Occasional feed problems with Lee 200 SWC

[Cloudpeak]

Below is a copy of a post I made to the 1911 group concerning the occasional feed problems I've been having with the Lee 452-200-SWC in my new Champion. I wonder what you guys think.
*************
First post:
I'm having occasional feed problems with my Champion using reloads with the Lee copy of the H&G 200 SWC. The round will feed part way into the chamber and nose of the bullet will jam in the top of the chamber. I'm thinking that perhaps I need to load the round longer. I've loaded them 1.255" Anyone use this bullet? If so, what do you use for OAL?

This is a new gun and only has 150 or so rounds through it. The rounds seem to feed in my Loaded just fine.

Thanks, Cloudpeak
************
Response to various suggestions:

First: I taper crimped to .469"

I did shorten the Lee loads (with 3.5gr Clays) to 1.238". This puts the case mouth and edge of the front driving band flush so I can't go any shorter with this bullet. Same problem. I'm going to give the gun a good cleaning, especially the breech face.

I ran a bunch of loads that use a 200 SWC Penns bullet in front of 5.0 gr. of W231 loaded to an OAL of 1.255". These loads never miss a beat in my 5" loaded and ran perfectly through the Champion.

So, I think I've narrowed the problem down to one of two things:

Light load. The 5.0 of W231 & 200 gr Penns SWC is kind of a mid range load. The 3.5 gr of Clays with the Lee 200 SWC is very light. In fact, in my loaded, it would fail to lock the slide back on occasion. (This is with the factory 16 lb. spring)

Bullet design. The Lee and Penns look very much alike but may be different in areas that might affect feeding. The Lee is .006" longer than the Penns. The Lee is .018" shorter from the base of the bullet to the front of the forward driving band, which I don't think would make much of a difference.

I think the major difference between bullets that might affect feeding is that the Penns has a nose diameter of .222 as opposed to the Lee's of .186" for a difference of .036". IOW, the Penns has a "fatter" nose which means it would contact the top of the chamberbefore the Lee making the round enter the chamber at a shallower angle than a narrower nosed bullet. Does that make sense? Might that make a difference?
*************

I thought my feeding problems would be over with when I went from the LEE
TL 452-200-SWC to the present bullet. The tuble lube bullet was very short when compared to the 452-200-SWC.

One thing I noticed when lineing up both the Lee and Penns loaded rounds in line with WWB rounds loaded with the 230 round nose is that the contact points of the bullet (ogive match?) where they would contact the top of the chamber looked identical. Not so with the Lee round lined up.

This is the second Lee mold I've bought. If I can't get this bullet to feed, I'm going to have to try a different mold. My guess is that the Penns bullet is a more accurate copy of the H&G 68 design that the Lee.

Thanks, Cloudpeak

[Lloyd Smale]

The springfields ive had tend to be short in the chamber. Try seating the bullet even with the shoulder instead of having any stick out and put just a tad more taper crimp on them and id bet they will feed.

[35remington]

My first response to feeding complaints in 1911's is, What magazines are you using? Parallel feed lips with a controlled release point? Old style tapered feed lips (G.I.)? Rounded follower or flat?

You most likely won't be able to seat the bullet out much more before the bullet shoulder contacts the rifling origin, possibly making the round too long to chamber fully. Only way to know is to try. I also load the Lee to 1.255" and feel that's just about optimum for the 1911. Don't load it to your shorter length. Having a prominent case edge is asking for trouble. The bullet should have the shoulder a slight distance out of the case, not flush.

I agree that a difference in nose diameter may alter feeding characteristics, but you should compare the Lee bullet to an original H&G bullet before deciding who is more faithful in their copy. Base to shoulder shouldn't matter, it's what's sticking out of the case that counts.

I mention magazines because that's the easiest variable to change, and the cheapest unless you like laying out 30-40 bucks per mag for the big pricey names, which aren't necessarily better.

