Getting the Lee 452-200-RF right in my XD

[drac0nic]

Not a frequent poster, but I'm trying to get this right and it's driving me crazy. The bullets are the Lee 452-200-RF sized to .452 after powder coat with HF Red. I've tried messing with the COAL and seeing what happens but for some reason I can't get these to chamber completely. They seem to get stuck even if I manually feed them. I'm using Lee .45 ACP Dies with FCD as well. FWIW load is 8.3gr Blue Dot. Lee makes a 451 sizer. Should I get one? Maybe my COAL is goofy or something with the crimp/case length?

I'd like to get this working as I have a few hundred already cast out I don't want to just lighten myself of and I don't have a revolver to load em up in. Your thoughts are appreciated as it seems like some say this bullets great and others can't get it to work at all much like me.

[tazman]

After sizing for the final time, you will have visible marks on the sides of the boolits that show where the flat driving bands end(full diameter portion of the boolit). This portion must be very nearly all inside the case or the cartridge will not chamber in an XD barrel due to the lack of any lead or freebore in the barrel.
I use that boolit, loaded just as I described, in my XD and XDm with good results. I do not get failures to feed or chamber at all. In my XDm, I get target grade accuracy.
The only real difference is I do not powder coat. As long as the boolit is seated so the full diameter portion is at the mouth of the case, there should be no problem chambering.

[drac0nic]

I saw a post where someone had mentioned taking a fired case and putting a bullet in it then pushing it into the chamber to see where the OAL would end up. I wound up at 1.168 so I seated down to 1.158. Does that seem even close to where you are? I have to go pay for a range so I may end up trying to go to 1.108 and 1.103 and seeing if anything works that way.

Ever heard of anyone getting a throat job done on one of these? I'm tempted to try another mold honestly as this one seems to have a pretty fat ogive. For some reason the Lee I've tried in 9mm (the 125RN) also seemed to have a really fat ogive as well. It took a lot of work to make that one right as well. Maybe I should just use it as an excuse to get a 460 Rowland conversion at some point.

[tazman]

That 1.158 COAL you mention is very close to what I use. Within .005
As far as throating you would need to contact Dougguy to see what he can do. Some barrels are hardened making throating difficult to impossible. I don't know where XD barrels fall in that area.

[RU shooter]

I have same bullet and same issues in my Kahr 45 with a short throat . I went a different route and sized the nose down a smidge in a 30-06 sizer die it's an extra step but I don't shoot that gun much

[nicholst55]

I would suggest contacting member Dougguy and discussing having your barrels throated to accept ammo loaded to normal OAL.

[joebaja]

I run that bullet seated to 1.155 in my PPQ 45. I had the exact same chambering issue in my Sar K2 until I sent it to Doug for a throating. I still seat short and back off the powder, but it does run well in both my 45s

[gwpercle]

If you don't want to go the throating route you need to try SWC design boolits .
Such as the Lee 452-200-SWC , if you look at that boolit, you can seat the boolit deep enough into the case so there is no "fat" ogive to get in the way.
If dimensions are tight on your guns chamber ...size boolits .451" , I have one 45 acp that requires .451 to chamber...the others will take .452" .
Gary

[tazman]

If you don't want to go the throating route you need to try SWC design boolits .
Such as the Lee 452-200-SWC , if you look at that boolit, you can seat the boolit deep enough into the case so there is no "fat" ogive to get in the way.
If dimensions are tight on your guns chamber ...size boolits .451" , I have one 45 acp that requires .451 to chamber...the others will take .452" .
Gary

That boolit will not work in the XD 45acp. Any boolit that has a ledge or step in front will fail to feed.
Due to how the XD45 functions, the fired case will come back during extraction and hit that step and then either fail to extract or fail to feed the next round. Smoothly curved boolits only for the XD45. With smoothly curved boolits, the gun will function flawlessly.
The XDm doesn't have the problem. Different design.

[DougGuy]

There is zero freebore in the barrel, so basically any design boolit that is seated with some of the full diameter of the boolit proud of the case mouth will get crammed into the rifling and the gun will fail to go into battery.

the proper thing to do is have the barrel throated. Since those are salt bath hardened a standard HSS reamer will be ruined in the first 1/4 turn, only a carbide reamer will cut the freebore and the leade ins. I have one with some use on it, that might work well enough in your barrel. These carbide reamers go away FAST in the hardened barrels, and they are expensive to have custom ground, which you will wait for months sometimes to get one, they aren't a stock item anywhere that I know of. And they are 3x and 4x the cost of a HSS reamer.

