Let's talk about LEE Precision 40 S&W once you get to soft powder coated bullets

[Oldfeller]

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Harken to the environment you are in ......

Lee stuff, Lee press, Lee specific problems with the relatively soft cast powder coated LEE bullets (bullets that don't work for much according to old existing jacketed rules).

Be nice. Some of you are bombastically quoting and arguing the rules for jacketed slugs in a cast bullet world that has a lot of other, considerably softer stuff in it.

[MT Gianni]

I have thrown away a 175 TL and kept the conventional lubed version as well as the 145 gr. I have several thousand of the heavy and 500 or more of the 145. Neither are PC'd and all are ww equivalent. What do you have for shooting soft?

Never mind found the other thread. Thanks OF.

[fredj338]

I am not sure what you are asking. I have some Lee molds that I cast & coat, one is the 180grTC for the 40.

[Oldfeller]

I was not asking for help, I was offering help.

I was currently set up for 40S&W and all my molds were LEE as were my dies and press. I was offering answers to nagging LEE questions since I am finishing up my 178 grain (powder coat adds weight) and my 148 (powder coat adds weight again).

Soft lead (not water dropped WW) poses new problems as the bullets you powder coat (or lube) are simply too soft to not be resized by the brass as it comes from the size die and as it gets modified by the assembly and crimp dies.

NEAT TRICK Occasionally due to simple aw shucks error you have to pull a bullet. If you are using a 3 hole press and you own some medium sized vise grips, simply take the vise grips and grab/crush the bullet nose.

Pull the 3 hole head out of the turret head and go through the hole with with the vise grips and put the shell rim into the ram shell holder.

Raise the stuck shell and the vise grips until you can see the knob joint side of the articulated jaw on the right. The powdered metal form with the inside notches will accept the vise grips between the two front notches making up a retention point. You rock or rotate/tilt the vise grips into engagement on the inside form of the circle so it is oriented "moving grip handle knob" to the right and the backside of the fixed jaw on the left notch. With light pressure, the vise grips will remain in their notch corners while you lever out the bullet.

If you do it right, the shell casing can then accept a fresh bullet, seat it in the bullet seating die and then do the first bump into the LEE Factory Sizing die. I can pull a bullet and leave all the powder in the case (most times). More often than not, you get a plunkable reload out of this drill.

I have done this trick for years and still haven't hurt the relatively hard sintered powdered steel that makes up the notched circular 3 hole turret form. It takes 5 seconds to pull the 3 hole turret, 5 seconds to nose crunch and pull the bullet and then about 5 seconds to put it all back where it was before.

[Oldfeller]

Shooting dead soft lead requires powder coating as the 40 S&W is fairly hot as pistol rounds go. Some apply lube over the powder coated bullets as a secondary leading prevention, but I have never found it necessary.

Firing water dropped powder coated LEE bullet forms will actually shoot some of the existing leading out of a normally rifled barrel if you shoot a fair amount of them.

Without using a polyester shell you can't shoot the dead soft bullets fast enough for decent soft lead impact expansion.

Actually, the 178 grain truncated cone wide meplat nose form does well as a water dropped hardened slug. Water drop them and then powder coat and then size the bullet. I think these constitute good self defense and hunting bullets and they will penetrate glass and car bodies fairly well.

Folks need to shoot for the spine when shooting lead for self defense. A couple of spine shots stop the BG right then ...... something that expanding jacketed shooters do not always achieve.

FBI ratings have your 40S&W wonder-slugs stopping short of the breaking the spine in a frontal shot for fear of over-penetration and lawsuits.

Your hard cast lead just keeps on going ......... but remember to aim for the spine no matter what else is in the way.

[Oldfeller]

This is referring to the donnybrook that prompted this relatively polite thread.

Lee Precison brand bullet seater die and factory crimp die .......

I have been sitting here running a LEE powder through expander (using a shell case based custom dipper) followed by a bone stock LEE bullet seating die and that is followed by a LEE factory crimp die all on a old manual style three hole LEE Rifle Turret press --- manually progressing the head to the next stage while you guys continue to snarl at each other.

I have intentionally removed or defeated all the auto indexing items as I found the occasional original problems that cropped up with LEE equipment got multipled by using LEE auto indexing into situations that could not be recognized and fixed in a timely enough fashion and resulted in lot based teardowns.

