H&G #68 seating depth

[AbitNutz]

This may have been discussed ad nauseum here but I can't seem to find why this is SOP. So, I have always understood that when using the H&G #68 200 gr SWC design, you always seat the bullet shoulder above the case mouth just a bit. How much seems to depend on what works in your barrel...that's fine. However, for a round that is supposed to headspace on the case mouth, this seems a little wrong headed.

We all know that the cartridge really doesn't actually seat on the case mouth, the extractor mostly holds it against the breech face.

Can any of you wise and learned folks tell me what you know about this procedure? I do it, it works. I seat the bullet out till my gun stops feeding and starts malfunctioning.

[Half Dog]

I seat the bullet out till my gun stops feeding and starts malfunctioning.

That's exactly what I do. Some will say an OAL = 1.250 but mine cycles when they are a little shorter.

[AbitNutz]

This bullet is a really old or should I say, proven, design. I think it first showed up in the 1920's when it was just "H"...and not even "H&G". I can't fault it, it works. I'm having Eric at HPMS modify a Magma H&G 200 gr, SWC, BB, grooveless, into a hollow point. It should be delivered today. I'm eager to try it out with the Hi-Tek coating system.

[pmer]

Here's the way that takes the guess work out of it. Remove the barrel from the pistol and set your taper crimp die so it just barley leaves some of bell from when you expanded the case mouth. Test by dropping the empty case in the chamber and it should drop in past the hood or rear most part of the barrel.

Now start seating your SWC and dropping it in the chamber till the rim is flush or just past the hood. If the rim sticks out past the hood seat the boolit a little deeper.

That's it, record that OAL and seat to that length. Then adjust the taper crimp down till the end of the case mouth is .472 or .473.

[Char-Gar]

You are doing what us old grey heads have always done, i.e. just fit the round to your handgun. However, the younger set seems fixated on finding some published COAL and fear the fires of hell, if they deviate from it. Yes, I know that a very deep seated bullet will raise pressures, but fitting the load to you gun won't bring the reloader anywhere near that issues. Go figure.

[Echo]

I believe the old wives tale of 45ACP being head-spaced by the extractor is just that - an old wives tale. End-space is the distance from the case mouth to the front of the chamber, and will typically be several thousandths. Measure both if you doubt it. I always seat my -460's so the shoulder of the boolit is maybe .030 proud, to engage the rifling and effect sort of a head-space sort of thing. Jim Clark taught me that. Sixty-eights should work the same...

[pmer]

When it was my turn to learn this I was shooting 68's and getting terrible leading in a 1911. My trouble was that I was seating long but still short enough so it would feed and eject. My after thought was that it was shearing the corner of the front band off against the origin of the rifling leaving a lead "deposit" and creating a storm leading that only choreboy could correct. Get the length right and they'll shoot boxes of ammo without trouble.

[Char-Gar]

When it was my turn to learn this I was shooting 68's and getting terrible leading in a 1911. My trouble was that I was seating long but still short enough so it would feed and eject. My after thought was that it was shearing the corner of the front band off against the origin of the rifling leaving a lead "deposit" and creating a storm leading that only choreboy could correct. Get the length right and they'll shoot boxes of ammo without trouble.

You need a better throat in your barrel in the worse way, if that is what happened. DougGuy can do this for you.

[bosterr]

If I needed to eject a loaded round in my 1911s with an extended ejector at 1.25" it would hang up. I need 1.235 and works fine.

[runfiverun]

I just seat the shoulder right flush with the case mouth.
it's position varies a little anyway because not all the cases are the same length.
but the rounds work in all of the 45's I have ever tried them in, including the revolvers.
I'm not even sure what the oal really is, it's probably a little different between the 68 and the lyman 640 and the 230rn I sometimes use.
but that's how I do it and it's problem free. [shrug]

[pmer]

It did have a sharp throat but its gone now anyways. Still helped to have it head space off the case mouth though.

[mdi]

Just a thought; the case mouth diameter is larger than the bullet diameter, providing a surface/edge to headspace on. I am not a 1911 expert but my ammo "thunks", a solid stop when dropped in the chamber, so why would I think the extractor determines the "headspace" or holds the case against the bolt?