This might sound odd, but the Lee bullet feeds flawlessly from my 1911's using original GI magazines with the tapered lips and the dimple on the follower-so if you don't have them, try some hardball specc'd magazines with tapered lips, which is what GI magazines are. I am fortunate to have a dozen of them, and I used to shoot in the Lincoln National Guard Armory on the basement range. Put a lot of rounds downrange using them, and they were reliable with all the rounds that were intended to duplicate the feeding characteristics of hardball. That's the majority of .45 ACP ammunition and bullet styles available with a few exceptions. The Lee bullet is an accurate target bullet, but I eventually decided to go with 5-5.2 Red Dot after trying many powders over the years. Light loads are a pain, and normal power ones aren't at all hard on the gun. Red Dot gets more velocity for the same powder weight than W231 and its bulk makes a double charge easy to see on a progressive.

If your gun is sensitive to such small variations in bullet shape something's not right. The 1911 should have more tolerance for slight bullet variations than that. The GI magazines do have problems with the short nosed, target type 185-190 gr SWC's, but that shape is plain wrong for the 1911, with a resulting OAL in the 1.190" range. That's too short. That requires entirely different release timing and a different magazine. Even then many 1911's won't run them 100%.

The load using 3.5 grains Clays is too light to function the gun reliably, as you suspected. If you're running a standard spring the 5.0 W231 load should be okay. It's not a barn burner, running around 800 fps, but it should cycle the gun reliably.

[Cloudpeak]

35Remington,

Hey, thanks for the detailed post.

I'm using the Springfield Armory factory 1911 mags. I've used the two blued steel that came with the Champion and the stainless that came with my Loaded. I don't know if they're patterned after the G.I. or not. (I'm really new to 1911s)

I did run into a seating problem with the Lee T.L. design 200 SWC. They were really short nosed and would not chamber if loaded too long. The edge of the front band kept the round from chambering. You are on the money about loading shorter. I shot a bunch of rounds this afternoon that had the case mouth almost flush with the bullet band. No go.

I don't know where to go to find the orignal H&G so am kind of winging it through trial and error. I do know that the Penns bullets work fine and the Lee are not an exact copy of that bullet but it's close.

All of the S.A. mags have dimpled followers. I don't know the difference between tapered G.I. mags and others.

The 3.5 gr of Clays is very soft shooting and very accurate but I do get occasional stovepipes and failure to lock back in my loaded. I've been meaning to order a 14 lb recoil spring because I'd love to use this load to shoot plates.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v620/WyoBob/Targets/DSCN1328.jpg

Side note: My wife and I and our two girls went to UNL. I lived in Lexington for 35 years before moving to Wyoming.

Thanks, again, for the time you took to write. Very informative.

Cloudpeak

[35remington]

Cloudpeak, the controlled release point magazines have a spot where they get abruptly wider about in the middle of the magazine. They're designed to let the round break over at a specific spot-which may not happen to coincide with where your bullet/cartridge/gun combination needs it to happen.

Tapered magazine lips are just that-no abrupt transition. These may have a different location where they release the cartridge and are often better suited to a round with a longer OAL. Exceptions exist, and I am assuming the gun is not over ramped-in other words, within spec-no hockshop gunsmithing.

Varying OAL sometimes calls for a variable release point. Once you get too long or too short, nothing may work. I would classify the tumble lube 200 as an accurate design, but not quite faithful to the premise of duplicating ball it its feeding pattern. It is more like the short target SWC's in that regard.

I would keep looking, and invest in a Lyman 452374 mould that duplicates ball exactly in a lead bullet, while perhaps collecting old magazines that you can work on to determine what is right. The H&G pattern should feed-you just need to make sure that you've got the right equipment. I have many old magazines, and Brownells sells tools that allow you to slightly reform the magazine to control when the round pops under the extractor. The overall length needs to be right as well, as the round has to bounce off the frame ramp into the barrel, straightening in the chamber at the same time the rim slides under the extractor.

The gun will work fine with many loads. It's just that the great variety of possible OALs, shapes, and magazines, not to mentions frames and other things that that are all interacting makes finding what works trial and error. If just one manufacturer made all the guns and magazines (think Glock) everything would be much simpler, and exactly what works would be much better known.

If you're not going to cast your own, look for a commercial 230 RN that duplicates the ball profile. Go online and look at Lee's two roundnose designs in 45-one has the 1 ogive radius, the other a 2 ogive radius. When you see the difference and compare to ball you'll know exactly what to look for.