Throating hardened barrels is a lose-lose situation no matter how you go about it. I am LUCKY if I get 10-12 barrels throated with one carbide reamer before it's too worn down and cuts too small and too ragged to use. BUT... They work if you simply must use cast boolits in the poly framed Springfields. I would consider other options and only throat this one as a last resort.

[Valornor]

Do they make after market barrels for the XD?

Seems like that would be a better solution then trying to modify the OEM barrel.

Do you have a cartridge gage? Does it drop in freely?


Check out my website www.theballisticassistant.com

[gwpercle]

That boolit will not work in the XD 45acp. Any boolit that has a ledge or step in front will fail to feed.
Due to how the XD45 functions, the fired case will come back during extraction and hit that step and then either fail to extract or fail to feed the next round. Smoothly curved boolits only for the XD45. With smoothly curved boolits, the gun will function flawlessly.
The XDm doesn't have the problem. Different design.

How about a smooth sided Truncated Cone design, i.e. Lee 452-230-TC or Lyman 452374, would this type possibly work ?

[drac0nic]

There is zero freebore in the barrel, so basically any design boolit that is seated with some of the full diameter of the boolit proud of the case mouth will get crammed into the rifling and the gun will fail to go into battery.

the proper thing to do is have the barrel throated. Since those are salt bath hardened a standard HSS reamer will be ruined in the first 1/4 turn, only a carbide reamer will cut the freebore and the leade ins. I have one with some use on it, that might work well enough in your barrel. These carbide reamers go away FAST in the hardened barrels, and they are expensive to have custom ground, which you will wait for months sometimes to get one, they aren't a stock item anywhere that I know of. And they are 3x and 4x the cost of a HSS reamer.

Throating hardened barrels is a lose-lose situation no matter how you go about it. I am LUCKY if I get 10-12 barrels throated with one carbide reamer before it's too worn down and cuts too small and too ragged to use. BUT... They work if you simply must use cast boolits in the poly framed Springfields. I would consider other options and only throat this one as a last resort.

Wow, the man has spoken. It sounds like I'm going to have fun with this and even if I got someone to do it that wouldn't be a low cost proposition. Maybe I'll send this gun up the river but that's kind of a hard sell in IL considering the history SA has here.


Do they make after market barrels for the XD?

Seems like that would be a better solution then trying to modify the OEM barrel.

Do you have a cartridge gage? Does it drop in freely?


Check out my website www.theballisticassistant.com

Barsto seems to have em. For the money I may as well get some J's for as much as I shoot this thing or that 460 conversion.

[tazman]

How about a smooth sided Truncated Cone design, i.e. Lee 452-230-TC or Lyman 452374, would this type possibly work ?

Those will work fine. The boolit just can't have a ledge that the bottom of the outgoing case can hang up on.

[tazman]

Dougguy----My XDm pistols, both 45ACP and 9mm, have throats suitable for cast. Not quite as much as when you do your magic with a barrel, but it is there. I can run with .050 of the driving band showing in from of the case in both guns. They came this way from the factory.
The XD 45ACP pistols I used to own both had no throats to speak of. I was constantly trying to find what would work well in all my 45ACP pistols.
I think this is due to the XDm being considered a target/competition pistol. This usage is normally shot, or at least practiced using cast boolits, hence the throating.

Valornor--- There are at least two or three different manufacturers making aftermarket barrels for XD pistols. For my use, I haven't found the need for one.

[drac0nic]

1.158 didn't quite work I had a round or two that didn't feed correctly. Going to go down to 1.15 and load a few more up. IMR PB is a nice powder btw, seems really clean.

[softpoint]

I have had several of the XD series .45's and can vouch for what tazman says. I got all of them to shoot the 200 grain lee round flat reliably. I powder coated, sized to .451 and loaded with virtually no full diameter ahead of the case. XDS, XD and XDM 5.25 Match all worked fine.

[drac0nic]

Glad to hear that. I made another 50 yet a hair or two shorter still (~1.153) and we'll see what happens. I may go a smidge shorter still but I think I'm riding the gap of not feeding right vs jamming up in the throat. Should be interesting to see what happens. I should make some 1.148s as well probably to take with just in case.

