New PD cartridge for my S&W M&P .40

jeffreybehr · #1 08-23-2020, 02:43 PM

After returning to .40S&W this summer for my single Personal-Defense cartridge, I bought a new and traded for one of my old fullsize M&Ps.. Bought a BUNCH of premium Federal and Winchester PD ammo but then found the Barnes TAC/XPD ammo on (closeout?) sale in several places.. Bought all of Midway's 31 20boxes and have been carrying and practicing with it for a month or so.

I then realized I still had several-hundred Federal primed cases and new StarLine primed cases on a shelf plus a partial box of Barnes TAC/XP 140g. all-copper bullets, so I started looking for loads in the Hodgdon manual.. Then found that Barnes had more loads on-line than were in their reloading manual, so I started testing a combination of either of these.. Worked my way up to 7.n(1) grains of HS-6, my favorite medium-rate powder(2) for this and lots more calibers.. Muzzle velocity was just right at about 1080FPS (= close to maximum subsonic velocity).. It shoots accurately and is 100% reliable in either of my pistols, so I'm now in process of loading my way out of bullets or cases.. Then I'll buy more and continue buying more until I get to about a thousand.

(1) I'm not tellin', not that it's confidential or majical or anything like that but because EACH OF US must work up to our own 'maximum' loads in OUR firearms.

(2) One reason is that HS-6 has almost NO muzzleflash, something that is important when shooting in low-light situations.

(3) The black cartridge 'boxes' partially visible in the pic are MTM Case-Gard P-100-45s available from many retailers for under $4.

STORMINORMAN · #2 08-23-2020, 04:17 PM

Well, since they are now at a $+ per round loaded ("when available"?) it certainly sounds like you made a great buy on those 31 boxes...!

But, at $0.72 each for the bullets that's still a pretty high investment for reloading purposes, again, just IMHO...?

I, too, think the 40 S&W is the ol' cat's meow for PD (& HD, for that matter). In the SUB2000 with a 30+ round "happy stick" or two!

How does something simple like Nosler's 135gr JHP at $0.21 each under 6.0gr of 700-X @ 1,172 fps sound to you?

Cheers! And ENJOY!

P.S. Having gone through the recent Federal 130gr HST exercise in 38 Special +P, and more recently the Lehigh 90gr XD in .355 (for both 9mm & 357 SIG), I'm a little leery of experimenting with a new .40 recipe: I still have those boxes of 88gr ARX Inceptors to load and shoot up!