.40 S&W issues

[sirgknight]

I have acquired some .40 brass that was fired from a Glock23 and it is my understanding that the G23 leaves a small "bulge" at the base of the brass that should be resized by using a factory crimp die and pushing the enter brass through the die. Is anyone familiar with this procedure? Is the factory crimp die a carbide die? Is there any other procedure that's recommended?

[ghh3rd]

I have used the Lee FCD to de-Glock some .40 brass with good success. You can do a lot of them fairly quickly. If you are using an aftermarket barrel, chances are you won't have to run it through the sizer again. Since the .40 is such a high pressure round, if you run it through the Glock barrel again, it will expand again, and may crack and cause some serious issues.

[HammerMTB]

Take a look at your brass. does it have the Glock "smilie"?
Many do not. I have over 5 gallons of spent .40 brass, and most of it does not.
If it does, it can be "ironed out" with a push thru sizer die. You might want to save yours. I have so much of it, I just throw 'em away.
I have 2 Glocks, and neither gets "smilies" on the brass. I use aftermarket bbls. The stock bbls didn't seem to give problems either, but they aren't as good for cast boolits.

[mooman76]

Lee had a deglocking sizer die now.

[mold maker]

LEE now makes dies to fix this exact problem. Their not expensive and come as a set for several calibers.

[ghh3rd]

I have so much of it, I just throw 'em away.
Whenever I have some unusable brass (bent, .22's, etc), I toss it into a scrap box. I figure that someday I can sell it and use the money for some more lead :-)

One thing that I've found indespensible is a Gage. I bought a Wilson Pistol Gage http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=276502 for under $20. Just drop a loaded round into the guage and you instandly know whether it's a go or no-go.

Check all critical maximum SAAMI cartridge dimensions of straight wall cartridges - mouth diameter, base diameter, rim thickness and diameter, case and overall length and bullet diameter.
Good for testing unloaded brass too.

[HammerMTB]

One thing that I've found indispensable is a Gage. I bought a Wilson Pistol Gage http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=276502 for under $20. Just drop a loaded round into the gauge and you instantly know whether it's a go or no-go.

I have several of those. They are the bbls of my semi-autos. If the round fits there, it shoots. Simple and effective. No extra cost.

[Adam10mm]

Just size your cases properly and you won't have an issue. Save your money on the gimmicks.

[DLCTEX]

Don't throw 40 brass away. The guys in bullet swaging would love to have it to make bullet jackets from.

[Eagles6]

What moldmaker says. Lee makes a die to remove the bugle but it ain't the FCD.

[fatelk]

I've reloaded quite a bit of brass that was fired in Glocks, and never had a problem. I've seen the bulge but when I size them in an RCBS carbide sizer they look and work fine, so either I'm missing something, or have never actually dealt with the infamous "Glock Bulge".

The lead boolit load I use in my model 22 works very well and I don't have any leading. It's a Lee 175gr TC TL with a moderate load, under 900fps. The fired brass from this load has no noticeable bulge.

[82nd airborne]

or load it like you would for any other auto and get a glock to shoot it thru.

[NSP64]

I bought the Lee 4 die set for 40 S&W and it came with a FCD. Take the guts out of it (FCD) and use the ram for a Lee push through sizing die (I use my .40 sizer ram but a .38 would probably work) shove the case all the way through I got some .40 brass from GB and did it to all the brass. Then size and load as normal.:lovebooli

Any gun that uses an un-supported chamber can leave a bulge

[sirgknight]

A lot of good info here.....NSP64 is right on target with what I've been told by a fellow reloader. He uses the FCD but takes the guts out of it and just pushes the casing all the way through the die as if sizing a bullet. He says it works like a charm. Like some others of you, I haven't ever noticed the "glock bulge". I have resized many 40 casings, but never really knew to look for that bulge at the bottom of the casing. It's my understanding that the regular carbide sizing die will not resize the very bottom of the casing and that's why it needs to be pushed all the way through a different die to get the proper resizing, but I resize all of my brass and I've never really noticed any problems. My neighbor brought his G23 last night and fired a few of my reloads through his gun. All rounds seemed to cycle, fire and extract without a glitch. He said that he has fired literally hundreds of rounds of cast ammo though that firearm without ever experiencing a problem and his firearm has the original factory barrel (not after-market). Maybe there's something to be said about the "reloader". I'm very interested in the answer from ghh3rd about the wilson pistol gauge. Seems to me that would be a handy tool indeed. Thanks for all the good info. By the way, I don't throw away ANY brass, even my scrap brass is saved.

