Cream of wheat with 45ACP boolits

[xsquidgator]

I stumbled across one of the "cream of wheat as a cheap gas-check" threads and got really intrigued, especially by the before and after pictures of a nice clean bore after shooting some of these.

I'm ready to give it a try, although slightly differently than how most people try it. After reading some of these threads, I've made up some 45ACP cream of wheat loads to try under some 230LRN boolits I cast a few weeks ago.

My normal 230LRN load is 4.5 grains of W231 under the 230LRN and an OAL of 1.265" (using the Lee tumble lube boolits from their 2 cavity mold). I've tried as high as 5.6 grains of W231, and have noticed leading occurring when I get up to about 5.3 grains of W231 with this boolit. My cream of wheat test loads start at 2.0 grains W231 with about 1.3cc of cream of wheat added - this seems to fill up the case so that the boolit is slightly compressing the C.O.W. on top of the powder when I seat the bullet. Same OAL as I had been using. This volume of cream of wheat weighs about 11 grains or so per my scale.

I made about 5 or 10 of these rounds at 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 grains of W231, slightly reducing the amount of cream of wheat as the powder charge went up. I understand that my effective bullet weight is now more like 240+ grains not 230 due to the cream of wheat effectively becoming part of the bullet. And, the cream of wheat does take up some of the case volume and pressure might be higher due to this, as well as the effective heavier bullet. Would you say that I've reduced the loads enough to try out? I'm very interested in using these as "bore cleaner" rounds and hope they work as well as some of the pictures I've seen posted here. But, I'd like to ask some of you experienced people out there to make sure I'm being appropriately cautious. If it makes any difference, I've been reloading for about one year now with a Lee turret press (up to around 9,000 rounds reloaded since I started). 1) Do you think I've reduced my charge weight of W231 sufficiently? 2) I don't think I'm leaving anything important out of making these C.O.W. rounds, would you agree?

I'm also planning on making some of these up in 357 magnum (with my cast 158LSWCs) and 9mm (124LRNs) that I've cast.

[Pepe Ray]

My concern would be the migration of the powder or COW to its neighbor. This would be aggravated by vibrations during movement.
Pepe Ray

[racepres]

I must agree w/ pepe... but have not personally experienced this problem!!! I think that If you have been reloading for all of a year... and you have thought this out to this degree.... You don't need Us... you are on the right track for someone of any experience level for sure!!!

[NVcurmudgeon]

I've loaded .45 ACP with cast for fifty years. Never had any leading. Most loads I put up in .45 ACP cases don't leave much room for fillers. If you are getting leading, I would look for undersized boolits, boolits too hard, or inferior lube.

[xsquidgator]

My concern would be the migration of the powder or COW to its neighbor. This would be aggravated by vibrations during movement.
Pepe Ray

Yes, that's a potential concern. The approach I'm using to avoid that is to use a "compressed load" of cream of wheat on top of the powder; by having the base of the bullet compress the COW on top, there shouldn't be any room for the case contents to "slosh" and mix. Some people put a fabric patch of some sort in between the COW and the powder to prevent mixing, but not all and I didn't due to the extra inconvenience. In any event, I'm treating these gingerly and delicately to avoid disturbing them.

The other downside I've heard rumors of is that of the cereal slowly leaching solvents out of the powder, which gradually increases the burn rate of the powder and effectively makes the rounds "hotter" and higher pressure as time goes on. This is only an unsubstantiated rumor, though. Just in case, even if this little experiment works I don't plan on letting these kinds of rounds sit long, just in case this is for real.

To give myself some extra hedge room, I think I'll make some of these in 357 magnum with 158 LSWCs and shoot those first, working up from a little less than half of my typical 158LSWC 357 loads. I shoot a Ruger SP101 and that thing's built like a tank (plus is less expensive to replace than my 45! If it came to that) - I'll try it out on that first.

I hope it's not fool's confidence, but I do feel pretty confident about taking these rounds out for a test drive. The bore photos I saw were pretty compelling from someone who did this, and I believe I am following the precautions to avoid overpressure problems. Unless I get cold feet, I'll be trying these out Friday or Saturday and will report back.

[VTDW]

Just remember that adding the weight of the COW to the weight of the boolit will tell you how much actual weight you are trying to shoot with the powder load.

