I just reloaded my first batch of 40 S&W ammo

[Redneck with a 40]

I reloaded my first batch of 40 S&W ammo tonight on my new Lee 4 hole turret press. I did 100 rounds of 160 grain FMJ with 7 grains of Unique, should give me right around 1100 fps, which is about what I want. It was fun and rewarding, seeing my boxes of loaded ammo sitting there on the bench, its a source of pride. Right now I'm having to manually charge all my cases and verify with the scale, this really slows things down. The good news, I've got my auto disk riser coming from midway tomorrow, once I get the auto disk powder measure set up and the lee primer feeder, I'll be ready to jam 150 rounds/hour. I've got enought bullets, primers and powder to load 1000 rounds.

I'm off on Wednsday, I'm gonna go and try out my ammo. I'm confident in my powder charge, not worried about a kaboom.

 

[lycanthrope]

What's the OAL and crimp? Those are the tricky parts.....

 

[Snagglepuss]

Tell me about it. When i started reloading this summer I threw together 200 rounds of .45acp and 100 rounds of 10mm. My friend and I were ready to go. Found out that my crimp was off on all of them and they would not chamber in his Glock 30 or my DW PMGD or 10mm CBOB. I fellow shooter at the range inspected them and told me to back off on the crimp die a bit. Well it was off to the store to get an RCBS bullet puller, hammer style. Took me quite a while to pull all those bullets. The whole time I was thinking about ways to avoid this in the future.

Just ordered 3 Lee Factory crimp dies in .45, 10mm, and .357/.38 from Midway. Also decided I would never load more than 50 at a time until I get this thing down pat.

 

[Run&Shoot]

Snagglepuss, you can also pre-check your cartridges in a couple of ways. One is to load a few rounds, load them in a mag and cycle them through your pistol. Or you could remove the barrel and try dropping them into the chamber. They should drop in without any assistance. Ill fitting cartridges often go most of the way in but not the last 1/10 inch or so. Or they need a push to get the final bit seated.

Another way would be to get a max cartridge gage like the ones from L.E. Wilson from Midway, etc. Again, you should be able to just drop the cartridge into the gage. It should go in all the way so that the rim is flush with the surface of the gage. It checks for diamter, rim, and max length.

I figured this out after an similar embarassing trip to the range and none of my 9mm would reliably chamber. I got the Factory Crimp Die to do the final sizing as well as double checking with theWilson gage.

 

[Redneck with a 40]

I checked my first 5 reloaded cartridges in both of my pistols, they chambered smooth as butter. I'm sure I'm good to go. I'm also using a lee factory crimp die.

 

[RustyFN]

Redneck, you should be OK with the factory crimp die. I loaded a bunch of 9mm and used a light crimp and had no problems. I know how you feel right now. After I loaded my first batch I had to wait four days until I could go to the range. But once I got there it was an awesome feeling getting to shoot my own loads. Good luck, good shooting and stay safe.
Rusty