[drac0nic]

I underloaded these so I was having stove piping issues. I loaded a few more up a bit hotter and am going to go shoot them. I feel like I'm 95% there. Nothing failed to chamber though which is a marked improvement. I threw 5gr of PB into some more and some Nitro 100 so we'll see. I should really crank a dozen or so out with a hot Blue Dot load in case that doesn't seal the deal.

[tazman]

That PB load should function the gun. It is slightly under the starting load but then my XD functions fine with slightly less than starting loads of other powders.

[drac0nic]

That PB load should function the gun. It is slightly under the starting load but then my XD functions fine with slightly less than starting loads of other powders.

I had dropped to 4.4 gr which apparently was a bit light. 5GR seemed to do well. I regret I'm out of the stuff and they don't make it any more, it seems like a really decent powder overall. I was loading some .38 SPL up so I just left the measure. Should have set it back it seems. Oh well, it gives me something to shoot even if it slows me down at the range. At least I'll be good at clearing malfunctions.

[Divil]

Factory Missouri Bullet 200gr. RNFP is another option if you want to run a cast RNFP bullet type in your XD.

[drac0nic]

Actually made it to the range today! had 1 or 2 which gave me trouble with the Nitro 100 but overall function was pretty good with 4.4 grains. (NOT the NF variant but the old version.) Basically the max load. I have enough to load up the last of my current cast bullets probably, but need to crank at least a box out. It's certainly good enough to run with.

The load of 8.4gr of Blue Dot didn't cycle! That was kind of mind blowing to me. It's a starting load for 230gr TMJs according to my Lyman book. I didn't see any unburnt powder with it but it seemed soft and didn't even really attempt to cycle. If I'm going to be running Blue Dot I think it'll be at 10+ gr at this rate.

The 5.0gr load of PB I had mixed results and poor ignition from (I was seeing noticable unburnt powder when ejecting shell casings manually.) I think I pretty much shot up what I had though so I'm out of that realm at this point and need to focus on other powders. I had a few mags that shot well and some that didn't seem to work so well either.

I bought a box of PMC Bronze (230gr 830FPS) as a control. Worked just fine. My bullets are dropping at 215gr. I'm thinking this gun "likes" faster powder in hotter. The recoil impulse seemed soft with the PB and Blue Dot, enough so I was paranoid about getting a bullet stuck in the barrel and was putting a cleaning rod down it for the first few dozen shots. Thankfully nothing happened although I did a lot of manual slide work. I think I'm in a good enough spot to crank out another box with the Nitro 100 and see how it shoots.

[trixter]

I've been using Bullseye powder for everything I put through my XDm. I was really into 200gr hollow points from a Mihec mold and then I tried the H&G 68 clone also by Mihec, and fell in love with it. That bullet makes such pretty holes in my targets, but that is just me. I have also used the Lee H&G 68 clone and they aren't cut as sharp as the Mihec molds but work equally well. The XDm seems to really like the H&G 68 design.

[fredj338]

I run that bullet just fine in my XD45 & XD45C. Yes they have to be short as the ogive is fat, but they do run fine once you get the oal right. Make dummy rds & hand cycle them using the slide stop to release the slide. This is about how they will run when fired.
Unless you want +p loads, forget the Bluedot, not worth the effort imo.
If your Lee 200gr RNFP are dropping at 215gr, pretty close to pure lead. Using range scrap, mine drop about 207-208gr.

[bigboredad]

As for powder give Winchester wst a try it has a very soft recoil impulse burns clean and 4.2 grains has been a magical number for a number of my friends. For a 200gr mold take a look at accuratemolds.com he has quite a few that should run much better in your xd. Good luck

Sent from my SM-T377V using Tapatalk

[fredj338]

As for powder give Winchester wst a try it has a very soft recoil impulse burns clean and 4.2 grains has been a magical number for a number of my friends. For a 200gr mold take a look at accuratemolds.com he has quite a few that should run much better in your xd. Good luck

Sent from my SM-T377V using Tapatalk
I have been a WST guys for 45acp since it was 452AA. I do find the recoil impulse softer for the same vel as other powders in the same burn rate.

[welderboy44]

I also have an XD-45 that I cast and loaded the Lee .452 200 grain SWC to shoot in. Bullseye was the powder and i had terrible hangups. No hangups with the Lee 230 grain RN I cast. I just moved the 200 grain bullets over to the 45 colt. I just shoot for fun and am not what I consider a deadly accurate target shooter, but i do like making boolits.