.45 acp HELP!

[flyingstick]

Ok Gentlemen. I need info on handloading .45 acp. I recently bought a Taurus 24/7 Pro. I got a 6 banger mold from lee in the 230 gr. The gun will shoot factory loads all day long without a jam or misfire, but my reloads are turning out a dud for every 7 boolits. The primer's will be barely dented on the duds. The shells that fire have good deep marks on the primers. I'm leaving the boolits uncrimped and checking the length of the shell after resizing to make sure it falls within .888-.898 but I'm missing something. This is my first autoloading pistol I've ever handloaded for, so any help will be greatly appreciated, (even if your not so gentle) :)
Thanks,
Don

[Dr. A]

There are many folks here with volumes of knowledge on the question, but I'll add what little I've learned in the last year. I've casted for several years, and mainly dealt with rifles and revolters. I learned in shooting my Springfield Mil-Spec that not every bullet will chamber cause of size and shape. Reloading the auto's with FMJ will give you an idea of what loads the best, and from there, you have to find what your gun likes. First of all, make sure you've sized the bullet. Some auto's even need .451. Second, if you are loading from a 6 banger, make sure the bullet is going to be compatible with your particular weapon. The problematic bullets are generally the SWC, and in particular the 200gr. This is what I prefer. OAL is important, and sizing as well. I use the Lee taper crimp die, and found that this is the single most important aspect in getting my gun to cycle every time. With this, and a good bullet, I've had no problems getting my Springer to 100% feeding. The Springer never had any problems before, and honestly, that's why I choose it. I've dealt with precious few other auto's but found the XD45 to be a bit picky as well as a few other auto's with this bullet. What bullet are you shooting? I use the Lee TL230 with microbands, and it cycles fine. Seems like I've heard the longer nosed 230's do the best. The shorter nose not so good (1 Radius not as good as 2)

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/productview?saleitemid=244052&t=11082005

The extra work required for this crimp is well worth the effort. It'll iron out any inconsistancy with the bullet.

[35remington]

Don, collect your dud rounds. Take the barrel off your Taurus. See if the rounds fully chamber. To compare what they should look like, slip in a couple of factory loads first.

Why every seven? Last shot through the gun? First shot? If it's a loading problem it shouldn't be in any particular order.

Make sure your primers are fully seated, slightly below flush with the case head.

Diameter of the cartridge case just below the bullet (at the case mouth) should be in the vicinity of .473" or less. Overall length of the cartridge should be 1.275" or less, ideally 1.260"-1.270" with the roundnosed 230 grain bullet (tumble lube) and in the vicinity of 1.220-1.230" for the truncated cone 230.

Let us know some of your dimensions and we'll be better able to help you.

You are taking the bell out of the case after flaring, correct? You say you are leaving it uncrimped, but this may be leaving the flaring bell intact, which would prevent complete chambering.

The .45 ACP is a good cartridge to reload for and I'm confident you'll find the problem and be able to solve it easily.

[slughammer]

Unfired primers always seem to have a light mark in them. When the round fires, it is pressed against the breechface while the inertia of the firing pin keeps the pin forward; the result is that the primer is formed around the pin and thus has a much deeper hit than the unfired ones. This is most visible in revolvers because of the free play between the case rims and the breechface. Though with an autoloader the same issue can be seen when the headspace is marginal.

As the other guys have said, primers should be flush to .010 below. Also the OAL of the loaded rounds is important. This straightwalled autoloader brass tends to shrink in OAL from sizing. With lead you can "headspace" on the lead depending on the boolit and how the chamber is cut.

[monadnock#5]

I used to have primer failures, and traced the problem to three areas. 1) Make sure your primer pockets are clean. You want brass on brass, with no layer of crud in between. 2) Seat the primers firmly, but don't overdo it. I could make my Lee Auto Prime do the "cam over" effect (before it broke). I'm sure those badly misshapen primer cups had wafers that were broken in several pieces. 3) Make sure your hands and equipment are clean. I've learned how to properly use my Auto Prime, and can manipulate it so that my hands never touch the primers. Unless I drop one. (DOH!).

