Powder Choice for .40S&W

[CB900F]

Fella's;

I use Blue Dot under a 180 grain bullet to achieve 1000 fps muzzle from my H&K USPc. The charge is 8.7 grains. This duplicates the 180 grain/980 fps standard that the FBI determined was what they wanted when they were looking to de-rate the 10mm. Or, at the time, they thought was gonna be the most effective loading for the .40 S&W.

900F

 

[Darth Muffin]

Anyway,I am looking for a reduced load for IDPA type of shooting. I have 180gr LSWC Bullets.

Titegroup works great for me. 4.3gr makes IPSC 175ish power factor with Rainier 180gr plated bullets and my 5" polygonal barrel. 4.7gr is max load.

You can just dial down the powder a little for practice, don't worry about going too low since it's position insensitive--I either use 4.1gr w/ the 180gr bullets or keep it at 4.3gr and go down to 165gr bullets. The 4.1gr load has such light recoil I'm worried about it cycling my gun, but oddly enough it's made major PF (165) about half the time when I chrono it.

Titegroup burns hot and fast, and while I've never used it with lead bullets I have heard that it's dirtier and smoker since it vaporizes some of the lead.

 

[geocole]

Powder Tite-Group

Just bought some tite-group powder.
I loaded some and they shot real good in my Glock22 and XD 40 SC. I had been using Bullseye, but this is much cleaner.
I got a good group at 25 yards using a rest with Glock 22.

180gr berry's RS (round shoulder)
4.2 tite-group
FC brass
CCI primers

XD .45 Tactical
XD 40 S&W Sub Compact
XD 9mm Sub Compact
Glock 17 9mm
Glock 22 40 S&W
Stoeger Cougar 8000 9mm

 

[FieroCDSP]

For plain, close-in, basics practice, I use 3.8gr of regular Clays, Rainier 155's with a 1.125 OAL. It's fairly clean at all levels. In my M&P it drops my brass in a 3ft circle behind and right. It does suffer in accuracy at anything over 25 ft, but it'll still put it into a human target, and you don't have to chase the brass. I haven't picked up a chrony yet, so I'm not sure the velocities would meet IPSC standards. I'm looking to Bulleye or PowerPistol for my next purchase, as I've heard a lot of good things.

 

[LotI]

I use Titegroup for light target loads and you really don't need to use much. It's relatively clean except you can always tell the cases since they have the "Titegroup stain", in any caliber.

For my pistol (P239), I found that it likes Power Pistol. My SD is in the single digits at pretty much any loading from min to max. Accuracy suffers in the hottest loads.

 

[CZ57]

I didn't list my load, so here it is. Caution this is the max. charge listed by Ramshot. Reduce by 10% for a start charge. Win. or Rem. case, CCI-500 primer, Nosler 150 gr. JHP and 8.1 grains of Ramshot True Blue with an OACL of 1.125". Another Load I like very much is identical except that it uses 7.5 Grains of Ramshot Silhouette. Either will shoot 5 round rested groups of 1" or less @ 50' from my CZ 75 B.

One of the things I really like about True Blue is the felt recoil of my loads. It seems to be light for the velocity generated. The first 5 round group I shot offhand @ 50' with the first round fired double-action was 1.8" with the first DA fired round going into the center of the group.

Here's a link to an excellent article written by Bob Forker of G&A, their reloading Guru: http://www.gunsandammomag.com/reloads/0609/

 

[TimT]

800X, A#5 and Unique
Golden Sabers and BTB hardcast 200grnrs.

CZ Z-40

 

[Clark]

I have experimented with various bullets and powders to see how much power I can get out of a 40 S&W; 135 gr, 155 gr, 180 gr, 200 gr, Blue Dot, Power Pistol, Longshot, 3N37, N105, H110, AA#9 [Enforcer], and 800X.

