rsr1, was that with the stock recoil spring on your .40?
I rechecked the order, I simply got the lightest spring available which is 6#, not 8#. I'm not going to drop down to a lighter hammer spring, since that's less convenient, but this should make the action way easier to cycle. I wonder if the wimpy spring will even return to battery. The gun has less than 50 rounds through it (hope to break that tomorrow), so it's not what you'd call silky-smooth.
I haven't put any Trail Boss in the cases yet, but by the volume conversion factors from the Lee PPM chart, 4.0 gr of TB should be the same volume as the 13 gr of AA #9 I am loading now, which fits under a 180 gr bullet with a little room to spare. With a little 140 gr bullet, using 4.4 gr as calculated from the "max usable case volume" stated by Lee seems realistic. I should have checked that before I loaded up all my brass this week.
Clays sounds interesting, but at the rate I shoot, a 14 oz. bottle would last several lifetimes. Unless I get something that gulps down powder (like a .44 or .45 revolver, which is on my "maybe buy" list), my little bottle of TB is also going to be hard to use up, so I'm not enthusiastic about collecting lots of powders.