Case life for reloading 40 S&W.

[BerettaBill]

I have heard quite a few horror stories on this board and elsewhere about accidents involving reloaded 40 S&W rounds. Granted most of the stories I have come across are about some cowboy loading hot loads. I am fairly new to reloading and I load quite a bit of 40 S&W rounds. I have also read that this particular round produces more pressure on the casing than most other calibers. This all got me thinking about the number of times that it is safe to reload a 40 S&W casing. For the average caliber there are a number of schools of thought on the max number of reloads per case. I am interested to know everyones opinions on how many loads are safe for the 40 S&W case. This board and the combined wealth of information that all of it's members contribute has been extremely helpful to me as a new reloader. Thanks.

[TexasSeaRay]

Bill,

My first rule for reloading is clean/tumble all cases and inspect.

My second rule is stay within the published boundaries concerning reloading and powder charges and configurations.

My third rule is to reload and shoot my cases until they wear out. They'll let you know when they're not fit to shoot. They'll have cracks; or when you go to set the bullet in, it will almost fall by itelf into the case and onto the powder charge because the brass (flared) can't support it.

My fourth rule is to scrounge for brass whenever and wherever I can find it.

Jeff

[Shoney]

I second the comments of TexasSeaRay. I have some 40SW cases with 20+ midrange pressure loads thru them.

I load a 200gr XTP with VV powder to max manufacturers listing @ around 1100fps. I only use once fired brass and only load it twice before it goes into the practice pile. Practice loads are mid range with lead and medium to medium/high with jacketed bullets.

I was very leary of getting the 40 because of the Urban Myths about kabooms, but the more I researched, the more confident I got about gettin one and reloading for it.

[Grandpa Shooter]

How many miles can you get out of a set of tires on your vehicle. Dunno. It depends on the driver, the road conditions, the suspension, the speed you drive at, how you brake, ......

Same with brass. Your variables are different than any of ours. Kind of like driving down the road of life on Firestone radials in a Ford Pinto. Can an accident happen? Yup. Is it likely? Nope. Don't redneck your gun or your loads and you can probably go nearly forever with brass. Hop it up a bunch and kiss the brass and possibly your gun goodbye.

Supercharge your Pinto and thing same thing applies.

[Shoney]

Grandpa Shooter wrote
Supercharge your Pinto and thing same thing applies.

Does this apply to my horse? Should I not be feeding my faithful paint that mixture of apples, raisins and loco weed???????

[Sigma 40 Blaster]

This is something I've been trying to figure out too. I have about 700 pieces of brass that are about to see their 6th or 7th loadings, I've never went over 5.4 grains of Unique with a 180 grain lead bullet but am starting to get a little leery about reloading them, especially since I'm switching to a little faster and hopefully cleaner W231.

I will usually reserve my older brass for competition shooting (don't usually have time to pick it up) so I have a natural cycle but as expensive as this stuff is getting I'm being more watchful about my brass expenses.

When I inspect them I make sure there are no cracks or holes anywhere. What else to inspect for and how? I read somewhere about running a paperclip inside of the brass but never could figure out why you'd do that.

[Crosshair]

Supercharge your Pinto and thing same thing applies.

My co-workers husband put a 302 or a 305 small block (don't remember exactly what one he used.) into a Pinto just to prove that he could. (DO NOT say "You can't do X." to this guy.) It was officially clocked at 240 mph. It could go faster, but it wanted to go airborne at that speed. He had to put lead into the spare tire well in the trunk to balance the car out.

[SL1]

Sigma 40 Blaster,

You mentioned feeling inside your cases with a paperclip, but said you do not understand what that is for.

I don't think that is useful for 40 S&W brass.

The technique is usually used for bottle necked cases that stretch a little on each firing / resizing cycle. The stretch typically occurs in the case wall at a point just foreward of the web. It leaves a circumferential groove on the inside of the case. If allowed to go too far, the case will eventually spit around the groove and cause a head separation when fired one time too many.

Head separations are bad because they allow gas to escape behind the area where the cartridge brass is pressed tightly against the chamber walls to seal the chamber. So, the gas can go back into the shooter's face, down the magazine well into a pistol grip, etc., often doing a lot of damage to gun and sometime to the shooter.

A method for detecting the groove as it is forming is to take a straight piece of stiff wire, bend a short piece at the end 90°, and use it feel the inside of the case wall through the case mouth. A a straightened paperclip is usually the wire chosen for the task.

But, 40 S&W brass typically does not grow in length as it is used. And, because there in no bottleneck in this short case, it should be easy enough to visually inspect the inside of the case instead of feeling it with a wire.

SL1

[BigJimP]

I vibrate clean and inspect my brass - before I dump them in a "clean" tub and ready to go into my case feeder to be loaded. After I load them - I check each round with a case gague before I box them up / so any real fine cracks that I even miss with my fingers will show up because the round will not drop in and out of the case gague in all liklihood.

Honestly, I load them until they crack - but because I shoot at an indoor range and brass is bouncing all over the place - what I get back may or may not be just my brass.

