bullet (provided it's not 50gr heavier). This is a pretty good safety factor, as we know the lighter bullet will take more powder for proper performance.

Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook lists two 175gr bullets. One shows an OAL of 1.100, and the other shows an OAL of 1.125 . Very close together spec wise. The lowest starting load for the two is 4.7gr Unique, giving a velocity of close to 900fps, with pressures between 15,000 and 18,000. Max pressure listed for both bullets is around 23,000. To attain max pressure, you'd have a charge weight of 5.5-5.8gr Unique.

Go down to a load that will only fire the gun, not cycle it. Then work your way back up to the lowest load that will completely fire, and cycle. The lowest (4.7gr) might just be adequate, ya never know.......have to test them in about .2gr increments.

Personally, I get a little worried when working with loads that only have a listed spread of around 1gr between min, and max. Not much room for error. It's one of the reasons I really like HP-38......broader range of loads for a given bullet weight.

[LAKEMASTER]

I should have been more specific,I have the tumble lube 175 dropping at 165.

L ast night wife had friends over so I ran into the loading room. My gun won't feed any rounds I'm making. There are scratches around the bullet section of the case. Looks like I need to size my bullets... the one I tried before worked fine but the bullet was not lubed nor coated. Guess it's back to the drawing board

[farmersamm]

I'm in the middle of welding up some new battery boxes for one of my tractors, and popped in to see what's up.

Check your cartridge dimensions against the SAAMI specs http://www.saami.org/PubResources/CC_Drawings/Pistol/40%20SandW.pdf And go from there.

Sometimes, and I stress sometimes, the bullet, as cast, won't chamber, thereby needing a run thru the sizer. Generally Lee molds drop at advertised dimensions. I never have had to size any Lee bullets, but it's not written in stone. If you're showing an excessive bulge in the case where the bullet seats, then you might need to run it through a sizer. Also, check the bullet for out-of-round.

Lymans Cast Bullet Handbook shows the data was compiled with bullets at .401 diameter, same as what should be coming out of the Lee mold.

I'd think the culprit might be the taper crimp. Sometimes you have chambering issues if the crimp isn't tight enough, and interferes.

Gotta go melt some metal..........

[LAKEMASTER]

When I got up this morning,I checked a few bullets that had pc on them, they were .404 in dia. I think I'll size a few and see what happens... now I'm waiting on my size die

[runfiverun]

holy Hannah.
404 is too big.

okay, adding in the extra diameter adds another dimension here, now you got extra diameter on the nose to deal with too.
so you reaaaaly have to start from square one and from the lowest powder amount.
sometimes I have to go below book loads to get started if I am not comfortable with how things are going.
jamming the boolit into the rifling can raise pressure just as much as letting it get shoved back into the case.
Unique is a forgiving powder but it has it's limits too.

[farmersamm]

I have to confess.......I'm still doing things the same as I did them about 40yrs ago:lol: I'd never heard of powder coating bullets till recently.

How much diameter does the coating add to the bullet? And does some of it come off when seating the bullet in the case? And, does it come off when run thru a sizer?

Guess things have come a long way since beef tallow.

[SUPERKNUCK]

Good information in here. I generally let the forward driving band sit right close to the rifling as this produces the best accuracy for me. And that of coarse is if the pistol is cycling properly with the right spring for the load.

[NavyVet1959]

I have to confess.......I'm still doing things the same as I did them about 40yrs ago:lol: I'd never heard of powder coating bullets till recently.

How much diameter does the coating add to the bullet? And does some of it come off when seating the bullet in the case? And, does it come off when run thru a sizer?

It's not just the diameter that it adds, but you have to account for how far the bullet will be set back given the angle of the chamber at that point. A 0.001" thick powder coating might mean 10 times that in how far the bullet would get set back in the chamber if it was just touching the rifling.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?288355-Multiple-9mm-handguns-more-than-one-bullet-diameter&p=3391425&viewfull=1#post3391425

For the Lee 105 gr SWC I have found that each of my 9mm handguns have a different max OAL that it can support. At least one will allow me to load it all the way out to the SAAMI max OAL, but most will not. The .38 SuperComp that I'm building has trouble feeding it regardless of the OAL, so I had to give up on that mold for that gun.

In the 9x19 though, that Lee 105 gr SWC is just a bit short to be loading at SAAMI max OAL anyway. There's just not enough of the bullet sticking in the case to hold it securely.

https://www.googledrive.com/host/0B8A9o0AImjXHfmlSQWdFVFRfSmd6d19mTG1jVXUzRWhrZk1KQ WFvdjJidlFtUERRcXh3M1k/lee-358-105-swc-loaded-saami-max-oal-9mm-320w.jpg

On the other hand, these work very well in my Glock and RIA 10mm semi-autos:

https://www.googledrive.com/host/0B8A9o0AImjXHfmlSQWdFVFRfSmd6d19mTG1jVXUzRWhrZk1KQ WFvdjJidlFtUERRcXh3M1k/lee-tl410-210-swc-resized-10mm-loaded-320w.jpg

[LAKEMASTER]

Just sized about 100 40s...sizing the pc bullets was much more pleasant then the BLL ones. I was pretty impressed when I looked at several off them and realized the pc just smashed into the lead....