45 acp

[The Dove]

Quick question. I cast boolits for my 45 ACP and my 45 Colt. I have a .452 Lee mold and use a .452 lube/sizer and have shot these through both weapons. However, some of the ACP rounds will not seat all the way into the barrel of my ACP. This leads to feading problems. Do I need to go with a .451 mold or lube/sizer for my ACP rounds? Any suggestions will be most appreciated.

The Dove

[Blammer]

in the 45acp, is it clean? is your lube causing problems?

clean the barrel and take a clean loadedround and see if it will chamber properly. If it does then the lube may be your problem.

[The Dove]

Thanks Blammer. I have cleaned the pistol and I even rubbed the rounds off real good to remove any lube so that's not a problem. About 8 out of 10 rounds would hang up so I bought a Lee factory crimp die and that seemed to help. Now only about 1 or 2 rounds per 14 hang up but that still is not acceptible to me. I have taken the barrel out of the pistol and dropped the rounds straight into the barrel. Still 2 rounds per 14 or so will not fall completely into the barrel. It's really frustrating. The weapon fires factory ammo with no problems. I just wonder if the .452 round is just a little to big?

The Dove

[mtgrs737]

I check all my 45 acp loaded rounds with a Midway cartridge gage. This minimum SAMI chamber cartridge gage will tell you if you have a dimensional problem and where it is. I also have a Lee Carbide Factory Crimp die that will size a cartridge after it is loaded, it too will show you were a dimensional problem may exsist. Dillon also makes the cartridge gages, I have one for each of my pistol cartridges and the military rifle cartridges I load.

[ddeaton]

.452 should be fine. Make sure you are not shaving a little lead when seating the boolit. I had that trouble and cured it by flaring the case mouth a little more before seating. This will not let the round chamber for sure. You should not have a case length problem, never seen that with 45, I reload and shoot these till the cases crack or I lose them.

What pistol are you running them through?

[MtGun44]

The most consistent reloading problem with .45ACP is failure to taper crimp.
The typical symptom is failure to close the last bit. Use a taper crimp die and
set it to push half the thickness of the brass at the mouth into the lead of
the boolit. Your FTC problems will end.

I would estimate that 75-80% of all functioning problems with .45ACP is
due to not taper crimping. This is from almost 30 years of IPSC shooting and
coaching new loaders on the caliber.

The second most common cause is too much full diameter portion of a SWC
extending past the case mouth, hitting the rifling in tight throated barrels.
With the H&G 68 SWC load to 1.250" LOA. With others, you only want about
.020-.030" of full diam lead past the case mouth for very tight match throated
barrels. With stock Colt barrels, this can be up to .060" with no problems.

These two items will end your FTC problems.

Bill

[sundog]

Dove, couple thoughts. First is OAL - it may not be the .452 size that is causing the problem. Second is crimp - try a taper crimp die, use your seater die for seating only (make sure you get consistent OAL) and then run thru the taper crimp die (not a factory crimp die) so it fits your barrel, i.e., keep crimping until 100% of the loaded rounds fit the bbl. Which brings up the third thought - use your barrel for your case gauge. A cartridge gauge, to me, is money wasted.

[The Dove]

Great info guys. I shoot a Sig P220. I really like that pistol and sure is fun to shoot.

The Dove

[osage]

I had the same issue with a used 1911A1. I did what other here have recommened, cleaned & cleaned, case gauge and got the crimp adjusted properly. It corrected FTF issues.

[MtGun44]

Sundog is exactly right. If you thoroughly clean your chamber and use your
barrel as a drop gauge you will know exactly how long you can seat the
boolit and how much taper crimp you need. The round should drop into the
chamber held upright and with no more that 1-2 lbs at MOST go flush with the
hood. If it takes more, increase the taper crimp or seat the boolit a bit deeper.

In loading many hundreds of thousands of rounds of .45 ACP this is the
real way to see if your ammo is going to work with 100% reliability. The chamber
gauge is nice, but if you only are feeding one pistol, use the chamber as the
guarenteed perfect gauge. Not familiar with the Sig chamber, but it will be
a perfect gauge.

Bill

[sundog]

btw, shouldn't need to mention this BUT, remove the barrel from the pistol if you use it as a case gauge. Just a simple safety tip...

[Willbird]

My 1911 has a Clark bbl, as that bbl came from the mfg it was just plain too tight, the solution was to have the pistolsmith who built the gun ream the chamber, he wanted to do so when he built the gun but I wanted to try it with the tight chamber. A chamber that tight is of no benefit to accuracy. The gun runs 100% now with any ammo, and no accuracy was lost from this. The gun is an honest sub 1.5" at 50 yards from a ransom rest with cast bullets.

Some brass is thinner than others so you may find a brand of brass that fits your gun better with the .452 bullet. Remington brass with my old star loader was so thin that the FL sizer would not size it enough to hold a bullet properly.

The factory crimp die may in fact be post sizing the rounds, this sizes the bullet while it is seated in the case, that will not be as uniform as just sizing the bullet smaller to begin with.

Bill

[Railbuggy]

I had that problim with my Norinco 1911A1 useing the Lee 228gr LRN.That booli has an 1R ogive causing it not wanting to seat in the chamber all the way.The FMJ ball round has a 2R ogive.Ogive is new to me.

[The Dove]

That was my problem, NOT ENOUGH TAPER CRIMP. Thanks so much for the information folks. That is why I check this forum regularly.

The Dove

[EMC45]

DDeaton beat me to it. I'm thinking shaved lead.

[ddeaton]

DDeaton beat me to it. I'm thinking shaved lead.

Been there, done that. I wasnt flaring the case mouth enough, worried about stressing the brass, and shaved more lead than not. My crimp was fine, but it doesnt help when a little lead is shaved and built up around the crimp.