MainlineSteve

DH47, No. Verybad idea. vv310 is very fast. You might use it in 9mm with a 90gn bullet, but mostly it's used in .45. You are literally in danger of blowing your 40SW gun apart.

As others have said, you could be over-crimping. The bullet mass that is muffin-topping the case is being force-fed into the leade and accumulating at the leade/land junction upon firing. The muffin-top is causing the difficulty in manual ejection. The build up is causing your ever-shrinking OAL. Just my opinion, though. I could be wrong...

So they have replacement extractors? Why did I think they wouldn't have them? Mike, I assumed you'd checked availability... Don't be cheap. Buy three.

My Lee Carbide Full-length Sizer Die recently took a glock guppy (.4315OD) and transformed it into a smiley case (OD .4215), that is, a resized case with a huge smile-shaped slash on the side. Can't use that. Clearly, there is a limit to what a standard die can do to repair a bulge. There was supposed to be a photo here, but something went terribly, horribly wrong...

Power Pistol is a good powder. Measures well, good case fill, powerful, can be extremely accurate with 155-180 gn bullets. The downside: very loud and bright muzzle flash. Lighter loads can be pretty dirty. Even hot loads can leave unspent powder in the barrel. I always use magnum primers with PP which seems to keep the barrel cleaner. YMMV.

As far as the brass goes, I don't see the need for working the brass that hard, especially the 40 cases. I see that you suspect that's where your troubles lie and you may be right. I hope you aren't using the casepro multiple times on any single case. As far as getting the M10 working without an extractor, it would depend on what you mean by "running reliably". I assume it's not extracting/ejecting reliably. If you own an M8, maybe try that extractor in the M10? Otherwise, short of having new extractors fabricated, you'd probably have to experiment with ejector length, powder charge and spring rate to optimize the cycle timing. And even then, you probably shouldn't trust it. If you want to go that route, you'll want find someone with a high-speed capable camera and record what the gun is doing before you begin messing with it. And post the video.

Lots of case head separation stories lately. I think most are worn out or glocked brass being reused more often due to recent ammo shortages. Throw the questionable stuff away! Sorry to hear about the extractor losses. Don't imagine there are too many spare parts around for those guns. I'd seek a gunsmith who is familiar with the M10 or a collector. You'll probably have to have an extractor fabricated. Other than the M10's enormous slide, are there major differences in design between the M8 and M10?

The 40SW is reloaded just like most any other straight case pistol round, but it is less forgiving of errors made. Small deviations in the loading process can make for significant pressure increases. Be diligent regarding powder measurement, seating depth/COAL and crimp enough so that the projectile cannot be pressed any further into the case even with multiple chamberings of the round. Pay attention when reloading these, using your eyes to monitor your powder charges and your calipers to spot check for oal drift. Definitely start with published loads and on the lighter side of those. Good luck.

Really what makes it work so well is the surface area. It's like running 50 patches thru the bore at one time. Plus, it has round copper brush of the specific caliber imbedded into the weave toward the top to loosen powder residue from the rifling before the webbing cleans it out. They work. Don't use it for copper removal and still I still use old style patches to presoak but a great addition to any range bag. So how often do you need to clean it ? or how many times do you run it thru your barrel ? Generally, I'll run it through the barrel 2 or 3 times after the barrel cools down and check down the bore to make sure it's clean and to look for copper. When I get home, I might patch down some clp, let it soak, boresnake it and patch for reassurance. I don't clean the B.S. that often - pretty much when it looks dirty or when a patch shows residue, and that depends on number of shooting sessions per caliber and powders used. Still have rods and patches, just a lot fewer attachments. The B.S. is an additional tool. Comes in handy on a long day of shooting with hours between rounds. Just run it thru once or twice and it's good 2 go.

Glad it's working and you're back into production!

Art, when I originally read the post, I thought that a friend had asked you to relate his story. But then I thought maybe he asked you to share your own story. Right the first time, it seems. Thanks for the clarification and for passing along our questions.

