PDA

View Full Version : What should finished WW LSWC Loaded look like? 45acp



blsexton
09-14-2007, 04:00 PM
Well, this forum is very helpful and knowledgeable. I posted an earlier thread asking for help on why bullets were sticking in my chamber after firing a few. I would like to think maybe my ? has beeen/will be asked by others so since the original thread is getting long, and this is a different segment, I started a new one.


Here are 4 200gr Lee LSWC rds loaded. The one on the far left is a Precision 200gr SWC at 1.250
next is a Lee WW at 1.250 (not cleaned of alox lube, this is how I shot them earlier when I didn't know to clean the lube off- this may have been part of the sticking problem)
then a Lee WW at 1.195
then a Lee WW at 1.160 - I thought the 1.160 sounded a bit shallow, and I have not testeed them for funciton, but thought I would ask what others finished product for WW looks like.
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

454PB
09-14-2007, 04:29 PM
I vote for #1 or #3, and put a light taper crimp on it to prevent boolit movement (in our out) and ease entry into the chamber.

UweJ
09-14-2007, 04:33 PM
Well I seat mine(200grain TL) at 1.245 with the alox one like shown on your picture. But you only see the top ring of the boolit. Looks kinda like your no.1 boolit just sitting deeper.Never had a jam with them so far.
Hope this helped.
Uwe:castmine:

Buckshot
09-14-2007, 04:46 PM
..............The 2 most important things about seating length are 1) Will it smoothly feed from the magazine, 2) Will it chamber. There is also some utility in seating out so (at least in the case of the 45ACP) the cartridge actually head spaces on the boolit's shoulder. As many are aware, the 45ACP case tends to be up to .010" short.

Having mentioned positive headspacing by the cartridge instead of headspacing off the extractor, an old shooting pal did an experiment. He had a really accurate Kimber 1911 with several established accurate loads using regular commonly avail 45ACP brass which were all of common "Too Short" length.

He bought 100 Winchester 45 Magnum cases and trimmed them all to his barrel's actual chamber length so they truely did headspace on the casemouth. In a series of tests using previously proven loads, he proved to himself that there was no statistical group improvement to warrent the cost and work.

However if seating out to headspace is possible it's worth a try. It may prove to be that it makes no improvement, but then again it just might in your pistol. Just a thought.

...............Buckshot

KYCaster
09-14-2007, 05:37 PM
B. L., Seems to me that #2 has too much shoulder outside the case. That could very well cause the problem you described by jamming into the leade/rifleing.

The #3 load looks like it will chamber better, but the short nose on the Lee boolit may cause some feeding problems.

It also looks like the crimp on #'s 2, 3 and 4 is excessive. That could possibly contribute to your problem. I've found that about .468 dia. at the case mouth works well in most cases. It looks like yours are very close to boolit dia., ~.455 or so.

Somewhat OT, (please forgive me :roll: ) but Ni plated cases (especially Rem.) are much slicker than brass and don't grip the boolit nearly as well, which can cause problems when the boolit hits the feed ramp. Some guys try to compensate for this by using a tighter crimp. Mike Dillon even went so far as to make his .45ACP sizing dies to compensate for this. IM(not so)HO, there are much better ways to address the problem.

Jerry

gray wolf
09-14-2007, 06:09 PM
#1 looks like a normal 45 acp round. The case does not look deformed and the crimp if any looks about right. I would show a tad more lead after the case mouth.
JUST A TAD.
#2 is a different bullet and should be seated as such. I think it should be seated so that you are up on the last driving band. I,E not showing the first lube ring.
I see more crimp on this bullet than on #1. seems to be crimped into the lube ring.
#3 looks like the heavy crimp slid you off the driving band and you are almost seated in the lube ring.
# 4 is seated much to deep, you could have pressure issues and it may or may not feed. The crimp is way to heavy.

CRIMPING-
When we seet a bullet in a 45 acp we first flare the case mouth. This helps to hand seet the bullet. BB bullets require less flair than a non beveled base.
So flare or bell the case mouth only enough to help hand seating. Overly doing this gives you less hold on the bullet, and over works your brass.
Crimping does not hold the bullet in the case. A slight tapper crimp on this bullet removes the flare on the case mouth so it will feed. Over crimping can actually loosen the hold on your bullet. This happens by allowing the brass under a heavy, heavy crimp to bulge out. So just crimp enough to remove the flare.
Other than #1, look at the sides of the bullets in the pics. Notice all the light you see at the top near the case mouth. The sides are making contact and then you see all that space. Way to heavy a crimp on all these bullets.
When held next to each other sides together, you should see only a little bit of light indicating a light tapper crimp at the top of the case.
Did you seet and crimp #1 ?? If you did why did you go to such a radical difference in the rest.
There is a lot of good info out there on seating and crimping a 45 acp.
most manufactures list the seating dept for there bullets. Different bullet styles seet at different Dept's. This is for function and for safety in regards to pressure.
I am not an expert on this subject, but I shoot and load many 45 acp's.
I am just trying to help. Hope I was not to harsh.

