Lead shaving during crimp?

[ItZaLLgooD]

I have been having a leading issue with my PT1911 in 45 acp. I noticed when I pulled a boolit out of the case that I had a little ring of shaved lead where it had been seated.

Would this little ring of shaved lead cause my leading issue? I am using Lee dies and seating and crimping at the same time. My barrel slugs out at .4515 and I am loading the Lee TL 452-230 RN unsized at .4535 lubed with 45/45/10. I'm using ACWW for the time being with a middle of the road charge of Titegroup.

I don't see this issue on anything else I load. I load .357 and .40 and don't see this ring and they don't lead up. The PT1911 will have lead hair growing in it after about 10-15 rounds.

Why would the 45's have this ring and not the other calibers?

I ordered an extra crimp die so that I can crimp seperately. Will this cure the problem?

[largom]

Crimp sererate and your problem will go away.

Larry

[deltaenterprizes]

+1 on above

[canyon-ghost]

It shaves when you seat, using an expander die helps. You expand the brass to accept the bullet and , crimp the brass back down to what it was.

Ron

[ItZaLLgooD]

That's good to hear. It took me long enough to notice. I will load up some test rounds to try this weekend.

[captaint]

ITz - I hope when you say "crimp", you mean taper crimp. After you taper crimp, your loaded round OD at the case mouth should be about .472. I use a Lyman M die for the case expansion and that works out really well for boolits. When you do taper crimp remember to just barely remove the flare - barely. These practices should help to eliminate the leading. Also, do you cast your own, or are you purchasing them. We don't need very hard boolits for 45ACP. enjoy Mike

[milprileb]

All said by others is great advice. I would like to add that if your cases are not belled /flared enough, you can occasionally get this lead shaving on seating the bullet even if you seat and crimp separately. Only, its hardly ever a issue with any 1911 that I have fired including Taurus.

I get into all sorts of food being tossed at me on other forums about the issue of seat and crimp as separate event (stations on progressives). Seems most die sets today are sold with a seat/crimp die. 40 yrs ago, most die sets were 4 dies: size, flare/bell, seat and crimp.

While today you can seat and crimp same time: I liken this to pulling on you pants while tightening your belt. It can be done but its hardly satisfactory.

Accuracy? crimp as separate event . That is a time proven way to do it. It takes as much money and time to make poor ammo as it does to make good ammo. Its all about attention to detail

[wallenba]

I agree with all the others. Chamfering the inside of the case mouth and expanding, especially with a Lyman "M" die and crimping separately should cure that.

[leftiye]

Expander ball no smaller than .002" below boolit diameter - also helps seating process not size down boolits (espexially soft lead).

[ItZaLLgooD]

Captain, I cast my own using wheel weights. I am using the Lee powder-thru expander. I made a new expander plug that is .0015 bigger than the factory one but I haven't tried it out. No matter how much I flare the cases I will still get the ring.

Now that I have noticed it I looked at all that I loaded up. 90% of them have a little shaved lead at the mouth. They measured between .470 and .472.

I load with the Lee Classic Turret press. I don't use the factory crimp die so I can put a seperate crimp die in the rotation without any issues. I ordered one but I will have to adjust the die to do them seperately until it gets here.

Why don't I have this problem with the .40 or .357's?

[fredj338]

Why don't I have this problem with the .40 or .357's?
You should if loading the same way. I have done the seating & crimp in diff steps. It just makes thing so much easier & the results are better for lead bullets. No M die either. All pistol dies are made to bell the case & work fine for 95% of all lead bullet reloading.

[frkelly74]

When I seat and crimp in separate operations I screw the seat/crimp die in to the stop ring which is where it is adjusted to crimp the brass. Then I back it out a turn and adjust the seat stem to seat the proper depth with the die backed out. It will remove some of the bell when backed out. When I have all the boolits seated in un crimped cases I screw the die back down to crimp position and back off the seat stem so it will not touch the boolit. Then I go shoot them and start all over again.

[MBTcustom]

Depending on the size of your boolits, if you are using a regular roll crimp it could be that the boolit diameter is larger than the guide diameter of the crimp/seat die. In other words, the crimp is swaging your boolit down a couple of thou and pushing the lead it moves against the rim of the case as it crimps, pinching the excess off creating the lead ring. Just my opinion, but it would be something to think about if the new crimp die does not fix the problem. if the new crimp die is the collet type you should not have this problem. I have had the misterious ring of lead myself (way back when I first started) caused by not belling the case necks, and it definitely produced leading. Its a loose unsupported piece of lead that is easily vaporized by the gasses (I believe that 99% of leading is caused by vaporization, not scrubbing or rubbing like many believe)

[mdi]

Seat and de-flare in two steps (don't crimp, just remove flare with a taper crimp die).

[MtGun44]

Inadequate TC is 85% of ammo related handload feeding problems in 1911s. You should crimp
in a separate operation, so boolit is not moving as the neck comes in, which is where the
lead ring is coming from. I push about 1/3 to 1/2 of the brass thickness into the lead,
look with a 10X magnifier.

Bill

[ItZaLLgooD]

I loaded some dummy rounds today with no lead ring. I did basically what frkelly said that he does. I also went out and got a chamfer tool at the local gun shop.

The expander plug in the powder-thru die measures at .4495 and it does squish my boolits just a little from .4535 to .453/.4525. I made a new one at .451 that I will try if I have to.

I have about 200 rounds loaded up that I need to get out of the brass :guntootsmiley: but in th meantime I will load up 50 or so to try without the lead shavings.

I am tired of cleaning out that barrel, hopefully this will end it. Ionically my Glock 22 doesn't even get a hint of leading in it. 100-150 rnds t a time without any issues. Same alloy and lube.

[michiganvet]

I always neck expand with an M die, seat, then crimp in a separate operation for both cast and jacketed. The bell expander that comes with most die sets introduces too much runout. It doesn't matter how many calibers you load. All you need is 1 M1 die and 1 M2 die and just buy whatever expander punches you need in addition. Lyman deluxe die sets come with the M die.