.40 Caliber C.O.A.L.

[D. Manley]

I've only recently added .40 caliber to the bench and so far, have been pleased with the results. On one of my initial .40 runs I immediately noticed that a Rainier 180 RN/FP @ SAAMI OAL puts a lot of bullet in the case though, they shoot just fine. A bit of searching reveals that most shooters tend to load to considerably longer OAL than (the rather short) .40 SAAMI specs some, out to 9MM max lengths. I thought it would be informative to have thread along these lines including:

Bullet brand, style and OAL used

Power Factor for the bullet & OAL

When loading long, criterion you used

Longer throated guns & shorter throated guns (OAL "tolerance factor")

[steel1212]

Just a FYI

Most people that shoot .40 in a 1911 based guns try to load them long to get to .45 acp OALs. I load mine to 1.185 some go as far as 1.200 or farther. Glock shooters and a lot of other production type guns have to load shorter due to mag restrictions and end up around 1.135.

[G-ManBart]

For my Edge, I run everything pretty much right at 1.200". It really feeds anything 100% to include factory hollow points or WWB. My standard load is a Win case, 4.9gr of N320 and a MG 180gr FMJ or a Precision Delta 180gr FMJ. I get 171pf with the PDs and 169 with the MGs (take up slightly different amount of case volume. When I use Zero 180gr JHPs or MG 180gr JHPs I can drop the powder down to 4.6gr and still get 170+PF. If I stay at 4.9gr and use the Zeros or MG JHP's I wind up with around 177-178pf since they take up quite a bit more case volume.

For my Trojan I loaded them longer when I first got the gun to help the first round feed smoother from slide lock. 5.1gr of N320 and the PD 180gr FMJ at 1.250" gave me 169.5pf at the WSSSC. It fed the shorter ammo (even WWB) from slide lock 99% of the time at the shorter OAL and a little polishing of the feed ramp after the match seems to have cured the problem so now I'll use the same ammo as I load for my Edge since they run about the same speed.

[bkeeler]

STI Eagle 5" 40 S&W

180gr MGB JHP

1.220 OAL

170PF

.417 crimp

This is the OAL I was told by my gunsmith to start with in this gun when I purchased it from him. The gun has functioned flawless there for no need to change.

You can see my load data and chrono results here: My Load Data

BK

[D. Manley]

Interesting, seems most of the longer loads are being used in 1911 styled guns. A little bit confusing to me is, I've seen pretty long loads listed as being used in other style guns as well (Glock, in particular) and just looking at mine, seems to me anything over 1.135 would be really pushing mag clearance.

[Rocket35]

When I loaded for my Glock, I was running 1.145" and even had success with 1.150". For 1911/2011 guns I am running 1.180". I see no real need to go longer. At that OAL, the loads are accurate and reliable.

Edited October 9, 2008 by Rocket35