A big question is, "Where has this brass been?" All mentioned blow-ups were with reloads. We know that some were purchased from a "reloader" at a gun show. How safe a practice is that? What was the bullet, powder, charge, oal? These were 40SW. Were they crimped? Were these glock guppy cases? Art, what was the history of the brass that you (I assume) reloaded? I have about 50 of these with various depths of stamp and courseness of inner "weld". Am wondering if it's possible to determine which will fail by merely eyeballing/measuring them in some way...

This good brass - bad brass discussion continues in: 'Latest gen Winchester 40SW casing tends to blow-up?' P.S: I'd have put the actual url here if my Samsung tablet's keyboard wasn't such a total POS.

Really what makes it work so well is the surface area. It's like running 50 patches thru the bore at one time. Plus, it has round copper brush of the specific caliber imbedded into the weave toward the top to loosen powder residue from the rifling before the webbing cleans it out. They work. Don't use it for copper removal and still I still use old style patches to presoak but a great addition to any range bag.

I would like to know what make/model guns these guys were shooting, as well as the loads used, but the provenance of this story seems a bit murky. I have reloaded a small qty of this brass in medium Titegroup loads in 40SW and have experienced no blowouts to date.

Woolite in a bucket of water.

This is not your head space. That is your throat bepth/length or leade. Straight walled pistol cases headspace on the case mouth, not the bullet. You are correct, sir. I should not have put "head" before the word "space". I was thinking distance to lands from case mouth or "leade". Thanks for the catch.

I think you'll do better with the powders you have now than to switch to bullseye. You're still running at pretty light load levels with the WST, not even in "the powerband", so I'd work up from there until you find something you like. Even 4.8 would be considered light. Silhouette usually gives good speed at good pressure with the 124-125 gn projectiles. As far as accuracy goes, I've not had great results from Berry's, nor RN in general, but YMMV. You might at least match what you got from the HP-38, eh?

Looking at the groups, SDs and velocities, my first thought is that your results may have been different had you changed the group firing order. Sometimes you'll be unconsciously compensating toward the end of a string and carry that over to the next, skewing results... Your SD dropped to 8, so speeds are very consistent. By all means, experiment with aol. A little shorter may give you just that little bit of speed you seek, or a longer aol with more powder (if prudent) could do it. Or not. Sometimes it just comes down to trial and error...

There seem to be three case types of WINCHESTER 40 S&W stamped brass. The two old-style case types have a very narrow font and the stamp is lightly struck. One is a flat-bottomed or nearly flat solid head case, the other has a depression around the primer hole. These cases have never let me down. The new case design uses a much larger font for the WINCHESTER 40 S&W stamp. These new cases seem to have slight differences. The first is the depth of the logo stamp strike. The second is the look of the area surrounding the primer hole. Looking at the cases I have, lighter logo strikes make for a less uniform look around the primer hole and an uglier, more pronounced "weld" line. Some have striations radiating from the primer hole toward the case wall. Some have a slight, off-center ring around the primer hole. My guess is that the cases are not being struck hard enough in the manufacturing process, making for weak forging. Winchester needs to tighten up the quality control.

Use Silhouette in .40 and have found it to be very accurate in high power loads using 155s and 165s. Makes lighter bullets feel like heavy ones because it's soooo sloooww...

TiteGroup is very clean and accurate for jacketed 124-125gn projectiles when your load is mid to high end. It's very hot (barrel temp) and will smoke like crazy with lead. Power Pistol is not as clean-burning but can be very accurate at higher velocities for 115 and 124/125. AA-7 is very accurate for 124. These are all relatively inexpensive powders and should be pretty easy to find.

Glad those worked. Still on the fence about doing same. Master and man cave not currently on ground floor.

So what did you decide to do?

So the sleeves are anchored where they need to be, but 2 are rudely protruding above floor level. Take an angle grinder and cut/grind the two offenders flush with the floor. Subtract the lengths of the resultant sleeve pieces from the two as yet unusable bolts and you have the size bolts you need. Go buy them and install. Or am I missing something?