SMOKE - from smokeless!

[Bigslug]

I ran my first batch of Lyman 452423's through my Springfield 1911 today. It went pretty well, but from the smoke, I began to think that I was shooting black powder through an 1860 Colt.

Can the village elders possibly tell me which of the following variables is leading to the big, puffy clouds?

Alloy - 9.75 BHN range scrap WW mix (approximately 23-1). Bullet weight 252 grains.
Lube - Lyman Orange Magic
Powder - 5 grains of Unique
Primer - WLP

Bullets sized to .452". They left some leading in the first inch of the throat, leading me to think they may want to be .451".

Enlighten me, great mystics.

[williamwaco]

My guess would be Unique + the lube. Either can cause smoke. Both can cause more.

[Nocturnal Stumblebutt]

That would be the orange magic. Try something like saeco green

[35remington]

To narrow it down, try it with Unique and jacketed of the same weight. Bet on the major contributor being the lube. But then, I've never tried Orange Magic.

[R.M.]

Going a thou smaller certainly will not help the leading issue, and in fact would probably make it worse. Try a different lube first. One change at a time would be wise.

[1874Sharps]

Bigslug,

Did you wipe the lube off of the base of the boolit? If there was lube on the backside of the boolit it will give you alot of smoke.

[runfiverun]

not sure where you are but a combo of unique and some lubes will smoke especially in high humidity..


however:
your leading is telling me you have gas cutting in the throat area and the smoke was from blow by of the powder. probably taking a lot of your lube with it.
i would say you had too much taper crimp or used an fcd[or something else going on in the loading process] and resized your boolits causing both of your problems before you even pulled the trigger.

[Shiloh]

I get a small puff of smoke from cast boolits. Especially so with Bullseye and Unique and alox lube. Outdoors it is a quick puff that dissipates quickly. Indoors if several are using that combo, it tends to linger a bit. The exhaust clears it in short order.

With traditional lube and either 4759 or 4227 in rifles, there is also a small quick puff of smoke.
Certainly nothing like the lingering black powder or Pyrodex powders.

Shiloh

[462]

i would say you had too much taper crimp or used an fcd[or something else going on in the loading process] and resized your boolits causing both of your problems before you even pulled the trigger.

I agree.

Besides a crimp die (especially the Lee handgun carbide factory crimp die, according to many members) a seating die can swage down a cast boolit, too.

Load a dummy round (no primer, no powder) pull it and measure it. If it is smaller, you will need to assess your seating and crimping procedures and equipment.

[Bigslug]

Ok. . .in order:

35remington - I've been using Unique with jacketed for years. If it's smoky, it's not smoky on anything like this level.

RM - At this point, it's going be a lot easier to eliminate the sizing variable as cause of leading first. I've got about a hundred slugs left that are sized at .452" with the Lyman lube already on. My theory on going to .451" is based off Fryxell's statement that leading towards the chamber end of things is the bullet starting off oversize. Barrel was basically clean after the first inch, leading me to believe that the bullets were correctly "sized" at that point and the lube started doing its job.

1874Sharps - Immediately after running them through the sizer, I scraped lube off the bases on the edge of a plastic peanut butter jar lid. Perhaps not totally antiseptic, but it got the globs off.

runfiverun - I'm in the not-quite-full-desert of SoCal west of Palm Springs, so not a massive amount of inherent humidity, though the range I work in has a swamp cooler that adds a little. Still, it's not the Everglades by a long shot.

462 and runfiverun - Funny you should mention Lee dies, as those are what's being used. Taper crimp was pursued cautiously, however, going enough to ensure the mouth bell was eliminated and not a great deal more. Will definitely try pulling a slug to see what we're dealing with. This may be an area where the "happy medium" is difficult to achieve, as LACK of sufficient crimp has caused me grief in my earlier years of loading jacketed.

Another item of note: I was picking a few flakes of Unique out of my hair at the end of the session, so efficient combustion seems not to be a strong suit of this particular load.

[mpmarty]

.451 is too small for all my 45acp pistols and results in leading in front of the chamber as you have found. Most of my 45acp boolits are fired as they come from the mold with no sizing at all and just 50/50 LLA JPW lube.

[runfiverun]

i use 6.2 grs of unique in my acp with the lyman 452-- 200 swc.
you could try the eazy way and just bump up the load.
it may fix the problem [has before] depending on your alloy and such.
sometimes just too low of a load is as bad as undersizing.

measure a loaded round before and after crimping, this will give you an indication of how much squeeze you are putting on them too.

[Bigslug]

i use 6.2 grs of unique in my acp with the lyman 452-- 200 swc.
you could try the eazy way and just bump up the load.
it may fix the problem [has before] depending on your alloy and such.
sometimes just too low of a load is as bad as undersizing.


Yeah. . .after shooting them and checking the ejection pattern compared with factory Winchester hardball, I could definitely get away with hotter. My normal hardball load is 6.4, but since the bullets dropped at 250+ grains and I'm not finding doodly squat for reliable load data for a slug that heavy, I opted for the cautious approach.