Dave

[xsquidgator]

I've loaded .45 ACP with cast for fifty years. Never had any leading. Most loads I put up in .45 ACP cases don't leave much room for fillers. If you are getting leading, I would look for undersized boolits, boolits too hard, or inferior lube.

I'll have to look at that. Would you go so far as to buy a slightly different sizer?

I'm using all Lee casting stuff, including their liquid alox tumble lube and sizer die which is .452 for my 45s. I didn't slug my 45 to see what it actually is, but after a few hundred of my cast boolits through it I had no leading with around 4.5grains of W231, but I got some leading after a box of 50 using 5.3 grains.

What powder do you use for 45ACP? I'm kind of puzzled, because even with over 5 grains of W231 in a 45ACP case, there's quite a bit of room in there still. Not as much as with 38.357 where I can here the powder slosh inside the case, but still a lot of room relative to say a 9mm round.

[NVcurmudgeon]

I'll have to look at that. Would you go so far as to buy a slightly different sizer?

I'm using all Lee casting stuff, including their liquid alox tumble lube and sizer die which is .452 for my 45s. I didn't slug my 45 to see what it actually is, but after a few hundred of my cast boolits through it I had no leading with around 4.5grains of W231, but I got some leading after a box of 50 using 5.3 grains.

What powder do you use for 45ACP? I'm kind of puzzled, because even with over 5 grains of W231 in a 45ACP case, there's quite a bit of room in there still. Not as much as with 38.357 where I can here the powder slosh inside the case, but still a lot of room relative to say a 9mm round.


I use 231 for both of my .45 ACP loads. 4.25 gr. with H&G 68, 200 gr. SWC. For Lyman 452374, 230 gr. ball clone 5.0 to 5.5 gr. I stand corrected, I had no idea that there was that much powder space in a .45 ACP target load. It was a cast iron bear to measure remaining powder space after loading. I make it .290" with the H&G 68 and I'm guessing a little less space with the almost same length 452374 and more powder.

[Bass Ackward]

Xsq,

You can raise pressure three ways.

1. First you can keep the same weight slug and you can seat it deeper thereby reducing case volume.

2. You can increase slug weight without reducing volume and raise pressure.

3. You can compress a powder.

This isn't that simple. You are doing all three of those. My point is that you have no idea how much of a reduction is going to be enough, as you have only calculated in your mind for the first two variables of the three.

So my question to you is, will 231 be linear in it's burn characteristics and remain the same powder? Or will it change characteristic all together and burn like something much, much quicker? I am not trying to be smart, I don't know. Now if I was going to do something like this, I would use a slow bulky powder with slow being defined as "slow for the cartridge and that weight bullet" and start there. Say like 800X or AA#5. This way if it changed characteristics and burned like Unique, I would still be safe.

In my opinion, you are playing Star Trek and going where no man has gone before. :grin:

[jonk]

Dunno with cream of wheat, but have used pufflon ballistic filler- which is much lighter than c.o.w.- and it didn't change anything much. In fact top velocity DECREASED.

Now c.o.w. is a different animal, but it is still fine and fluffy and compressible- I suspect much more so than the powder under it. So it is the cereal that is going to realize the greater compression, I'd think.

Also worth considering is the fact that I'm pretty convinced that with the really fast powders, case volume isn't the issue many make it out to be. Oh it is important, don't get me wrong- but compared to different bullet weights I don't think it makes as much difference if a bullet is seated 1/10" deeper or not. Unless you are already at max loads.

Personally I don't see the need for it in this cartridge but if you do it, would think that half a grain from max would be your 'new' max given the extra weight of the COW. I'd work up to that though, and your starting loads sound safe.

[Calamity Jake]

You get leading only at the higher vol. load. That tells me it is a lube problem, eather not enough or the wrong lube. I assume you are using LLA with that TL boolet, add a second coat and maybe a third, see if that helps.

Forget the COW, if boolets are the right size with enough of a good lube then no filler is needed in the 45 ACP. Same thing goes for the 357 and 9MM.

[runfiverun]

or try a different powder like unique
in the cow or non cow loads

[xsquidgator]

After organizing my thoughts and internet research, here was my inspiration for giving this a try...
LINK to cast boolits thread (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=23767&page=2)
Link to THR thread (http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=334518&highlight=cream+wheat)

After reading these, I don't think I'm heading out into "Star Trek" territory, at least I hope not.

