Throwin Lead

Yes I have. At the Western PA Sectional last fall I noticed that my production load increased by about 3 to 5 FPS. IIRC I clocked in at 138 PF with a load that ran 133 to 135 in the summer. The temps were chilly - about 40 or 50 degrees. I worked the chrono stage at that match and talked to a few single stack shooters that used WST who commented that their loads were a bit faster too. I would think that if using WST in the summer you would have to bring out the chrono a few times to get a feel for your loads - especially if attending a major match. As I stated in an earlier post SOLO 1000 does a good job too with lead providing almost the same results across the chrono. From what I read on this forum regarding S1000 there are no known temp issues. Not for sure - but I haven't found anything.

I developed major loads for the 220 gn lead bullet using WST & Solo 1000. WOW! What a soft shooter! This is like shooting a flat Production load that makes major! I plan on shooting both Production & L10 this season with the same gun. Since I rarely have shot L10 & major I wanted a load that I could manage in strong hand - weak hand shooting without the muzzle flip - well I think I have found it. Both powders produced almost identical results with S1000 being a tad bit snappier. Smoke was very low but I'd give a slight advantage to WST in that criteria. Accuracy was good at 15 yds off of a rest - nice tight groups. for both powders Mixed 1x brass, WSP primer, OAL 1.135 for both powders. M&P 40 - 4.25 barrel Average weight of 10, 220 gn bullets is 220.9 - this value was used for the PF calculation. Solo 1000: 3.5 gn High vel - 787.31 Low vel - 744.46 ES - 38.98 Avg - 764.83 SD - 10.7 PF - 168.95 WST 3.8 gn H - 787.31 L - 740.77 ES - 46.54 AVG - 751.47 ES - 46.54 SD - 13.55 PF - 166.00 YMMV - As always start low and work up. Almost forgot - no signs of lead fouling.

Irecently chronoed a S1000 load using Mastercast.net lead 180 gn bullets(actual avg weight of 182.78 gn) that made major out of my my M&P. According to my notes it was a very nice shooting load. No excessive muzzle flip & decent felt recoil. Low smoke for a lead round and no powder fouling. 4.4 grains of S1000, WSP, OAL 1.125 made 170.82 PF. I would start a bit lower and work up with a jacketed round. 4.0 gn to start should get you close to the major threshold @ 165 PF. YMMV High velocity - 948.81 Low velocity - 923.62 ES - 25.19 Avg Velocity - 934.56 SD - 8.65 You can call Accurate Powders or email them for load data too!

Might want to try Bear Creek bullets. $182.50/2500 for 180 gn moly coated 40 cal shipped to your door ($73/K). I have not used them but others that have say they are closer to the now defunct Masterblaster style of bullet than Precision. 209.874.4322 Maybe do a search here for Bear Creek. You also may want to get a sample of 1 or 2 hundred to see if your gun likes them before spending a lot of $$$ on a big order.

+1. This is absolutely the easiest approach and makes the One Shot go a looooooooooong way. +1 on the baggie tip. The key to one shot is don't overspray. A one second shot in a big baggie with about 200 pieces of brass in it works fine. You only need to get a slight amount of lube on the cases. If the cases feel greasy after you have reloaded you used a bit too much.

+1 on the ESS system. Very comfortable and adjust well. They are also Mil - spec ballastic rated too. You can also purchase a rose shield as well for about $12.

+1 for another MP shooter that uses lead for the same reason as Lighteye67 - too cheap to buy FMJ. No leading issues here. I found that WST works well shooting lead & keeping down the smoke. I have also used Solo 1000 with decent results.

Newly minted RO. I just recieved notification from Ray Hirst this past Friday that I passed my written exam from the seminar I attended March 1 & 2 at the East Huntingdon club. +1 on attending the seminar. Even if you don't have any desire to run shooters it is worthwhile to attend just to learn more about the rules.

I live in an area whrer I can shoot a club match each Sunday of the month. They are open squadded matches -show up & shoot and scoot - and are usually completed within 2 hours running on average of 75 plus shooters. There is a percentage of shooters that arrive early and shoot 2 divisions adding to the shooter count. Set up is the Saturday morning prior to the match. Most of those that help set up Saturday are the match staff on Sunday. Once set up is completed the staff will shoot the stages (late Saturday morning into the afternoon) RO's and set up help shoot for free. There are some RO's that can't make the Saturday setup - they show up early Sunday AM and shoot through. Yes there can be some bottlenecks maybe waiting 20 minutes to shoot a stage. My experience has been that the bottleck seems to occur about 11:00 to noon as some shooters are finishing and some are just starting. Tear down begins about 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon. Usually the last group of shooters will assist the core club members/RO's with the tear down. Each club has it's core staff but there are RO's regardless of their club affiliation lend a hand. Usually there are about 6 to 8 RO's per club, sometimes as many as 12 come out. RO's are assigned to a stage not squads. From time to time the shooters will lend hand manning the clipboard taking scores if there is only 1 RO per stage. I would say that squad sizes average about 6 shooters - some a few more & some a few less. For whatever reason it works and works well!