P>S> By the way, we did not notice any "bulge" in the brass from his gun. Wonder if the so-called bulges are caused from "hot" loads?

[NSP64]

I too save all brass, even calibers I don't own. You never know when you might buy a gun in that caliber.

I believe the bulge comes from loads that are on the upper limits. I have looked at a lot of brass and noticed that not all glock brass bulges( hence the theory of hot loads) some brass is bulged and doesn't have the glock firing pin signature. (different MFG using an unsupported barrel?). So, instead of waisting time looking for bulges or glocked primers, I run all (new to me ) brass through the FCD. My gun uses a ramped fully supported barrel, and I load middle of the chart, so my brass needs only resizing after I use them (and I only 3/4 length size then).


I had heard/read the warnings about unsupported barrels in .40 cal before I bought mine, and looked for something with a supported chamber.

(and it may be the MFG of the brass making some thicker than others.)

[sqlbullet]

To all the guys that said "Lee has a new die" and that it "isn't the factory crimp die"...Not quite.

Lee has a new kit out that you add to a carbide factory crimp die to make it do this job. However, if you have a Lee .401 push through sizer you already have the relevant part of the kit, which is the stem for your press to push the cartridges through the carbide ring on the FCD.

I have a friend who has a Ruger 40. I recently gave him a bunch of range brass I picked up while gathering my 10mm brass. Much of it won't chamber fully in his gun. I am looking to get an FCD in 10mm/40 S&W both to run my brass through, as well as his.

[dakotashooter2]

The bulge may not even be visible and the case may still chamber (by hand) with a slight bulge but................ I've found that they often can cause problems chambering during rapid fire. sometimes they cause enough drag or cock the case enough that they won't fully chamber without some assist.

[sirgknight]

I finally found some time to go through all of the brass I had and the few irregular bulges I found are definitely noticeable. They are actually farther up the casing than I imagined - almost halfway up the casing. For whatever reason, all of nickel casings (11) had the bulge, but only a couple out of 300 of the brass were bulged. I would have guessed it to be the other way around. Oh well.....now I know what the bulge looks like, and I will definitely not use those casings. The bulges are so great that they have to degrade the integrity of the metal. I wouldn't trust it under such a high-pressure round. But, that's just me.

[mastercast.com]

Folks,

I keep hearing get a case gauge.

Take the barrel out of your pistol, and use the chamber in your pistol as a gauge. When the rounds slip in and out, just at the point they will, all of them if you are using mixed case heads, you have arrived.

[jbremount]

I use .40 brass picked from a police range. I get brass with glock buldges all the time. I swap out the Dillon sizing die for the standard Lee sizing die on my reloading machine. This is done in the first stage of your reloading cycle, just where you want this done. The lee die will size down lower on the brass than the dillon die and get out the buldge. From my experiences, you don't want to use the Lee FCD, as it's use is just too late in the reloading cycle. This causes other problems.

[mastercast.com]

The best way to avoid chambering problems, is to roll size the brass. It takes out the GLOCK bulge prior to sizing. Not cheap, but it is guaranteed to prevent problems.

[DLCTEX]

JB: The FCD in this use is used in a single stage manner to remove the bulge prior to reloading. The FCD is a good tool when used as designed. It was NOT designed to be used loading oversize boolits. It will remove case bulges caused by over crimping, but should be an indicator of a problem that needs correcting.

[Bkid]

JB: The FCD in this use is used in a single stage manner to remove the bulge prior to reloading. The FCD is a good tool when used as designed. It was NOT designed to be used loading oversize boolits. It will remove case bulges caused by over crimping, but should be an indicator of a problem that needs correcting.

Why do you say it is not designed to be use with over sized bullets? Is it because that it sizes them down in the case. I wonder if that causes problems? Inquiring minds want to know.:coffeecom