You may also have a head space problem. Are you measuring your cases prior to loading them? Check the cases that won't fire and see if they're significantly under spec. for length.

[mike in co]

most likely the like of crimp, is leaving the case mouth dia the dirty culpret.
the extractor on most semi's will hold a case firmly enought for a good primer strike. .........so most likely its a feed problem you do not have to put much crimp on a 45acp, but you do need to size the case back to spec to get a good feed on a semi auto.

[MtGun44]

Most likely high primers. Verify all primers are below flush.
Otherwise the firing pin energy goes mostly into seating the
primer all the way. They'll all fire the second try, 'cause now
the primer is fully seated.

The main other problem I have seen in 27 yrs of shooting and
watching being shot many millions of rounds of .45ACP is to
fail to taper crimp. This is pretty much mandatory for reliable
feeding in most 1911s, I don't have as much experience with
the others, but it should be similar.

The "chamber check" (all loaded rounds should seat flush with
the hood on the back of the demounted barrel with a light finger push or
less) is the ultimate check for feeding.

With an H&G 68 type 200 gr SWC, set the LOA at 1.25" and
crimp so half the thickness of the brass is into the lead and
you'll be home free. Use magnification to examine a pre and
post crimped rounds to see what you're getting. Taper
crimping takes a separate die and separate operation, but
is the single most common failure to function with handloads
that I have seen in this caliber.

Bill

[flyingstick]

Thanks for the info. I threw away my duds at the range yesterday. I've got to pour some more boolits so I'll get back to you after I shoot again. In the meantime I'll check everything you said. I think it's in the crimp. Primers were seated with my Lee Classic turret, so I'm pretty sure they were all the way in but I'll definitly look closer next time. I'm going to order the Lee factory crimp and try crimping the shells back to specs.
Thanks,
Don

[38-55]

Flyingstick,
I'll bet ya ten to one it's a crimp issue... Just don't over do the crimp when you get your crimper. Remember... small step til it works.. What I'll bet is happening ( and yes I've seen this before) is that the slide is actually sizing/ taper crimping your cartridges in the chamber of your gun ( quick way to figure this out, load a dummy round on your current setup, measure then chamber in your gun and then re-measure ). The reason why the last round doesn't chamber fully and you get a light hit is because the geometry/friction/ resistance of the last round is different than the ones before... Heck even my 1911's with 18.5 springs will do this on a non taper crimped round... So just crimp and be happy.
Calvin
PS those 24/7's are nice guns
PPSS just as an aside... never throw away live rounds/duds at a range.... they tend to find their way into lead pots... There is a loooong story behind this statement....

[Blackwater]

I'm with Mike in Co and 38-55. When I was reading your post, as soon as I came to your statement that you're not crimping, I was 97% sure that was the problem.

What happens is that the bell in the case won't quite allow the barrel to close completely, but WILL allow the firing pin to fall (these mechanisms we call "guns" DO have tolerances, you know), but once in a while, will inhibit the firing pin's fall just enough to not let it build up enough momentum to fire the primer.

As already stated, straight walled semi-auto ammo NEEDS a bit of taper crimp, either just enough into a jacketed bullet's cannelure to ensure the bullet's not forced back into the case (which BTW can cause VERY much higher and maybe dangerous pressures!!!) or in the case of lead bullets without cannelures, turned into the sidewalls of the soft lead bullet ENOUGH to bite into it, and thus prevent its being forced back into the case during feeding, as above with same results.

Taking the bell out of the cases lets them feed MUCH better, AND prevents the above problems as well. If it's not a failure to properly crimp (not TOO much - just enough to prevent pushback of the bullets into the case), I'll be surprised. That HAS happened a few times, though.

