Have You Experienced This?

[10ring]

Over the past year I've been using a 180 gr Montana Gold bullet in my .40 S&W Limited blaster. I've recently been trying the 185 gr 40cal-1911 RN-SWC lead bullet from Oregon Trail. Using a load which gives about the same muzzle velocity the felt recoil seems to be greater with the lead bullet.

Have any of you experienced this? If this is in fact the case and I'm not imagining this, can anyone explain what is going on?

[BrianH]

For one thing, to get a 185 gr. to the same velocity as a 180 is going to require higher chamber pressures. That, plus the heavier bullet, probably amounts to more felt recoil.

[wide45]

It is less than a 3% change in weight. Tell us more about the loads.

[10ring]

Okay, the two loads in question are as follows ( for the 40 S&W ) :

180 gr CMJ from Montana Gold

5.3 gr N-320

WLP primer

Rem UMC case

OAL = 1.200

185 gr lead RN-SWC from Oregon Trail

4.5 gr Win231

WLP primer

Win case

OAL = 1.200

I should have looked up what the velocities I measured for these loads but suffice it to say that they are around "major" power factor.

Once again, it seemed to me the 185 gr lead bullet load had more felt recoil than the jacketed bullet load. Any ideas why?

[Bubber]

10ring,

I have experince the same general thing. Jacket bullets feel lighter on recoil. Also the different powders for the same velocity will give you a different feel.

[kimel]

The diff is probably due mostly to the powder type change. However, crimping the different brass to the same finished diameter will result in a different crimp. I doubt the wall thickness is the same with both UMC and Winchester brass.

Try a load with both bullets keeping the powder the same in the same case headstamp.

I swap back and forth between the LaserCast 180gr TC and the MT Gold 180gr TC and adjusting the same powder to approximately the same velocity the difference in "feel" is not really noticable.

[10ring]

Okay, I'll have to back up and try the load development again. When I first started working up a load for the 185 gr RN-SWC I did have all the components the same except the powder, in which I tried, N320, and 231. I then loaded up some rounds with the two different powders to give approximately the same velocity. At this point I couldn't tell much difference between the two so I decided to use 231 because it's less expensive and I use it in my 45acp loads.

[GvU]

Sounds like an estimate "around major", did you use feel or a chrono?

There are usually to many variables for "feel".

John

[B.J. Norris]

You also won't need quite the same velocity, as the bullet is 5 gr.s heavier.

[Dave Marques]

I have experienced the same phenomena between lead and jacketed of the SAME weight (same powder too). It kinda depends on how much you shoot and how sensitive you are to changes in FELT recoil. I never believed that the .45ACP torqued your hand more than a 40S&W until I had pulled some muscles in my arm and my arm became sensitive enough to really feel the difference. And there WAS a difference. But IMHO to see if you can discern the difference you should keep everything else the same –same powder, same power factor. I wouldn’t worry too much about case headstamp- I would think PF would take care of that as well as OAL and crimp. N320 should have very repeatable performance. I have seen standard deviations around 11FPS with mixed brass with N320! Many of the W-W powders are a bit more variable in my experience. They (W-W powders) also are sensitive to humidity(when loading) and temp(when shooting). GOOD LUCK!