I do still have most of a pound of Unique lying around and I could use that, but I'm optimistic that 231 will be ok too. Still have 2 days until I can get to the range to talk myself into or out of doing this. Those bore photos of the 45 and 40 are pretty compelling and motivating though, aren't they?

[randyrat]

Just an idea, I would stick with experimenting in the 45 acp (21,000 psi) max. Not the 40 or the 9 which are up to 35,000 psi Max. There's just not enough wiggle room for the 40 and the 9mm for any mistakes.

[35remington]

"but compared to different bullet weights I don't think it makes as much difference if a bullet is seated 1/10" deeper or not. Unless you are already at max loads."

Oh, yes indeed, it does. Going from 1.260 to 1.160 in the ACP realizes a substantial pressure increase when you consider that most of the case is already filled with powder and bullet. Chronograph it sometime. I have doubts about adding a relatively hard filler to a small volume case with fast burning powders that may take sudden offense at being crowded so closely.

I cannot forsee a circumstance where this would be desirable (adding a bulky, only moderately compressible filler) for long term shooting.

I think you would be better advised to adjust bullet metal and lube to avoid leading than install a filler that may be subject to caking and hardening over time. The extra step of filling the case alone adds too much time when I could be loading more ammo and shooting. I also have a problem with adding filler to a case for barrel cleaning purposes alone. That's not adequate reason to be doing it considering the drawbacks, potential unknown pressure problems and questionable long and even possibly short term storage problems.

The .45 ACP has limited powder capacity for a reason, and was originally designed for smokeless powders of similar density to W231. I don't believe such limited airspace should be filled with anything like this COW and combined with the fastest burning powders available.

[xsquidgator]

Ok, I'm digesting the advice I've gotten here, especially the sizing/lubing suggestions.

But, I can't let this neato idea go. Those of you who have expressed pressure concerns with this idea, what would you think of just shooting a few "cleaning" rounds loaded with a light powder charge, cream of wheat, and topped off with a small wax plug of some kind? I believe I saw this mentioned by at least one guy who was fireforming some rifle brass in this manner- he wasn't trying to clean his rifle, just shape the brass. That's gotta be a lot lower pressure than shooting a boolit, right? Would you feel ok going along with something like that?

[racepres]

what would you think of just shooting a few "cleaning" rounds loaded with a light powder charge, cream of wheat, and topped off with a small wax plug of some kind?

You won't have Any pressure probs... But you surely won't get any cleaning effect either!!Leaves my barrels full of "crap".. Does indeed "fireform" though.
I'm gonna go load a couple 45acp's here maybe yet today w/ COW.. or maybe it'll be grits this time.. cause my cow supply is dwindling!!!
I'll let ya know what I use, and how it works... MV

[lordgroom]

I followed the COW post on this forum and castboolits. I used COW to clean the lead fouling in a .357 Magnum load. I was shooting a a 158 gr LSWC round over a charge of 2400 (I need to look up the charge) and I was experiencing bad lead fouling. I realized I was pushing the bullet over 1200 FPS. I did an experiment with by using COW over Bullseye and Unique (it allowed me to add moe COW than above the 2400) and I found this to be very effective at removing lead fouling. I i not measure the COW at the time. If I remember correctly I used 6.2 Grains of Unique, a 158 gr LSWC bullet and enough COW to fill the remainder of the case. I intend to use a handful of COW filled rounds to clean lead in the 357.

From the reading I have done, there does not seem to be any serious downside to using COW.

[racepres]

OK.. Here's how it goes!! started w/ 5.5 gr Unique fill case w/ cow to within .250 of full.. seat 200 gr pb,swc fairly hard but undersize! Poor results.. durty and leaded. This boolit causes lead in this arm always due to undersize!
6.0 gr Unique.. all else same... same result.. except a bit of pressure indication.
Thought that I needed more cow... so went to 4.5 gr Bullseye w. cow to within .250 of full... Same ole same ole!! Darn It!!!
4.5 gr Unique w/ same darn [problem] boolit, full case of cow and compress to approx oal of previous loading [thinking more cow and more pressure!!!] again poor!! results... tried same combo w/ a soft swaged swc w/ that waxy type factory lube! Sheesh .. things may be a bit better.. but would take alot of these down the bore to get any meaningful result...
By now my poor ole gun is really needing a cleaning!!
So I get a boolit that has performed well in this piece before... a properly sized [happens to like .4525 or so] ac ww pb round w/ flat 255gr. from lee that is intended, I suppose for cowboy 45 LC's!! 5.5 gr of unique, fill to top w/ cow.. heavily compress the thing to just cover the lube grooves! Now this is fairly aggressive loading... but.. It certainly gave the result that I was looking for!! Don't have to clean that gun now!!!! Conclusion??? I dunno!
But It took a boolit that already kinda performs, and a fair quantity of cow, at pretty stout pressure , to get any noticeable result.... In my particular firearm... today.. HTH.. MV

