200 gr lead and .40 S&W

[cmhellie]

I actually ended up a little shorter than you. I made some dummys at 1.175 and when I cycled them to check for setback, the ears of the feed ramp made some pretty good gouges in the bullet to a point that I'm pretty sure accuracy would be affected. I dialed my bullet seat down in increments of .01 +/- .005 until I reached the point that no bullets were marred and that was 1.150. This will be my test length. It will probably take me two weeks to get to the range, but I'll get there and report back.

I have read about this feed ramp issue many times and I probably should take all my guns in to have some tuning done, but I haven't.

 

[LiveLife]

Great. Looks like you are headed in the right direction.

Keep us posted as to how the range test goes.

As to feed ramps, with the exception of one tight chambered 1911 match barrel, I have not touched the feed ramp of any factory pistol/barrels and I haven't had much issues with feeding/chambering. Even for feeding SWC loads for tight chambered Sig 1911 and various Lone Wolf barrels.

I would try working with the bullets/loads before I make any changes to the feed ramp.

 

[wally]

I shoot a lot of 40S&W 200gr plinker loads using 5.5gr-5.7gr or so of Unique, which is a full grain under the Alliant 180gr cast load data.

Are you sure of your numbers? I didn't see any cast load data on the Alliant web site.
They give 6.7gr Unique as the load for a 180gr Gold Dot JHP with CCI primer and 1.12" OAL

I use 5.2gr Unique and 180gr hard cast bullets and I'd hardly call them plinker loads -- mixed in a magazine with Gold Dot JHP factory ammo I can't tell which is which when shooting. All I'm saying is my experience with these loads (about all I shoot in .40S&W) I'd be real leery of using more powder with a heavier bullet.