Best powder for .40 S&W

**PennsyPlinker** · September 8th, 2009, 08:15 PM

I was over at my favorite local gun store a few days ago, and talking to the owner about some of my reloading efforts. I mentioned that I was using Titegroup for reloading .40 S&W, but that even with loads close to the maximum, they bullets still sounded and felt slow. His response was that Titegroup burned too fast to get the best velocity out of the round. He mentioned a powder, but of course I neglected to write it down, and now I cannot remember. So if anyone has some experience with this, I would be interested to hear it - or read it, anyway.

Thanks.

**mjporreca** · September 8th, 2009, 08:26 PM

I settled on 3.8 grains of bullseye behind a 175 grain swc (I think). Nice comfortable round and shooting very accurately out of my 4.25" barrel M&P40. I tried them as hot as 4.4 grain, but that was brutal.

**Dave in PA** · September 8th, 2009, 08:43 PM

Check out this link:

http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

It covers three brands and all their powders. You can filter it for brand/bullet weight.

**sutehk** · September 9th, 2009, 07:59 AM

I've used Longshot for some loads. IIRC the velocity according to the manual was 1050 - 1100 ft/s at max load. Its got one hell of a kick compared to titegroup or HP-38. Load was somewhere around 7.5 grains so it filled the case pretty well.

**PennsyPlinker** · September 9th, 2009, 09:15 AM

Thanks for the input guys. Dave, I appreciate the link, but that is the chart I am using. It will give me data for any powder I care to try, but it doesn't give me recommendations as to which will work the best.