When I get a in a case of bullets I will weigh 5 of them for an average weight of the bullet. I do that for chrono purposes. It helps me to determine true power factor verses of apparent power factor when testing loads. For example the Mastercast 180 gn lead bullets that I often use carry an average weight of 182.78 grains, Precision 185's average 186.3. I don't know if finding an average weight over such a small sampling is even worth my while but I do it. Kinda like useless trivial knowledge I guess.

For those of you that load with a 550 & a casefeeder how much does the casefeeder add to your production output? 100 more rounds per hour? 200? Somewhere in between? Bottom line - Is the casefeeder worth the cost in terms of production gained? Not meant to hijack the thread but I feel I either need to invest in a case feeder (low investment) or upgrade to a 650(large investment) as I have a need for about 1700 rounds per month. Right now with preloaded primer tubes I'm in the 400 to 500 round range per hour on my 550.

If you are shooting cast bullets I would suggest that you work with WST & tweak it until you get the results your looking for. I've tried several powders with cast bullets and always found myself coming back to WST with an exception and that would be Solo 1000. My pet minor load is 3.45 gn of WST with a 180 gn Master Blaster bullet (1.135 OAL, WSP) making 138.86 PF out of my M&P. Although different types of powders I was suprised at how close they performed comparing them. Both provide accurate rounds. WST produces the least amount of smoke associated with shooting lead but Solo 1000 wasn't that bad either. This for both minor & major loads. YMMV

The crew at East Huntingdon actually had to chip away some ice from the instructional stage this morning.....just a bit on the cool side. Thanks to all for making a good class a great one! Ray is a very professional instructor & presented the info to the class very well and drew upon personal experiences to help the class to know what to expect as an RO. There is so much to learn about our sport I would recommend taking a RO seminar even if you don't have the desire to run shooters. Just learning about the rules firsthand is worth the time spent in class. Thanks to the gang at East Huntingdon for hosting the RO class. Looking forward to helping out at the Area 8 match in May!

Jack, Go here. It's a word document found in a thread at the top of the Match announcements forum as a sticky for name tags. Just edit it to suit. I laminated the one I made and put it in a fishing license holder to clip on my cap.

dj Master Blaster WAS going to be my source, but they've gone out of business. Precision's bullets are currently double what I can get lead bullets for, which is why I'm trying to "go it alone". Anyone have an inexpensive source for moly bullets? By today's pricing inexpensive and bullets of any type are non existent. Try giving Bear Creek a call. 209-874-4322 they just quoted me a price of $73/K of 180 gn 40 cal moly coated bullets. Bear Creek is located in California - not sure what time zone you live in. If you purchase over $70 of product they pick up the shipping. I have not used their product but have heard that it is similar to Master Blaster bullets. Maybe somebody that uses them will chime in. I used Precision and liked them alot & Dave suports our sport. His pricing and availability went haywire about this time last year. I have found that you don't place orders for Precision bullets you place backorders which can be unfortunate if you need them quickly. I have been using 180 gn lead bullets made by Mastercast of PA & 220 gn bullets made by S & S Casting of Illinois. Both have a great product at a fair price. I can buy 2500 180 gn lead bullets from Mastercast for $149.95 shipped or 2000 Bear Creek moly coated for $146.00 shipped. Not sure what to buy since the lead bullets are performing well without any hassles.

I think you will be fine. I did some testing a while back with 165 gn lead & WST for minor loads out of a M&P 40, 4.25" barrel. Although we are not quite comparing apples to apples G22 vs MP40 but they are more similiar than they are different. The lightest load tested was 3.4gn of WST and the gun barely cycled. Clocked in at 128 PF with the factory spring - in fact according to my notes it didn't go to slide lock on the last round, that's how sluggish it ran. I tested up to a charge of 3.6 gn of WST that made 136 PF which was a nice soft load with a bit of snap to it. I would think that at 4.0 grains you will be in the mid 140 to 150 PF (850 to 890 FPS range) range. I'm not a Glock shooter but I think it can cycle/function in that range of velocity/PF with the stock spring. Hope this helps.

Can yo define OVERCRIMP? I use a Hornady adjustable seating die (poor man's Redding comp seater) to seat the bullet squarely to the case & the FCD to crimp. The crimp is 0.422 which seems to be in spec for 40 SW. I like the FCD for the resizing capability. Since using it I have not had any case gauge issues. So is 0.422 crimp too much? It looks like it is flat to the bullet and not rolled/beveled into the bullet.

Thanks for the heads up! If the OAL is consistent with what I'm expecting + .001 using the FCD then this should be a non issue?

I have spent some time developing major & minor lead loads this off season and so far I don't have any issues with leading. I'm using mastercast of PA 180gn bullets and S&S Casting 220 gn bullets. I have tested these with WST & Solo 1000 and found no leading at all. I shot about 500 rounds Sunday - all lead - with no leading issues. The max velocity that I'm seeing is 930 ish fps for the 180's & 765 ish fps for the 220's shot over a chrono last Sunday when the weather broke into the mid 50's. + 1 on more flair. I did have an issue with my seating die getting gunked up from lube probably because I was shaving a bit of it off when seating the bullet. Loading 40SW the case flare is set up to .431. That is about the minimum I can go without shaving lube. After flairing the case to this dimension the major gunk problem went away. There is a slightly noticable sticky coating of lube on my seating die after loading about 1K rounds. I use rubbing alcohol applied with a small modelers paint brush and wipe out the seating & crimp die with a shop rag. The alcohol works well for removing that slight amount of lube without taking apart any of the dies. YMMV

Which crimp die is the better choice for use when loading lead bullets - the Dillon taper die or the Lee factory crimp die? I have been using the Lee factory crimp die and don't see any problems so far. The crimp is at .422 (40SW) and the loads chrono with good results. I haven't used the Dillon crimp die to compare. Any thoughts?

I received the Jennings Mack 100 scale that I purchased from Will Knott Scales a few days ago. The cost of the scale with an AC adapter shipped was $92.61 accomplishing my goal of finding a decent digital scale for under $100.00. There are other places out there selling the same scale for about the same cost but the shipping/handling charges were a lot more. I must say that I am quite impressed with the scale. I reload in my family room in the basement. Air currents from either heating or A/C was a factor when I was shopping for a scale This model has a flip type lid that functions as both a dustcover and wind cover to eliminate air currents when weighing items It is very simple to operate and calibrating it is a simple task as well. I verified the accuracy of the scale using my RCBS beam scale and to my surprise everything that I weighed with the digital scale matched on the beam scale. The only negative comment comes from the plastic weigh pan provided with the scale. I found that if I dump powder directly on the weigh pan when I empty the pan a few grains of powder remain in the pan. This is probably due to static much like what can occur with a Dillon powder measure. As a work around I calibrated the scale using the aluminum weigh pan from my beam scale – problem solved. The scale has a tare function. I could weigh an empty case, zero the case weight using the tare function, throw a charge into that case and then weigh both the case and charge yielding just the charge weight. The footprint of the scale is 7.0” x 6.5” x 2.5” tall. It has 4 adjustable foot pads and an on board bubble level to insure the unit is level. A 100 gram calibration weight is included as well as 4 batteries. The dealer “added” a anti vibration pad to place under the scale to eliminate vibrations. This is nothing fancy - it looks a lot like a small mouse pad. It also has an auto shutoff and a hold function. The AC adapter is a $5.00 option. It has 2 displays (front & back). I guess it is for instructional purposes where a student can see what the instructor sees on the display. It also comes with a 20 year warranty. Like most electronic devices found today in the USA it is foreign made. If you are looking for a decent digital scale for under $100 you may want to take a look at this one. link to scale Ediited to add link.

+1 on the humidity conditions. I use WST and it has helped some. I have SOLO 1000 on hand - it is to be a good powder with cast as well. I haven't been able to try it out yet. Most of the smoke associated with cast is more from the lube than the bullet itself. That is what one of the Hodgdon support techs told me. He also said that if leading (fouling) was an issue the powder charge/type may be the culprit - maybe a too hot of a powder choice.

I picked up a sample pack of 175 gn lead SWC bullets that I would like to try to develop as a practice load. I'm planning on loading to a OAL 0f 1.125. My biggest concern is how well will they run? Should I expect FTF issues because of the bullet profile? Should I make 10 at 1.120, 1.125.1.130 and see how those lengths react then load from there? Doing a search prior to posting a few Glock shooters have used SWC successfully - any thoughts?

After reading the post above I realized that without a casefeeder I'm not too far behind loading 40SW. With primer tubes loaded and cases lubed I can put out about 450 to 500 rounds per hour as long as the stupid stuff mentioned above doesn't happen. I get into a rhythmic trance and before you know it 5 primer tubes are gone! When I load lead I need to stop after about 500 rounds to chean up my seating die from some bullet minor lube build up but even that is usually for 5 or 10 minutes. I'm with RVB - save the cost of the casefeeder and apply it to a 1050...perhaps I'll rephrase my Valentines Day wish!

Takes me ten minutes loading 45acp, to make it go Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (100 rounds..) My 1050 loading 9mm, takes 4 minutes Using your example a case feeder on a 550 at a smooth non-rushed pace allowing pauses to recharge primers 500 to 600 rounds per hour is realistic? Hmmm wonder what special occasion I can think of to get Mrs. TL to buy a case feeder for my 550? Perhaps Valentines day? "Honey if you really loved me you would buy this case feeder for me so I can make my ammo faster and spend more time at : A the range shooting or B with you? How should I word this?