[TAWILDCATT]

I load 45 acp with swc. you use 452-230 rn nose lee.leave the wide part of bullet out of case 1/32 " I roll crimp.the bullet acts to hold the head space. I had a friend that had trouble like yours I would test fire his gun worked fine.finally I tried with his bullets.the case was flaired to drag on chamber.solution crip case.
try 3.6 of bullseye I like the swc have Lee 6 cavity also use Saeco 4 cav.
I hope you did not throw the duds on ground.club should have dud box.
:confused: :coffee: :Fire:

[flyingstick]

I can't shoot until Tuesday so I'll let you know how the crimp does. Yep, we got dud boxes at every range.

[leftiye]

FS, It's been touched on here, but as incidental, not central. 45s headspace on the case mouth. If the case is too short, lots of headspace may put the primer too far away from the firing pin. No bang. Check your case lengths. Then seat your boolit out so it is as long as will CHAMBER. Now it headspaces on the boolit against the leade. This is IF it will still fit in your magazine and cycle.

The problem with revolters is that recoil pulls the boolits out of the cases because the rim is held against the rear face of the clyinder. On all stacked magazine guns, the recoil impacts the nose of the boolit and either deforms it and/or PUSHES the boolit back further inside the case. Headspace dissappears, -maybe gun goes kaboom too! Pressures go sky high if you push the boolit far enough back into the case.

Use a taper crimp or a Lee Factory crimp die to keep this from happening! (if there's not a crimp groove in the needed place) Seating the boolit against the leade (or lands, rifling) will help with accuracy too.

[flyingstick]

Well, and thats a deep subject my Grandma used to say. Anyway, I tried all the recommendations and still got 1-2 misfires out of every magazine. I was using Winchester primers WLP. As a last resort I switched to CCI. I have'nt had another misfire yet. I must have just got a bad batch, cause I've been using Winchester primers for over 25 years. Thanks for all your valuable info.
Don:coffee:

[redbear705]

FS..you need to verify that the primers are suspect......pull some of the duds and check the primers then check the case primer pocket depth....some of them may be too deep.

CCI are typically harder than Winchesters.

Good Luck!

JR

[mike in co]

[QUOTE=leftiye;199818]FS, It's been touched on here, but as incidental, not central. 45s headspace on the case mouth. If the case is too short, lots of headspace may put the primer too far away from the firing pin. No bang. Check your case lengths. Then seat your boolit out so it is as long as will CHAMBER. Now it headspaces on the boolit against the leade. This is IF it will still fit in your magazine and cycle.

QUOTE]


i'm sure this has been cover in conversations before, but i will repeat it here.

despite the technically correct spacing on the case, the reality is that the extractor will hold a case back well enough for a firing pin strike in most semi-autos.
i'm in the brass biz and i have a collection of cases fired in the wrong chamber, 32's in a 380, 9 in a 40, 40 in a 45..... with the wrong dia, there is no "headspacing"... but they still fire....talk about fire formed cases...lol

[Lloyd Smale]

what mike said! They may theroreticaly headspace on the rim but in reality they headspace on the extractor. My first guess would be primer seating dept. It will cause more misfires in a 1911 then anything. It doesnt take much with some primers and sometimes its hard to even tell with the naked eye. MY next advice is to pull out your firing pin spring and put a wolf in it. Might as well put a good wolf recoil spring in it while you have it apart. I change recoil and firing pin springs at a least every 1000 rounds in my comp guns.

[35remington]

I can't speak for all autoloader designs, but if the cartridge headspaces on the extractor, accuracy will be poor, and this type of headspacing is avoided by design tolerances in the autoloading pistol in the vast majority of cases.

Rest assured that in a 1911, unless the case is very, very short, it will headspace on the case mouth. Within the normal run of variations in ACP brass, nearly all will headspace on the mouth unless someone made a very big trimming mistake or a very bad batch of brass got out. The firing pin design of a 1911 will correctly fire a cartridge even if it is very short, as the firing pin is capable of protruding a great way beyond the breechface.

I haven't had a problem with Winchester primers yet, but I supposed lemons do get out occasionally.