NVcurmudgeon
09-14-2007, 07:02 PM
blsexton, I started loading with the .45 ACP in 1960. As I have shot a lot of bullseye competition, I HAD to load .45s. Nearly everybody in bullseye uses SWC boolits shaped like a compromise between the two styles you show. As Buckshot said, nearly all of them seat their boolits to headspace on the boolit and use a LIGHT taper crimp. The case mouth diameter should be almost exactly the diameter of the case just ahead of the extractor groove, with the case mouth lightly crimped into the boolit. By no means should the casemouth be buried deeply into the boolit. Target .45 ACP loads have very little recoil, the only reasons for crimping are to allow smooth feeding and to prevent telescoping when the boolit hits the feed ramp. It doesn't take a lot, just straighten out the flare. A good way to establish seating depth is to take the barrel out of the pistol, drop a round into the chamber, and eyeball a straightedge laid across the barrel hood and the head of the cartridge. With the straightedge held square on the cartridge, it should also be square on the barrel hood. I just measured six random target loads and found that length varied from 1.271" to 1.274". Considering variation in the four cavities of my mould, and that the seating die won't hit every boolit exactly the same, that's close enough. Once seating depth is established, make sure they feed smoothly from the magazine. Naturally, my measurement will not be very useful to you, as my barrel, mould design, and mould manufacturing are bound to differ from yours.

PatMarlin
09-15-2007, 06:28 PM
Glad to hear your depth seating proceedure Bill, as that's how I've done mine. Kinda stumbled on it myself cause it made sense. Works well for my .357 Sig bottle neck case too.. :drinks:

Cloudpeak
09-15-2007, 07:21 PM
I'm assuming loads 2, 3 & 4 are all the Lee 200 SWC tumble lube bullet. No way would round #2 work in my 1911s. The bullet would jam into the rifling. Round #4 will probalby chamber fine but I'd have my doubts as to whether it would feed reliably time after time. I think the reason the taper crimps look weird on rounds 2,3 &4 is because of the many grooves in the TL bullet.

Round #1 looks like it would chamber fine and function fine. That bullet also looks to be a more accurate copy of the H&G 68. I couldn't get the Lee TL bullet to work dependably in my two 1911s. The Lee 200 SWC non-tumble lube bullet (out of the 6 cavity) works better but even it isn't a good copy of the H&G. The nose is a smaller diameter on the Lee which can cause occasional feeding problems.

I'm going to bet you have the best luck with round #1. (I think I load this same bullet just a shade shorter but not much.)

BTW, no need to clean the LLA off the bullets, IMO.

Cloudpeak

PatMarlin
09-15-2007, 09:56 PM
Interesting that is the first 45 acp mold I started with, and I ran it through my Lyman 45 just enough to lube the grooves with LBT blue soft, and it's been incredably accurate, and flawless to feed.

blsexton
09-17-2007, 08:28 PM
thanks so much for the help guys! Grey Wolf- great info and phrased well! cloudspeak thanks for the info too- you helped me with the bullet diameter earlier. I did load bullet #1 myself, it is a Precision 200SWC- I think the problem started when I thought I did not need to size the Lee 200SWC bulets; because a lot of the literature says the tumble lube lees are not supposed to need sizing..... but when I initially loaded them to 1.250" with the Lee 200SWC design they stuck out like bullet #2--- as an experiament I went back and seated the Lee 200SWC to 1.195 and they work much much better now-- I'll use your posts above with appreciation everyone.
Thanks

DonH
09-18-2007, 05:20 AM
I have shot bullseye pistol for most of 30 yrs. Lest anyone think the headspacing method described above is less than precise, good loads with seating depth determined in thids manner in a good accurized 1911 will shoot 10 shots into one ragged hole at 25 yds. And that is off-hand, one-handed. My loads using the H&G #68 will show most of the front band of the bullet when set up for my gun.

The far-right round shown in the pic likely won't feed from the magazine. At least not reliably.

38-55
09-18-2007, 07:54 AM
BlSexton,
Hey with out getting my paws on your rounds and actually looking at them... It looks from the pics that you have too much taper crimp on them. That will allow the whole cartridge to slide in to the rifling/throat area and cause the 'sticking' you mentioned. Just an observation... Compare your reloads to a factory round that works and you will see what I mean..
Stay safe
Calvin

GSM
09-18-2007, 11:40 AM
BlSexton:

One thing to consider when you seat to a set cartridge OAL is where the seating stem pushes on the bullet. The nose length will vary with brands and give differing OAL's. A tip some of the Bullseye shooters passed along was to ream out the seating stem such that it pushes down on the shoulder of the bullet, not the nose. The other things that have been posted are some of the hard learned lessons on 45 ACP with lead bullets: seat them a little long so that they headspace on the bullet shoulder, not necessarily the case mouth. Check the seating depth by dropping a round into the barrel (out of the gun) and see where it stops - close to flush with the stub of the barrel hood (not going to say it can't be a little above the hood, but I've "heard" that has been done - just watch for function problems and pressure increases). Note that the chamber depths can vary significantly - compare a Colt chamber to a Springfield.

Look closely at your round #3, it looks like it may have shaved a little lead going into the case.

ANeat
09-18-2007, 10:05 PM
I have my seater die drilled out like GSM mentioned. Yes Im a Bullseye shooter.:Fire:

Here are a couple of pics. I can shoot several types of SWC bullets and they all load up the same without changing the seating depth.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/aneat/seat2.jpg

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/aneat/seat1.jpg