I think the only reason you would need to be real careful on .40's is if you were loading them hot or is you were shooting them in a gun that does not have a fully suppoted chamber like the Glock. All of my .40's have fully supported chambers ( Wilson combat 1911, Sig X-Five, Sig 226 ) so I really don't worry much about it.

[ShootingNut]

And you can reload them MANY times. As others have said, load the start load or slightly above, and don't flare them like a funnel, and you can reload them many many times with no problem. Inspect for any cracks or wierd bulging (which I have not found), and pitch them if you see that.
Otherwise in my opinion, just load away to your heart's content, the .40 is a great cartridge and one of the easiest to reload (at least for me).
Regards,
SN

[WESHOOT2]

I use a simple rule: "When in doubt throw it out" (not actually; culls go in a can marked 'Scrap').

I don't always stick with published data.
Screw SAAMI.
40 S&W cases can fail; so can any other.
They can last a long time, too.

But there's that "When in doubt throw it out" phrase that constantly dances through my brain.
I have a pretty good supply of "Ammo I would not shoot" loaded up.
Scrap.

[SL1]

BigJimP,

You wrote: "All of my .40's have fully supported chambers ( Wilson combat 1911, Sig X-Five, Sig 226 ) so I really don't worry much about it."

I don't have any of those guns, so I don't know for sure about your situation. But, I had read that my Sig 229 has a "fully supported chamber" in 40 S&W too. But, it did not look like a sure thing to me as I squinted at the cartridge in the chamber with the barrel in my hand. So, I sectioned a case (cut it axially through the head for about a 1/4" and then cut in from one side to remove half of the case head). When I put the cut-away case in the chamber, I could see the forward end of the web and that the case wall in front of the web was not completely covered by the chamber in the feed ramp area. If you try this, be sure to position the case head flush with the back of the barrel, where it will end-up as the cartridge is fired.

In my case, the amount of case wall unsupported by the chamber is much smaller than for a Glock, but it is not zero. Knowing where the wall support ends will allow me to inspect my cases very carefully in that area for any indication that the edge of the chamber wall at the feed ramp is marking my cases. To me, that would suggest that my loads are too hot because they are expanding the case in that area. If the case is NOT expanding against the chamber wall in in that area, then the lack of support there is not a factor.

SL1

[Hankster]

BerettaBill, First I will have to say that I concur with TexasSeaRay's comments.
I to, will tumble my brass before loading it, every time. I have been shooting the 40 S & W since about 1994.
I shoot both the Sauer P229 and the Ruger P94. I also shoot mostly cast bullets.
I have loaded brass in this caliber 25 to 30 times. I have had to discard some casings due to cracks as I went along, but have kept records to indicate how many.
Until it cracks or bulges, its good to go.
If you are competing, you might want to use new or once fired brass. As a police officer and firearms instructor, I have had access to cases of loaded rounds and an unlimited number of casings.
I you keep the loads light, you will be surprised how far you can re-use brass. Happy shooting.

[sfwusc]

How does reloading for a Glock change things?

I have a Glock 22 and 27.

[cryogenic419]

A lot of factors go into how long a piece of brass will last and how many loadings you can get out of it. Generally not loading it to max will help, not excessively flaring the casemouth will help. Some guns are just harder on brass than others. Some barrels/chambers do not provide the best support, which is where you hear about unsupported chambers and kabooms. Older Glocks (and other guns) had this issue. Over the years they have gotten a lot better but the myths still persist. I've picked up a few recently built Glocks in both 10mm and .40 and they offer great support for the chamber. I do have an older Sig Sauer in .40 that does not have the greatest chamber support but I have yet to see any issues with the brass.

http://s112.photobucket.com/user/sre...rt2-1.jpg.html

Check your brass before loading. If you see anything even slightly suspect throw that piece in the scrap bucket. Is that one piece of brass potentially worth damaging your gun? I've had some brass go many loadings, some brass I know was once fired by me and never made it past flaring the casemouth for its first reload.

Somebody mentioned using a paperclip to check brass, that's really more of a rifle brass thing. Use the paperclip to reach down into the case and feel if you are starting to get casehead separation. You are supposed to feel a ring around the case towards the bottom where it is thinning out.

http://riflemansjournal.blogspot.com...parations.html

[Clark]

I did some overload experiments with a Glock 22 40 sw ~12 years ago with good and bad case support.
For the last 12 years I have been thinking, "case support, case support..."

But in the last few weeks I dusted off the old Glock 20 [normally a 10mm] to use a KKM 40sw barrel with nearly perfect case support.
I was doing 200 gr Nos JHP seated at 1.295" with Power Pistol.
There are no book loads for anything close to this.
All I have is Quickload and a chronograph.
I built a recoil spring assembly that bumped up the energy to pull back the slide [when cocking, not when extracting a hot case] from ~ 22 inch pounds to ~ 37 inch pounds... the 14 pound Glock spring was replaced by 30 pounds with springs from Wolff and a guide rod I made.

It takes a minimum of 8 gr [1450 fps 30 kpsi in QL] to cycle and feed.
At 10.1 gr [1700 fps 54 kpsi in QL] a case failed.
At 11.5 gr [1860 fps 78 kpsi in QL] a case did ok.
Of course, QL predictions for hot loads in straight wall cases with PP can say a million psi, and the primer does not pierce, so the QL does not mean much up high.