This means my current 3 holer acts like a single station press, with a fairly repeatable rapid manual die changeover. Think of it as 3 manual presses set up in a row --- it allows you to troubleshoot quicker and cleaner if you think of it as 3 manual presses in a row.

Exampes I will speak about are powder coating that is applied on standard LEE designs, the 145 grain shoudered .401 bullet and again on the heavier 175 grain truncated cone .401 bullet. If it is LEE, I am currently doing it and dealing with it right now as we speak.

I will also offer tips and tricks that allow crazy things like instant bullet pulling on a 3 hole press with no mess or fiddling around.

I needed to do such tricks because of the very non-standard stuff I tend to do with my 40 caliber Glock 22 and my Beretta 92 pistols --- using slow for caliber pulled powders such as Bartlett WC820 milsurp (30 cal carbine pull down powder). 13 grains is a lot of slow powder (compressed a fair bit) and these wind up being "close to 10mm" power levels when the bullets get heavier.

These are the LEE based hard cast bullet mythical "bear loads" for the 40 S&W ......




https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...coated-bullets


I am not going to spoil this thread. I will be discussing your LEE based processing questions (also offering help with powder coated LEE heavy and light bullets) but over here.

My rules are very simple -- be polite and nice to everybody. Don't type in all caps, that is impolite. Don't bring a feud to me, I simply don't reply to somebody who has an axe to grind.

My name is Oldfeller, I predate both the 40 S&W and all the versions of this current list and actually go back 3 levels back before that to the precusor lists that were email based. I became list active when the 8mm and 6.5mm milsurps began to cry out for a decent cast bullet mold. I helped start the very first version of these older lists and I remember when your main head dude was a newbie. I set up and ran the first versions of the LEE group buys. I set up the first Shooters stocked custom items that still remain. I have been banned, slammed and kabammed over time and really don't care for much as going over all this stuff yet again is a public service in my eyes.

"Be NICE and polite" is the opporant word with me.

[Maven]

Nice to see you back, Kelly!

[Oldfeller]

Hey Mavin, how are you doing?

I just dropped in because I was reloading 40S&W and I saw some bullying type stuff going on that needed countering.

This list hasn't changed much, somebody gets a moddy button or two to push and then the god complexes come out all over.

I will likely be gone again shortly most likely, sigh, things they are still too much the same round here.

[Oldfeller]

Something to discuss that may be worth it --- polymer coated bullets are slick little suckers that like to move the lead around underneath the polymer coating.

Also, how much you bake the coating translates as to just how brittle the polymer film becomes.

I think powder coated bullets have some cleanliness advantages, can resist leading much better but have some issues with crushing the softer lead types underneath the polymer coating during reloading and taper crimping steps.

Flip side issues include the assembled rounds coming apart occasionally and the bullets self-pulling themselves on unload cycles whenever soft lead is used. This has happened enough in these last two batches for me to consider starting water dropping everything from now on.

13 grains of WC820 is a compressed load under both bullets. Hodgdon data listing for 40 S&W crossed against the 10nm info says 13 grains of WC820 pulls "reasonable" pressures behind a 148 grain lead bullet. The books and Hodgdon on line says 13 grains of WC820 can get HOT under a 178 grain lead bullet.

Building a bear defense round off the 40S&W is an elusive goal, but the 178 grain wide truncated cone shape is a good one to base this effort off of. Water dropped would be a better place to start out for this, but baking out (curing) the polymer coating softens the lead up somewhat.

[MT Gianni]

As long as you're kicking around about Lee stuff talk about the 3 hole turrets. I switched to a 4 hole and use it much like you do. Occasionally I will load up two rifle dies in a 4 hole press and just use half of the turret. The auto index is rarely accurate enough for me to not just use it as a manual, 4 hole or 3. Do you see an advantage of the three?

[Oldfeller]

I have both of them, but I actually have a lot more of the 3 hole turrets as they went on close out sale when the 4 hole system came into use.

Also, I migrated away from LEE powder dispensing systems when the world moved away from flake and stick powders to ball powders. LEE sliders and rotating drum units leak ball powder very badly but work well with extruded stick powders and flake powders.

It is funny, I hand prime all my cases now as part of case prep and I bulk scoop just about everything using hand made scoops. I put the scoop in with the turret and the dies when I put the stuff for a caliber up between uses.

I use mostly Bartlett milsurp powders which come and go according to what lots of ammo are aging out and getting pulled down. These pulled powders use different amounts of powder for a use according to the lot you bought into.