[xsquidgator]

Well, I appreciate the kind advice I've gotten here. I don't want to appear ungrateful, but my curiosity got the better of me today so I played hookie from work this afternoon and took my first cream of wheat loads out to the range today. Worked great, no real problems. Well, none other than I'd cut back so far on the W231 charges from what I normally use, that it was a little bit of a problem in the 45ACP.

FWIW, YMMV etc-
in 357 magnum with 158LSWCs, shot from 2.0 to 4.5 grains of W231, all worked fine. 4.5 grains is a little more than the 3.8 I normally use; the felt recoil was starting to get nice and peppy by the time I got up to the 4.5 grains of W231 and COW. No leading AT ALL, and after one pass with an oiled boresnake, the bore IS cleaner than I've ever gotten it before.

45ACP, I tested 230LRNs (cast sized and tumble lubed myself) with 2.0 to 3.5 grains of W231, I normally use 4.5 to 5.5 grains of W231 (leading occured with my boolits above 5 grains of 231).
Shot well, cleaned the bore REALLY well for me. Totally got rid of the little bit of leading I didn't get out from the last range trip. Only the 3.5 grains of W231 loads had enough pep to cycle the action on my M&P45. With 2.0 grains under a 230LRN, the diminutive "pop" of firing sounded like a 22. In fact my dad who was with me got puzzled and asked "is THAT a 45? Sounds like a 22"

So good news as far as I'm concerned, so far I haven't seen any signs of anything funky as far as pressure signs. The loads SO FAR seem to behave the way I'd expect with the same amount of W231 and no c.o.w. I plan to work up cautiously to some higher levels.

I still also plan to look into my lubing and sizing situation, as several people have told me that's what my real issue sounds like with the leading. But, this is cool, and I *know* that a few of these will clean up a messy leaded-up bore if for some reason I don't address my underlubed or undersized boolits. I forsee keeping these around for end of the range trip use like I used to use FMJs to try and shoot the lead out; these REALLY DO shoot the lead out like gangbusters! With FMJs I wasn't ever quite sure if it was really working... no doubt with cream 'o wheat.

THere is at least one commercial product that does this too, really tiny tiny little balls, but why pay $15 for that stuff when $3 will get me a buttload of cream of wheat from the Publix down the street? Oh, and with the higher loaded loads there IS a scorched smell in the air that I'm sure was scorched cream of wheat, but you wouldn't confuse it with cream of wheat smell in your bowl on a cold winter morning.

[Molly]

> I'll certainly keep you posted. I'm going to try this in 9mm as well.

> Could you say if this cream of wheat thing would work ok in a gas-operated rifle? I was going to try it with an 8mm Mauser but it would be great if I could get it to work without screwing up my 7.62x39 gas-op rifles too. I'm eyeing a couple different rifle boolit moulds and as soon as they're in stock I'll give them a try.
xsquidgator

Dear xsquidgator,

I haven't done it, but I'd be astonished if it didn't work fine. I suspect you're concerned that the COW will jam up the bleed-off port and cause the rifle to fail to feed. I can't say it WON'T happen, but let me tell you why I don't think it will, and let you be the judge from there.

When I first developed COW loads, one of the things I wanted to try was to see how light they could be loaded. I loaded a bullet over a full case of COW, with a plinking load of Red Dot. the target was a bullet trap about 50 feet away across my shop. When I loaded the rifle and pullet the trigger, I got a mild 'bang', and a hole in the target. The next load used half a grain less Red dot, and gave me a 'bang' and a hole. This continued until I got down to something like 1/2 or 3/4 grain (I really don't remember), and there was no bang. But the hole in the target was most distinct, as was the 'splat' of the bullet on the steel plate. Most unusual! When I opened the bolt, there was a slight puff of gas from the breech end.