[gwpercle]

At first I seated them flush , then an NRA article on loading accurate cast 45 acp target ammo , circa 1975 , said to leave a "finger nail thickness" of bullet shoulder out of the case. How's that measurement, if they had given a three decimal place measurement , my ruler, yardstick and tape measure would have all been useless . So I went one fingernail thickness and been doing it ever since.
I don't remember as to why it was to be done .....but I wasn't really interested in why if it worked and it worked, so I do it.
Gary

[telebasher]

I have nine different moulds for the 1911, when I find the sweet spot for my barrel I make a dummy cartridge for future reference with each boolit. I will vouch for DougGuy's cast boolit throating in 1911 barrels. It works and accuracy will be better.

[Blackwater]

A very old trick in seating any SWC is to adjust your dies so the crimp feature isn't working, and then to seat a loaded .45 RNFMJ factory load in the shell holder with the seater plug backed out all the way so it won't contact the round when you run the ram up. Then, with the ram all the way up in the die, screw the RN seater plug down on it until it's good and "snug," and back it out. Then put an empty unprimed case in that's had the neck expanded to receive a bullet, and put whatever SWC you're wanting to use on top, and let the seater plug run it down into the case. Then back off the seater plug enough that you can screw the seater/crimp die down and lightly crimp the newly created dummy ctg. so it won't move in the case in subsequent die adjusting.

Very simple. And this usually winds up feeding just fine, but in case it doesn't, try a little longer and/or shorter OAL until you find the right OAL that your particulary SWC wants to ensure proper feeding. In my experience, but not in everyone's (each gun CAN be different!) somewhat shorter OAL's tend to sometimes enhance feeding reliability. This is mostly in Colt brand guns, and they have historically been more finicky than most brands of 1911's made today. FWIW? Nobody wisely sallies forth with LSWC's in their .45's without proving them out on the range first! I do the same with the Lee 230 gr. TC's, also, and that's always tended to work out very well there as well.

[35remington]

The 1911 rarely, if ever, headspaces on the extractor. Reckon the large gap twixt extractor and breech that lets the round get quite a ways from the breechface before the extractor "stops" it. The extractor doesn't "hold" the case anywhere near the breechface.

This dimension exceeds that of even a long chamber and a short case.

If this is not clear I can go into considerable detail.

[fremont]

1.235"-1.265" although I've done thousands at 1.250" in a Kimber Gold Match.

[truckboss]

1.255 at that length i can eject a loaded round.

[pmer]

You are doing what us old grey heads have always done, i.e. just fit the round to your handgun. However, the younger set seems fixated on finding some published COAL and fear the fires of hell, if they deviate from it. Yes, I know that a very deep seated bullet will raise pressures, but fitting the load to you gun won't bring the reloader anywhere near that issues. Go figure.

I'd imagine the COAL's in the load books for all pistol calibers are attained this way. Like a Hornaday bullet in a Hornaday load book has a specific COAL for a certain cartridge. Then when someone substitutes a different brand bullet the internal case volume might be different.


As far as head spacing off the rim I only seem to hear about that from the striker fired crowd. You'd have to have a grossly short case to fire it that way, like a 40 S&W in a 10mm. It seems work but not a good thing if you have to depend on it.

[Echo]

Just a thought; the case mouth diameter is larger than the bullet diameter, providing a surface/edge to headspace on. I am not a 1911 expert but my ammo "thunks", a solid stop when dropped in the chamber, so why would I think the extractor determines the "headspace" or holds the case against the bolt?
And how far below the base of the bbl is the base of the cartridge? The cartridge may indeed 'thunk', but if one were to measure chamber depth , one would find that the depth is greater than case length of a 45ACP, thus needing the 'fingernail' amount of proudness to prevent end-shake, sorta like headspace...

[C.F.Plinker]

Some day when you have some time get your barrel, slide, a sized round of brass, a dummy cartridge, and some 3/8 inch strips of paper. Put the barrel in the slide, hook the sized round of brass behind the extractor, move the barrel toward the case mouth until it just supports the case. Start putting strips of paper in the gap between the bolt face and the case head. When the gap is full take the strips out and measure the thickness. This is how far the case has to move forward in order to headspace off the extractor. Move the barrel toward the boltface until it drops into the locking lugs and repeat the measurement. This is how far the case has to move forward in order to headspace off the case mouth. Repeat this using your dummy cartridge. If this measurement is the smallest you are headspacing off the boolit. If not, you are headspacing off either the case mouth or the extractor and the measurements you made earlier will tell you which.

