I did a lot of load development with my M&P40 and swapped back and forth between the stock barrel and a 9mm barrel.
Not surprisingly a 180g 40 bullet at the same PF gives me virtually the same recoil as a 120g 9mm bullet with a comparable PF.
I settled on 3.0g Clays which averaged 766 fps with the 180g bullet. This felt identical to 5.0g BE-86 with a 120g 9mm bullet at 1150 fps. Both have a PF of around 138.
For even lower recoiling, I got full reliability at 2.7g Clays and started getting failures to lock back about 25% of the time on the last shot at 2.5g. Red Dot gave nearly the same performance as did Titewad (not Titegroup).
Bullseye is a dirty (sooty) enough powder at full pressures so I didn't test it at low pressures where it will be even more sooty.
What you want is a good pressure build up without developing too much velocity out of the barrel which produces recoil. Seating the bullet deeper will also help drive the pressure up without driving the velocity up at an equivalent rate. I seat my 401-175-TC's to 1.10" OAL where the cone meets the case mouth. A good strategy is to start with a load and work your way down until you start getting failures to lock back or failures to cycle. This will happen way before you get a stuck bullet so if you work down carefully, you'll find a good load. If you get really smokey shots or excessive soot, you are probably below the pressure where the powder likes to burn. Switch to a faster powder.
3g of just about any of the fastest powders is a good low velocity low recoil load for 40 S&W. Other good candidate powders would be Clay Dot, e3, Extra Lite, Nitro100, Solo1000, R1 and N310.
Not surprisingly a 180g 40 bullet at the same PF gives me virtually the same recoil as a 120g 9mm bullet with a comparable PF.
I settled on 3.0g Clays which averaged 766 fps with the 180g bullet. This felt identical to 5.0g BE-86 with a 120g 9mm bullet at 1150 fps. Both have a PF of around 138.
For even lower recoiling, I got full reliability at 2.7g Clays and started getting failures to lock back about 25% of the time on the last shot at 2.5g. Red Dot gave nearly the same performance as did Titewad (not Titegroup).
Bullseye is a dirty (sooty) enough powder at full pressures so I didn't test it at low pressures where it will be even more sooty.
What you want is a good pressure build up without developing too much velocity out of the barrel which produces recoil. Seating the bullet deeper will also help drive the pressure up without driving the velocity up at an equivalent rate. I seat my 401-175-TC's to 1.10" OAL where the cone meets the case mouth. A good strategy is to start with a load and work your way down until you start getting failures to lock back or failures to cycle. This will happen way before you get a stuck bullet so if you work down carefully, you'll find a good load. If you get really smokey shots or excessive soot, you are probably below the pressure where the powder likes to burn. Switch to a faster powder.
3g of just about any of the fastest powders is a good low velocity low recoil load for 40 S&W. Other good candidate powders would be Clay Dot, e3, Extra Lite, Nitro100, Solo1000, R1 and N310.
