Potpourri of loads evaluation

[vaalpens]

Since this is the Thanksgiving season, I decided it makes sense to evaluate a potpourri of loads. I did not expect a sweet smell of success, but really I did not know what to expect.

When I do my reloading, sometimes I have to pull some bullets, or have some extra primed cases that I save for a later date. After the last load development of 40s&w pulled bullets, I had a few remaining odd bullets with different weight or profile. Over the weekend I decided to collect all my odd 40s&w bullets, load them up with the same powder and weight, and using the same COL.

Since I had a decent 180gr load, I decided to go with 6.0gr of BE-86 and a COL of 1.125" for all the loads. I had a total of 11 bullets with mixed cases and mixed primers. The loads were all tested with a chrono and tested at 15yards. Following are the different bullets, bullet lengths and velocities I saw:

1) 151gr, RNFP FMJ, .5855" length, 954fps
2) 165gr, FMJ FN, .5845" length, 966fps
3) 168gr, FMJ RNFP, .575" length, 910fps
4) 173gr, FMJ RNFP, .583" length, 918fps
5) 175gr, FMJRNFP, .581" length, 932fps
6) 180gr, RNFP Plated, .578" length, 909fps
7) 180gr, RNFP Plated, .5785" length, 913fps
8) 180gr, RNFP Plated, .5795" length, 914fps
9) 180gr, FMJ RNFP Covered, .5995" length, 943fps
10) 180gr, RNFP Plated, .579" length, 899fps
11) 180gr, RNFP Plated, .5805" length, 932fps

Following is the 11shot grouping. Not bad for a potpourri of loads:


Since I had my chrono out I decided to test a few loads I had with me today.

The first load is using the RMR 124gr in-house JHP loaded for 357sig. I'm not sure if this is the MPR bullet, or the initial release of the the in-house JHP. I have never tested this bullet with my scope, so this test was basically just to validate the load and see how much more accurate it is using the scope. Following are the results:(Please note that I did not zero the scope. Only interested in the grouping.)

357sig, P229, 3.9"
Case: Speer
COL: 1.125"
RMR, 124gr, JHP, BE86, 7.6gr, SBPRSP
Average: 1281
ES: 11
SD: 4.5
Force: 452
PF: 158
Velocities: 1282, 1279, 1289, 1278, 1279
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.65"

The last time I tested this load I saw a .95" grouping, so the .65" is definitely what I was looking for.

Another load I tested was my Sierra V-Crown loads. I did limited load development with these bullets, and was interested to see how accurate they really shoot. Following are the results:(Please note that I did not zero the scope. Only interested in the grouping.)

357sig, P229, 3.9"
Case: Speer
COL: 1.125"
Sierra, 125gr, VCROWNJHP, BE86, 7.8gr, CCI500
Average: 1257
ES: 14
SD: 6.4
Force: 438
PF: 157
Velocities: 1262, 1262, 1262, 1248, 1254
Grouping @ 15yd: 1.45"

The grouping for this load was not that good, and it seems I will have to do some more load workup. The last time I tested this load I saw a .83" at 10yards, which is probably a bit better than the 1.45" at 15yards, but definitely need some work.

Loading these different 40s&w bullets with the same load was interesting and probably something I would try again in the future.

 

[hdwhit]

vaalpens wrote:
Potpourri of loads

I like it!

Great way to use up the odds and ends crowding the reloading bench.

 

[vaalpens]

I like it!

Great way to use up the odds and ends crowding the reloading bench.

Thanks for the nice comments. I had a choice of using them as just practice rounds, or try and learn something from it. Went with the latter to see if I can learn something from it. One thing I learned was that the grouping was not that bad, but I probably could have learned more if I just kept the bullets as the variable, and used the same cases and primers like I do my normal load development.

Following are the results from when I did the load test with only using 180gr FMJRNFP bullets and 6.0gr of BE-86 as a reference:

40SW, P229, 3.9"
Case: Federal
COL: 1.125"
Pulled, 180gr, FMJRNFP, BE86, 6gr, GINEXSP
Average: 920
ES: 24
SD: 10.5
Force: 338
PF: 165
Velocities: 934, 925, 910, 910, 925
Grouping @ 15yd: 0.57"