Another half grain of powder and more time with the calipers would seem to be indicated.

[MBTcustom]

Its the lube. Been there done that.

[rexherring]

The Lyman lube plus the Unique will smoke a lot. Try Randyrats TAC 1 lube, way less smoke and I've noticed a much cleaner barrel when cleaning.

[runfiverun]

try running a search here.
i know that the heavy weights in the acp has been talked about several times before.

[fredj338]

It's the lube. Early leading is almost always a bullet too small. You are not using the LCFD are you? it can resize a bullet in the case depending on bullet size & brass used.
I shoot a ton of 45acp, all lead bullets over WST w/ CR lube or home made. Smoke is minimal if you stay away from Alox based stuff. Saw a guy shooting 230gr LRN o/ BE, looked like black powder by all the smoke. He was surprised I was also shooting a lead bullet. Change the lube, the Lyman is too expensive anyway.

[Saint]

Whenever I shoot cast from my SBH people think I am shooting BP cartridge. I second the opinion that it's the lube.

[Bigslug]

Seems like the general consensus is that the lube is the cause of the smog - possibly with the Unique ramping up the effect.

But figuring out the leading is probably priority #1. This bullet is classic Keith format as far as the driving bands go, and the crimp groove is not being used in this autoloader application. On top of the measuring/crimping issues already discussed, what are your thoughts on running the bullet deeper into the sizer and filling the crimp groove with lube? If nothing else, it would empty the orange stuff out of the sizer sooner.

[geargnasher]

Lube + gas leaks from a poor fit combined with a too-lightl load for the particular "system" veiwed as a whole are likely the culprits. Some lubes are smokier than others all things being equal. Most powders are smokey/dirty when running at lower pressures.

One more thing to check: Make sure there is no sharp edge left at the end of the throat left by the chambering reamer. A lot of modern autos are showing a problem with this, and physically shaves lead as the boolit engraves the rifling. These shavings often get smeared onto the bore from the end of the throat forward about an inch, and are visible as big, rough, lumpy streaks. Clean the chamber/throat really well and look in the breech end with a pen light, look for an abrupt step at the rifling origin. If your gun has such a step, there are throating reamers availiable from Brownell's that will fix the problem.

Gear

[runfiverun]

thank's gear....
lube don't just smoke it has to be burned.

the lube smoke comes when the boolit has left the bbl.

[.22-10-45]

That new-fangled powder probably should have been labeled smokes-less! Anyway..since I only shoot outdoors..I don't mind smoke..seems only fitting..they are called Fire-arms for a reason!

[MikeS]

BigSlug, you mentioned Lee dies, and using a taper crimp. Is it a true taper crimp die (solid steel, no moving parts), or is it the Carbide Factory Crimp Die? If you're using the CFCD than it's quite possible that it's sizing down the boolit while it's seated in the case. It's not being sized by the crimp sleeve that you can adjust, but rather from the carbide ring at the mouth of the die. If you are using that die, try loading some without it, and see if you still get the leading, and/or smoke. If you get rid of the leading, then the die was the problem.

[Bigslug]

A quick update:

Brain fart on my part - on getting back down to Dad's place, where most of the loading equipment lives, the dies used in the single stage for this project were actually the RCBS carbide set. The Lee's are still living in the Dillon. At any rate, I pulled a boolit from one of the dummy rounds - no significant change in diameter from the pre-seated slugs. The initial size is .452" plus a skosh.

So the current plan is to test a couple of ideas with three 25-round batches:

#1. Leave at .452 and increase the charge to 5.5 grains.

#2. Stick with my original Fryxell-inspired plan to size down to .451 with the original 5 grain charge.

#3. Size to .451 AND up the charge to 5.5.

FWIW, there seems to be about a half-thou springback from the alloy - at least if the stated diameters on the sizing dies are dead nuts (or the calipers are.

[popper]

flakes of Unique out of my hair Unless you had a headwind, that's a LOT of powder out the muzzle. Harder alloy does spring back and usually doesn't get resized by the case. Use .452. Try NOT removing the bell, or just enough to chamber reliably. I set my crimp die to act as a case gauge instead of a crimper.

[Freischütz]

Some lube and powder combinations just produce lots of smoke. Unique and Gray 24 lube made so much smoke in a 9mm Steyr that several people came over to me to find out why I was using black powder.

Right now I'm using Herco and Carnauba Red in a 6.5 Carcano. There's a lot of smoke – something I don't see with a 30/06.

[Bigslug]

One more thing to check: Make sure there is no sharp edge left at the end of the throat left by the chambering reamer. A lot of modern autos are showing a problem with this, and physically shaves lead as the boolit engraves the rifling.


It looks like Springfield did a pretty good job on this stainless barrel - shallow rifling, nicely polished, no signs of chatter from the reamer on the leade. Probably gonna be a good cast boolit barrel once I get this sorted out. I should be able to try the next experiment sometime next week. Work. . .work. . .work. . .:bigsmyl2: