shred Posted April 8, 2014 Share Posted April 8, 2014 You (well, some of you) asked for it and we just delivered. Announcing the Shockbottle ".40L" 100-round case gauge for long-loaded and/or lead and coated rounds. This gauge has chamber-reamed SAAMI minimum-spec chambers just like our other gauges except we made the bullet bore .4015" straight through. This gauge is designed for shooters loading jacketed bullets over 1.20" OAL and/or lead and coated bullets up to .401" diameter at greater than SAAMI OALs. If you do not load outside SAAMI parameters, the regular .40 gauge will be a better check. Check your firearm has sufficient barrel leade as excessively seated-out bullets will not be caught and can cause problems including magazine jams, excessive pressure and out-of-battery ignition. Part number CG40L-100. Limited introductory supply, so pester your favorite suppliers soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonb. Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Of course 2 weeks after I order one sheesh... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted April 9, 2014 Author Share Posted April 9, 2014 We hate getting hosed by product improvements right after we buy something too, so we have upgrade options for .40 customers that really want the features of the 40L. Contact sales@shockbottle.com for details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonb. Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 (edited) To be fair it was more like 4 weeks on the dot but I have already spoke to you good folks via email and all is well thanks so much shred! I love a company that practices what they would expect themselves as consumers you guys have a loyal customer here for sure! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Edited April 9, 2014 by jonb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shtr3 Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 What company Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 What company Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Shockbottle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 Thanks! The accounting trolls get cranky if we give away the store entirely, but we do what we can within those limits. The upgrade deals should be available for a few more weeks as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fmj3 Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 Will an anodized version be coming out anytime in the near future? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted April 14, 2014 Author Share Posted April 14, 2014 We're thinking about an anodized "40L" but since anodizing causes tiny dimensional changes across the part, it will be tricky to keep the .4015" bullet dimension where we want it. Best-case 3 or 4 weeks to dealer shelves, worst-case maybe never. I'll update as we know more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fmj3 Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 We're thinking about an anodized "40L" but since anodizing causes tiny dimensional changes across the part, it will be tricky to keep the .4015" bullet dimension where we want it. Best-case 3 or 4 weeks to dealer shelves, worst-case maybe never. I'll update as we know more. That makes sense, I'll probably just go without the anodized since I load mostly coated lead. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetjocky Posted September 26, 2014 Share Posted September 26, 2014 I have the 40L case gage what a time saver. Awesome product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaylanGivens Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 I recently bought one of your aluminum (not annodized) 40L (Long) Shockbottle gauges and all my reloaded ammo is tight in it... None of it will sit flush in the ShockBottle gauge, but ALL of it will sit flush in my Dillon .40 S&W gauge and my STI Edge barrel... All the ammunition shoots in my STI Edge. Is the Shockbottle 40 Long gauge tighter than the standard 40 gauge? Could my gauge be unusually tight? I'm currently loading to 1.155 OAL with Bayou .401 TC poly coated bullets. Should I have purchased your standard .40 S&W gauge? Is it sized differently than the 40L gauge? I also have a Shockbottle 9mm gauge... One of your first in aluminum... It is golden... If one of my 9mm reloads fits in the 9mm ShockBottle gauge, it also fits in the Dillon gauge, and shoots from my CZ... I love it... I thought the .40L would be the same... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZackJones Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Is the Shockbottle 40 Long gauge tighter than the standard 40 gauge? Could my gauge be unusually tight? I though the 40L was designed to work with the Bayou bullets. I have the standard 40 gauge and ended up gauging the ammo by putting it into the gauge primer side down. As long as it goes all the way in it'll run through my guns. If I try to do it bullet nose down they almost always stick up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted October 22, 2014 Author Share Posted October 22, 2014 The 40L is reamed to SAAMI minimum chamber specs with the same reamer as the other .40 gauges, then the leade is opened up to .4015". It is designed primarily for long-loaded and rounds loaded with bullets at .401" or under. According to the SAAMI specs, a maximum-spec round fits into a minimum-spec chamber with a small amount of room to spare, so if your rounds aren't fitting, there's something oversize. The Dillon .40 gauge seems to be a bit over the SAAMI minimum, as are many (but not all) chambers (commercial mass-production chamber reamers come in SAAMI-maximum size and then in use, wear down to minimum or so at which point they are replaced with another max-size reamer). Gunsmith reamers tend towards the small size. In this case I would first look at the bullets. Some people have sent sample ammo that wouldn't fit the gauge to us with coated bullets and we find that the usual problem is the bullet isn't the size listed and often not perfectly round either (sometimes the crimp is off too). With a .401" nominal bullet and a .4015" hole to fit into, any out of roundness or tolerance stacking or die misalignment shows up as sticking rounds. A good micrometer and some measuring and rotating will show this if it's there. In general with the slide closing with as much as 50G's of force, even if a round doesn't quite fit the chamber, it usually gets crammed in there anyway. Occasionally the gun will be a few thou out of full lockup when an oversize round fires because it's not in 100% of the way. Those shots can go a little high since the barrel hasn't cammed up fully. The 'reverse check' Zack mentioned works well to check for fat brass and verify that it's the bullet that's sticking. Some people we know that load .402" bullets do that as a matter of course. They like those bullets and know they won't fit the gauge. We are considering doing a run of .402"+ leade gauges, but that's well beyond the SAAMI spec. If your gauge does appear to be undersize to the extent that factory ammo doesn't fit well, it might be defective and you can send it back to be checked. In that case, please include a few sample rounds loaded without primer and powder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaylanGivens Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 Bought a box of Winchester white box and it fits your gauge perfectly... "plonk" ever time... nothing wrong with your gauge as designed. I measured several of my Bayou 180gr TC bullets... They all are .401" on the nose... except one that measured .4015" at one point, but I think it was uneven poly coating. The other measurements around that bullet were all .401". The top of my reloaded cartridges measure from .4215" to .422". Seems like a pretty tight crimp to me. I do not sort brass by manufacturer. If it's not cracked, I load and shoot it... When I drop a reloaded round into the 40L gauge, it comes to a stop with about .020 sticking above the top surface of the gauge... not a lot. If I insert my reloads into the gauge upside down, they "plonk" straight to the bottom. But... After I fill the gauge with 100 rounds inserted normally, I like holding the gauge up close to my eye so I can look down each row of rounds to check primer depth. Case gauging rounds by putting them in the gauge upside down would not allow me to do this. I realize a .402" gauge wouldn't be a perfect SAAMI spec gauge... But, I suspect a lot of us are more interested in a gauge that predicts success for our guns... In my case a standard STI Edge in .40 S&W... If you decide to make a .402" gauge, please PM me, I'll buy one. You could call it a 40LW gauge... long and wide... :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 We're looking at doing a few special 40L's for the larger-n-wider crowd Probably won't be real soon, but hopefully sometime. The bullet diameter is a bit of a problem because it's tough to get good through-coolant drills in exactly .402" (if it were, the 40L's would probably already be like that), but we can go back in with a reamer probably. If bullets drop backwards and not forwards, it's usually that the bullet either isn't totally round (fairly common with cast bullets-- easy to check by rolling them around a flat surface), large or not concentric to the case. Either way if accuracy is OK, there's no need to go changing anything, but it is a bit annoying when checking. The backwards-drop does well for catching fat cases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shred Posted February 18, 2015 Author Share Posted February 18, 2015 The long-awaited .40XL is now here. See the announcement thread for more details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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