Best 40 S&W bullet for hunting

[Kuyong_Chuin]

Unless you're casting your own homemade bullets you don't need lube, when you buy them from online they're already lubed up for you.

I've loaded a lot of .40, and LongShot works well for the most part. If you're using hardcast bullets, I would drop about .5 gr compared to jacketed load data and work up from there. I've found through loading a bunch of Longshot that it can be very consistent, or fairly inconsistent too, it just depends on the charge. I've used it in my Glocks and with 180gr can get over 1150 from a 4" and over 1300 fps from a 6".

I don't think Longshot is a good choice for 200gr though, in the .40 anyways. It does fine with 180's but the 200's just take up room and the charge weight is so low that you can't get up good velocity with it. Other powders like 800x and a few others do well with 200gr bullets, but Longshot lags using the 200gr bullets in the .40. It does work well from 135-180gr though.

Also, if you have any you can just use factory .40 JHP ammo and that should work well enough. I'm not sure whether you're reloading because you don't have any factory ammo, or if you're reloading just because. I mention this because if you're having a hard time locating reloading components then factory ammo will work. Factory ammo, from 135-180gr will drop a deer like a sack of spuds.

I'm just getting into reloading. I have on hand right now 25 guardian gold hollow point rounds in 155 grain and the rest are FMJ rounds in 165 grain of factory ammo. I have 865 40 S&W cases to fill. 100 rounds will be used for when I take the CCW class, plus extra for practice. Have 40 rounds of the FMJ rounds on hand right now. Trying to find factory 40 cal ammo around here is a crap shoot. And when you do find some it is when the truck just came in and they are usually FMJ rounds. Took me three month to get a box of 50 Winchester 165 grain FMJ rounds and that is with my sister working at the store waiting on some to come in so I would have at least one box on hand other than my Hollow Points. Found some bullets for reloading that are hollow points for $65 for 500 called extreme bullets but can't find any info on them. Might get a batch just to have for practice if nothing else. With my tumbler late and my chronograph back ordered will not be doing any testing till they come in and I get some rounds made up. Thanks for the information. Right now I am up in the air to what I am going to do this year. Tried to see if I could operate my granddad' s old 30-30 using my left hand to work the action without use of the right hand and that didn't work. The extra weight of the scope and the tightness of the factory loop lever about broke my fingers trying it. If I still had the one that I owned that got stolen years ago I know I could work it with one hand. I have done it many times but it had a large loop lever and no scope. I might have a solution to my hunting problem if I can find a small universal barrel mount rail and a red dot sight for my other carbine so I can sight it in because the iron sights are useless the way they are to me. A foot high at 110 yards and that is on the lowest setting and it is marked up to 1600 meters.