40 cal under loaded

blueskies

March 18, 2015 18:45

I made a mistake and accidentally loaded a grain under my normal load. My normal load is with 6.4 gr Power Pistol and I loaded 200 rds at 5.4 gr. Do you believe there is a concern over a squib? I would hate to pull all of them if I don't have to.

The load was:
40 cal
Berry's 180gr FP DS
Power Pistol 5.4 gr
OAL 1.130"

Thank you for your help!

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  babun

  March 18, 2015 19:05

  You should be good to go. Perhaps about 875 fps.
  should function in any normal pistol.
  
  compare your reduced loads to Winchester WST and Universal powders,
  power pistol is right between them.
  
  https://www.hodgdon.com/

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  blueskies

  March 18, 2015 19:33

  Hi babun,
  
  This is great news. As a rule of thumb, is there a % of the 'normal' load (or max) where one would be concerned about squibbing?
  
  Thanks again,
  Jeff

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  charliemeyer007

  March 18, 2015 22:27

  Autoloaders are much more forgiving with squibs. They fail to function the action unlike a revolver which can bring another round into play with an additional pull of the trigger.

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  babun

  March 18, 2015 23:01

  quote:Originally posted by blueskies
  Hi babun,
  
  This is great news. As a rule of thumb, is there a % of the 'normal' load (or max) where one would be concerned about squibbing?
  
  Thanks again,
  Jeff
  
  
  NO NO There is no general rules, Different powders react to different levels of charges. Blue Dot and Green Dot were 2 of the worst, even caused OVER pressures in reduced loads.
  
  Charlie makes a good point, if it fails to reload the next round,
  CHECK THE BORE FIRST.

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  Hawk Carse

  March 19, 2015 07:40

  The first question is, why did you load a grain under?
  When you have that answered, correct your procedures to ensure the desired load. You might as easily have loaded a grain over and bent your gun.
  
  As Charlie says, an underloaded automatic will quit functioning long, long before it sticks a bullet. I can tell you for sure that 1 grain of 700X will get a .38 wadcutter out the muzzle and actually reach a target.
  
  Whether your underload will function the gun remains to be seen. It won't hurt anything either way.
  
  Just load right.

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  blueskies

  March 19, 2015 19:15

  Thank you all for your comments. This adds a lot of insight. When the receipt I was following had the 'suggested starting grains' lower than I used, I was not sure of the meaning of this suggestion.
  
  My procedure has been modified reducing chance of error.
  
  Thanks again[:D]

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