I have a H&G 130. If I seat it so that the case head is even with the barrel hood I can just start to see the edge of the lube groove. I seat deeper by about .050 which gives me an overall length of 1.162 inches. This length works well in all of my 45s.

[gray wolf]

If we are talking 1911,s they do not head space of the extractor, 35 REMINGTON has spent countless time and pictures explaining this

Lead bullets with a front drive band such as the #68 have been loaded with the plunk test for years and it is an accepted method. The bullet is loaded out so the case head sits flush or .001/.003 below the barrel hood.
This method has the bullet front band contact the barrel rifling just after the chamber and assures that every case head fits against the breach face with very little variance. And sort of negates the differences caused by different case lengths. If you said the case head does not actually contact the breach face you would probably be correct. but it's close. Many 1911,s will work fine with a COAL of 1.240/ 1.250

The rifling lead and how sharp it is will have a say in this, to short and to sharp has it's own set of problems, as does to long and to soft a lead. To short and or to sharp can be fixed. To long and shallow can cause leading after the chamber area.
Sometimes fixed with a little larger bullet diameter.

As to not being able to eject a loaded round, that's probably a to long ejector hitting the case to soon and or the ejection port cut to short. Reducing the rounds OAL is a fix but IMHO it's a fix that maybe needed for a problem not caused by the case OAL.


Sam

[Walks]

GEEZ!!!! you guys all make this seem so hard. When all the smoke clears, seat it short enough to fit in the mag.
But far enough out to chamber & eject.
Trial & error. Make up a dummy when you get it right,
Throw it in the die box & drag it out when ya need it.
Nuf said

[AbitNutz]

Boy ain't this the truth...Seat...shoot...seat...shoot...seat...shoot ...oh, that one fit in the magazine, fed through the gun and hit the center of the target...bingo!


GEEZ!!!! you guys all make this seem so hard. When all the smoke clears, seat it short enough to fit in the mag.
But far enough out to chamber & eject.
Trial & error. Make up a dummy when you get it right,
Throw it in the die box & drag it out when ya need it.
Nuf said

[TXGunNut]

With SWC boolits I've been using the thumbnail "measurement" and a taper crimp for almost 35 years now and to this day I can't tell you what the OAL actually is. It doesn't really matter because there are quite a few variations of the 68 and all have slightly different profiles so the OAL will vary as well. I heard about the plunk test several years back and it gave me the same seating depth as the thumbnail method. I also eyeball the taper crimp but it's generally about a quarter turn after the sizing ring contacts the case mouth. "Headspacing on the extractor" is a bad idea; hard on the extractor, accuracy and reliability. If the OAL determined by the thumbnail or plunk method causes issues with magazines and extracting loaded rounds the nose is too long and a different boolit may be a good idea.

[Char-Gar]

If we are talking 1911,s they do not head space of the extractor, 35 REMINGTON has spent countless time and pictures explaining this

Lead bullets with a front drive band such as the #68 have been loaded with the plunk test for years and it is an accepted method. The bullet is loaded out so the case head sits flush or .001/.003 below the barrel hood.
This method has the bullet front band contact the barrel rifling just after the chamber and assures that every case head fits against the breach face with very little variance. And sort of negates the differences caused by different case lengths. If you said the case head does not actually contact the breach face you would probably be correct. but it's close. Many 1911,s will work fine with a COAL of 1.240/ 1.250

The rifling lead and how sharp it is will have a say in this, to short and to sharp has it's own set of problems, as does to long and to soft a lead. To short and or to sharp can be fixed. To long and shallow can cause leading after the chamber area.
Sometimes fixed with a little larger bullet diameter.

As to not being able to eject a loaded round, that's probably a to long ejector hitting the case to soon and or the ejection port cut to short. Reducing the rounds OAL is a fix but IMHO it's a fix that maybe needed for a problem not caused by the case OAL.


Sam

He be right!!!!!!!!! Folks have been handloading the 1911 for 115 years and it has no secrets. If you were to take some of this stuff on this board seriously, you would think this ordinary reloading task is some kind of engineering problem to be solved. My, my and another my!

[Boolseye]

As I understand it, headspace on a rimless cartridge such as 45 ACP is essentially the entire length of the case. It's standard practice with other such cartridges to leave some bearing surface exposed, and 45 is no exception. It's a non-issue. About a thumbnail's width us what I was taught, and a firm taper crimp.

[Shiloh]

As long as I can to fir the magazine and eject a live round.

Shiloh