My point is that an old used 40sw case had case head failure at a pressure it should have contained.

[sfwusc]

I am thinking about reloading and this stuff kind of scares me.

I mean my 40cal both are Glocks...so it doesn't make sense to reload for them, if it is one load per piece of brass.

[guncheese]

i tried out my fave range load in a few of my bud's guns and they all love it
its a 145 Lee SWC over 4.5gr BE for about 890fps or now 5gr CSB-1 under the same bullet at about 950FPS
that load is nice and light easy clean shooters
and with pressures under 20k ill bet my brass will run for years

ohh and i carry that load as well

dont have to push 40 to make it work out

ohh and we also load hi-tek coated bullets for the glocks and they work a treat

[Sevens]

sfwusc, when you posted to this thread -- what you did was to dig up a 6 and a half year old conversation. Some folks here, some mods, and with some discussions... they get all bent outta shape when and -OLD- conversation is dug up. For my own buck, I often find them interesting (some more than others!) and it's also somewhat entertaining because some VERY true statements made early in a discussion years back quite often simply don't hold true as new things are developed, brought to market, changes are made, etc etc etc.

To the subject!
Please realize that Glock pistols, their barrels and the amount of case head support they offer -- has absolutely changed, evolved, and gotten better. It hasn't changed much in the last 6.5 years, however, it certainly did evolve quite a bit over years leading up to that time. Further, more of those early Glock 22 & 23 pistols aren't out there being shot or discussed nearly so much. Many have been altered, barrels replaced, updated, etc. It's a safe assumption that if a guy posts in Nov of 2014 about his Glock 23, he is far less likely to be talking about a Glock built in 1995. He's more likely to be talking about a Glock made in 2010, 2012, etc.

These pistols simply have -MORE- case head support than they used to.

If that isn't enough...
.40 S&W brass has absolutely, positively evolved also. For sure, you can't find a "born on" date on a piece of brass the way you can on a Budweiser, but it's a safe bet that if you are gathering up brass that you bought from factory ammo, it's GOOD TO GO. And simply by the odds and by the numbers, most brass you find scattered on ranges is also far more likely to be newish production and way, WAY less likely to be old, original brass from 1990 or 1992.

Having concern that you want to approach this safely is a very good thing. But in the case of pulling up an old thread, you've given yourself old info and old opinions, but even most of these from 6.5 years ago are evidence that indeed, we do load this round with certain success.

I load .40 S&W with complete success and I was also apprehensive when I approached it. But I've got confidence in what I'm doing and many years and many tens of thousands of rounds has helped me to that point. I treat .40cal brass differently than others, I stick to a few particular headstamps that I know very well and I avoid the rest. This is not a problem with FOTYCAL simply because it's so plentiful, it's almost as prevalent as 9mm.

I load Winchester brass the most, I also load ATK brass. (CCI, Speer, Federal) I don't bother with other headstamps and I very, very VERY specifically avoid R-P brass in .40 S&W. R-P brass is thinner in the case mouth. It is not more likely to burst at the case head, but in my opinion (backed with hands-on experience), R-P brass is far more likely to give lousy bullet pull (case mouth tension, grip on the bullet) and during the furious and naturally violent feeding cycle, brass that doesn't have a SOLID grip on that bullet can lead to unintended (and completely unnoticed) bullet setback.

That bullet being pushed deeper in to the case reduces the internal combustion space and the pressure skyrockets and guns get blown up.

When this happens or has happened, all the evidence of what might have actually caused it gets destroyed. It's been my theory for quite some time.

I use sane, rational loads in .40 S&W and my ammo runs better than basic factory range fodder in -EVERY- .40cal pistol I've run them in, and so far, that's well over a dozen.

If you want more specific help or ideas in attempting to load for a .40 S&W chambered Glock, open a new thread or send me a PM.

[sfwusc]

Thanks. I have an older Glock 22 2nd gen.

I purchased it back in 2004, but it was refurnished LE trade in then.

I wonder if I have an issue.


My Glock 27 is 4th gen and purchased in 2013, so it should be ok.

[Marco Califo]

Be aware that Glock advises you to not shoot reloads in your Glock.
That said, I do. I have a Gen 3 G23 40 and there is some lack of support where it is ramped. I have seen photos of far greater Glock factory ramps.
Plated bullets work fine in the Polygon bore. I carried factory 180 JHP for duty rounds, but always reloaded target weight and charges.
Yes, your brass will show some degree of being "Glocked" or bulged. In my gun it is slight and I size and load again. Repeat.
I also have used a Lone Wolf 9mm barrel in that G23, with no complaints. And I also reload for a G26, with no complaints.
IMO, most of the Glock tupperware non-sense on the internet is a bunch of do-do, written by persons who have never carried a sidearm as a professional tool. I have always liked mine a lot, and can pickup any stock Glock in 9/40/45 and qualify with it on the first try.
Anyway, for target loads, I tumble and inspect my brass, and toss any bad ones.

[Marco Califo]