[leftiye]

Plus, The inverse is true too, as long as he has cases somewhere in the correct range the extractor shouldn't come into play. Looks like either way he wouldn't be failing to hit the primer. So flyingstick is probly right about it being primers. If they're getting hit nicely and not popping, what else is there?

[BruceB]

My handloading commenced in the winter of 1966 with the .45 ACP, and my bullet-casting began at the very same time for that cartridge. Call it forty years of loading/casting the .45 ACP, during which time I have learned a few things about the round.

I have NEVER, repeat NEVER, found a single .45 ACP case which was longer than the "specified" case length of 0.898". Military, commercial, domestic, imported, hundreds of thousands of cases...NEVER a case longer than .898", and damned few as long as that. I never measure .45 ACP, and haven't done so for a long time. Note that a cartridge gauge as mentioned below DOES give us an idea about case length.

Roll crimping in the .45 ACP worked fine for many guns and years, including both match-quality Bullseye guns and service autoloaders. The taper crimping I use today, in more-recent die-sets, also works extremely well if properly applied.

Using the barrel as a gauge is good. Even better is spending the $15 or so for a proper cartridge gauge, and USING IT for every single danged round that we load! I'm not too proud to admit that every once in a while, perhaps once or twice out of hundreds or even thousands of rounds, I encounter a loaded round that WILL NOT completely enter the gauge, even after searching for rim burrs and other "normal" flaws. I waste no time messing with such rounds, and just dispose of them immediately. I still routinely mark my finished rounds as "gauged", even though ALL my autoloader rounds are in fact gauged before boxing. For the added peace of mind gained by gauging EVERY round, the limited amount of time spent is well worthwhile.

A quick-and-dirty last resort for rounds which won't enter the chamber or gauge completely, is to run such loaded rounds partially into the sizing die again (after removing the decapping stem, of course, if applicable). If this is unsuccessful in getting the rounds to chamber, there's something badly wrong in the setup. This is not a good technique for production loading, because the bullet inside the case will be reduced in diameter a bit and hence have a looser fit. This is not a good thing in an autoloader, with the slamming and banging the rounds go through in chambering, and also likely won't help the accuracy, either.

I NEVER clean primer pockets any more, except in the single application of black-powder loads. There are no primer-related reliability issues in my .45 ACP ammunition, even in brass which has been fired dozens of times. Primer manufacturer makes no difference. I've comparison-tested ammo with/without pocket cleaning, and it makes NO DIFFERENCE even in accurate varmint rifles. Life's too short for me to mess with non-productive time-wasters.

In my .45 ammunition, the CARTRIDGE HEADSPACES ON THE BULLET. The depth to
which the round chambers is controlled by the seating depth, and nothing else. This can plainly be seen in my guns (four different .45 ACPs) by looking at the rim of a chambered round from the bottom, with the slide detached from the gun. The extractor claw makes NO contact with the case at all, and there's an obvious gap between the claw and the front face of the case's rim. This has been discussed for decades, and I doubt we'll put the topic to rest here, but even so, this is the way the cartridge works in MY guns...and with perfect reliability, too. (I've now gone to the 452374 round-nose for ALL my .45 ACPs, but the same headspacing method has been used with a lot of other cast designs in my handloads as well, with equally-good results.)

[35remington]

Bruce, I find that same gap between extractor claw and case rim exists even with shorter .45 ACP cases. They have to be really short, like .030" shorter than the shortest case I've got, to have the extractor claw approach the cartridge rim - which means everything is headspacing on either the case, or, more likely as you mentioned, the bullet.

Mine normally headspace on the bullet as well.

As long as everything goes bang and shoots accurately, all is good.

It's well known that the Lee FCD "post sizes" the case as you mentioned for oversized rounds. To what level of detriment is the subject for another debate.

Mine apparently works OK and does not squeeze the lead bullet excessively. Bullet retention during feeding is still good. As long as I periodically check OAL, this is my gauging step. YMMV.