I have formed this opinion:
1) 800X for most power, but a pain to meter and squeeze in the case
2) Power Pistol for heavy power and easy metering, but big muzzle flash
3) 3N37 for heavy power and low flash
4) Blue Dot for low power, not much will fit.

2) Always use 200 gr bullets.

 

[CZ57]

Clark: you reminded me that I've used #9 for an XD Tac with a 5" barrel. There are differences between #9 and Enforcer. Data was available for Enforcer using a WSPM primer in Ramshots earlier manuals. #3 being the most recent. With the small pistol magnum primer, they achieved 1372 FPS with the Hornady 155 gr. XTP loaded to 1.130" @ 31,380 PSI from a 4" test barrel. #9 comes from the Czech Republic and Enforcer comes from Belgium. Their bulk densities are slightly different and Enforcer has a slight energy advantage. I talked to the Accurate/Ramshot ballistician about the WSPM issue and he advises against it with #9. Bob Rodefer at Western Powder Co. can confirm this since they own both Accurate and Ramshot: http://www.ramshot.com/powders/

I agree with you on 3N37. It is a very low flash powder capable of velocity as high as anyone's likely to want in the .40 and their latest powder 3N38 will do most of the same things as N105. You're definitely correct on the muzzle flash issue with Power Pistol and Blue Dot will be bright as well. It can be compressed, but I don't remember having to do it except with 135 grain bullets. I haven't tried it with 200 grainers, so you may have already found that it is a compressed charge load with Blue dot. Power Pistol is a larger flake cut variant of Bullseye and has a slower burn rate because of it.

Two things jumped out at me after reading your post. I am using Silhouette as a replacement for 3N37, they have very similar characteristics and Silhouette is slightly lower in flash, although 3N37 is very good in that regard.

Another thing worth mentioning to you guys that may not know this, Silhouette under its former label, WAP is the powder Winchester used to develop the .40 S&W, so its burn rate characteristics were formulated specifically for the cartridge and the 9 X 23mm Winchester as well. Some of you guys use faster burning powders and that's fine for lighter target type loads, but building factory level velocity with them has been a contributor to the Ka-Boom issues along with barrels that don't adequately support the casehead of the .40 S&W cartridge.

 

[Clark]

If I overload 7.62x25mm in a Tokarev [not a CZ52 which blows up despite what the load books say] until the primer falls out of Starline brass with AA#9 and Enforcer, it happens with a charge 3.6% higher with AA#9, which would indicate that my Enforcer is faster.

AA#9 and Enforcer sure look and smell like the same powder to me, but then so do Bullseye and Power Pistol [formerly Bullseye 84], and they only way I can separate them is with a density test.

I would treat any powder from AA as a surplus bulk powder [not a retail canister powder] and work up loads.

 

[subierex]

When I used to have my G22, I'd load .40SW with 231 pretty much exclusively.

I'd think that Titegroup would be a good choice as well.

Both are economical.

 

[CZ57]

Yeah, that's odd because the bulk density of Enforcer is rated at 940 grams/liter and AA#9 at 935. Enforcer is supposed to be denser, but you are getting a difference of 3.6% which indicates they are different based on volume alone. The burn rate is based on closed bomb testing and it's fairly common for two powders that are this close to reverse order in a specific case.

Anyway, I mentioned it because I've spoken to Bob Rodefer at Ramshot about the 2 powders, I knew that Enforcer is from Belgium, all of their powders except Zip and Competition are, as well as Accurate's ballistician before they went under the same roof with Ramshot and he'd told me that #9 was from the Czech Republic. The question gets asked fairly frequently because they are so similar.

 

[Clark]

I have since started measuring extractor groove growth, instead of threshold of primers falling out.

Primers falling out is like a hanging chad problem, and my 3.9% on one work up each has more digits than it deserves.

 

[CZ57]

I knew there was a change in its bulk density several years ago, but it's not supposed to a surplus powder. I'll shoot an e-mail to Bob Rodefer and see what's up. I'll PM when I get an answer.