Examination quickly showed that the bore was plugged. I thought something like "Ah, nuts! Well, I'll just have to pound it out like a stuck bullet." Not so! When I dropped a steel rod down the muzzle, the darn thing rang like I'd droped it on an anvil! I thought "Hmmm.", and applied a small sledge hammer to the rod. It continued to ring like a bell, and the obstruction didn't move. I soaked it down with WD-40 and tried again he next morning. It still didn't move. Making a long story of frustration a bit shorter, I finally turned the base of a drill bit and threaded it to fit a GI cleaning rod. This was chucked in a hand drill, and the obstruction was drilled out. It was nothing but COW, and the bore was completely undamaged.

Conclusion: Even mild pressures are enough to convert the powdered COW into a very hard, coherent mass. I can only speculate that higher rifle pressures can do no less, and may well make the COW wad even harder. But it's so coherent that I have a tough time thinking it could lose much COW to foul the gas port area.

BTW, FWIW: I've had very good luck in my Yugoslav 7.65x39 SKS using 311291 (Wheelweights, gas checked, Alox lubed, and sized 0.312"). Mild recoil, excellent jam-free functioning, and decent to v/good accuracy for an SKS. I liked the results so much so that I picked up a spare barrel to put on a Martini Cadet after I chambered it for 7.65x39. Well, I chambered it with a commercial reamer, but rounds loaded with the 311291 didn't even come close to chambering! The throat was far too short, and I'm going to have to ream it out a bit if I use the ammo interchangably in both guns. Now I don't know if you have a Yugo, or a 311291 mold, but the results I got were so nice that I wanted to mention it. You might want to try a 311291 loaded round in your SKS to see if you have a long throat too!

Regards,
Molly

[xsquidgator]

Thanks for the advice, Molly!
Well I just went and blew more than a month's "allowance" on some .323 and .311 moulds and sizer dies, I'm going to give this a try in rifles now. Now it's just a matter to wait for the brown truck 'o happiness to bring me my stuff ...!

[Molly]

Thanks for the advice, Molly!
... Now it's just a matter to wait for the brown truck 'o happiness to bring me my stuff ...!

Rofl! I don't remember who got me started casting, but he sure didn't warn me how much the hobby was going to cost me! He emphasized how much less each shot would cost me, but carefully neglected to mention how much MORE shooting I'd be doing.

BTW, let me add one more note on what seems to be a developing controversy regarding the tendency / ability of COW to form hard cakes. I first stumbled on the merits of COW when I was fireforming cases for a 577/450. The process was nothing really unusual: I loaded a sharply undersized case with a brisk load of pistol powder (Bullseye), filled the case with COW and topped it off with a wax wad to hold everything together while it was being loaded and fired. Unfortunately, nothing I did developed adequate pressure to blow out the case. Looking about for something to increase the pressure, I spied a box of 45 ACP slugs. They weren't lubed, but what the heck! I dropped one into the throat before loading the nex round. BANG! And it came out perfectly formed. Elated, I did it again, and got the same results. I remember debating whether to size and lube the rest of them, but decided that I was already looking at a lead removal job, so I just went ahead and formed a small supply of cases. Then with a sigh, I looked down the bore to see how much work I had ahead of me. To my surprise, the bore was perfectly clean.

Then I noticed that a couple of the cses weren't fully formed, so I returned to the forming process, but without the 45 slug to complete the job. The BANG was impressive, with the COW alone. I loaded a few more, and fired them toward my concrete shop floor. COW formed a small dusty drift in the far corner. I got an evil grin, and wondered how far these "blanks" might be dangerous. I set up a 7/8" pine board in front of my bullet trap, and retreated to the far side of the basement with a supply of ammo. The idea was to fire a shot, inspect the board, step forward, fire a shot, etc until I saw some damage on the surface of the board. The first shot put a hole through the board as sharply as if it had been a lead bullet! I wiped the grin off my face, and entertained no further thoughts of having 'fun' with them.

Now, those results were under some very specific conditions and components, but I've obtained supporting evidence under a number of different conditions and components. Others may have obtained different results, and reported them with equal fidelity. But I would strongly urge anyone working with COW to assume that a hard and potentially dangerous wad is formed until / unless proven otherwise. I mention this with some emphasis because I have this vision of someone facing charges because they used COW in a re-enactment of some short.

Molly