I am pretty comfortable with my current 40S&W load 180 grain bullets on 4.35 grains Winchester 231. It’s a pretty solid 800 fps for 144 power factor and 256 ft/lbs muzzle energy. It runs the pistol well, too.

I set up the chronograph and got ready to play with the powder measure. I threw 10 loads of powder, weighed it and divided by 10. When I set the measure up, this method showed the charge to be 4.35 grains. It came out this time as 4.25 grains, so I ran it again and got 4.25 grains again. Now, the whole assembly had been moved to the loaner press and back, so a small change might not be surprising. Then again, I should have spot checked it at least after each move. Next time.

So, I reduced the charge, weighed it and failed do document the weight for it and the next three charges. At least I did document the average velocities for 5 shots.

773 fps = 139PF = 239 ft/lbs

762 fps = 137PF = 232 ft/lbs

750 fps = 135PF = 225 ft/lbs

735 fps = 132PF = 216 ft/lbs

I landed on 3.85 grains for 724 fps, 130PF & 209 ft/lbs. I ran about 20 rounds through the chrono to verify that it was stable at this velocity.

I like to experiment with loads and bullet weights, so I left the charge at 3.85 grains, but loaded ten 155 grain plated bullets. The average came out to 643 fps, 99PF & 142 ft/lbs. As it turns out, 142 ft/lbs is not enough to run the pistol. In fact, it exactly zero rounds ejected, though a couple did open the slide a bit. The brass showed soot smudging on the outside. I think the surprisingly large drop in velocity and the sooty cases indicates that the pressure dropped significantly, maybe because the 155 grain bullet is quite a bit shorter than the 180, but I have them seated to the same OAL, leaving a larger space in the cartridge.

The 165 grain poly-coated bullets did a little better, 748 fps, 123 PF & 205 ft/lbs. The pistol ran just fine, but that power factor is a little too low. I should be able to tweak the charge for all those 155 and 165 grain bullets I have left from when I started loading 180’s. 🙂

 

Man, you can’t believe anything those guys say. First, they say it will be 2-3 weeks turnaround. They received my press on April 4 and I got FedEx notification that it was shipped back on April 7. THEN, FedEx says it will arrive on the 12th, but I had it on the 11th. How am I supposed to complain now?!?

If you look really close, you can see the color difference on the replacement crank and links. The frame has some slight yellowing on it, making it ever so slightly greenish.

There was a list of the parts replaced, including the clearly labeled primer shield and many small bits.

Before I reinstalled my press, I cleaned up the borrowed press within an inch of it’s life.

Before:

After:

Swapping the presses out was largely trivial; afterall, I’ve done it a few times now.

I added one accessory that I had ordered before the old press broke, a JW Systems Primer Track. This is basically just a replacement primer track bearing (which is a steel plate that sits under the primer slide) but it has a ball bearing roller added to help stabilize the primer slide.

As expected, I did not have to adjust anything on the top end to begin loading again. It just works, ya know.

I had the afternoon off last Friday and one of the things I tackled with that free time was to disassemble a pretty good sized bin of loading errors. They were mostly 40S&W and a lot of them predate the Dillon press, and thus most of them were primer issues from the Lee Press. I used a Hornady collett puller for most of them. That is by far the quickest way to pull a lot of bullets. Once adjusted for what you are pulling and getting into the groove, it’s about 5 seconds per cartridge.

Some of the primers were crushed into the pockets crossways and thus would not slide into the shell holder for the collett puller, so I had to use the intertia puller. Happily only a dozen or so needed this special care.

I pulled a few 155’s, a few 165’s and a bunch of 180’s.

The scrap brass bucket grew, too.

Here’s a couple hundred grains of TitePowerWinGroupPistol231.

Between the damaged brass and the damaged bullets, I had roughly what was needed for about 150 fresh cartridges. 🙂

While I had the interia puller in hand, I tried once again to pull one of the polymer bullets from the Inceptor lead free ammo and much to my surprise, it worked this time! I didn’t count, but it was about 50 strikes of the puller against the end of a 2×4 in the framework of my workbench. The previous unsuccessful attempt was struck against the concrete floor. Maybe the deadblow effect worked better than the rigid bounceback.

As I plan to shoot this ammo in the upcoming Silver Dollar Championship, I think I will keep this bullet or see if I can pull a couple others to include with my chrono samples. I have already spoken with the Match Director about the possible difficulties in pulling a bullet for the test and he said to bring it on!