.45ACP leading continues - some answers, some new questions.

[Bigslug]

I fired the second set of experiments with my Lyman 452423's yesterday.

The original test was 50 rounds sized to .452 with Lyman Orange Magic on top of 5.0 grains of Unique. Smoky, and leaded the bore for an inch or so forward of the chamber.

Second test was 25 of the same bullet with the charge uppped to 5.5 grains. Pretty much the same result.

Third test was sized down to .451. I tried these with both 5.0 and 5.5 grain charges (25 each). I think these leaded the throat somehwhat less, but not so much as to be obvious.

A couple of thoughts:

Since the crimp groove on this Keith-type boolit is not being used on a .45ACP, would using it as a forward lube groove likely help?

When we smelted the range scrap used for these boolits into air-cooled ingots, the hardness was 9.75 BHN, but we water-quenched these boolits, and they are testing at about 14 BHN. Is it possible that this is slightly too hard for a low pressure round like the .45ACP, and the cause of my throat leading is that the boolit is slower to obturate?

[HangFireW8]

Bigslug,

A faster powder might help in quicker obturation, I use Bullseye with similar hardness boolits and it works fine.

Yes, lubing the first groove might help, but it may be messy if it seats outside the case mouth.

First, most obvious question... have you slugged the throat, muzzle, and all the way through the bore yet? I assumed my brand-name 45 barrel would be to spec, but it wasn't....

HF

[Echo]

Slightly too hard makes sense to me, so if I were you, I would cast up some more and NOT water-quench them. Give those a try.
Another suggestion: After sizing & loobing, give them a light coat of LLA or 45-45-10. I have had very good luck with these in the 45.

[williamwaco]

I agree with both the above.

In my experience, nothing will lead worse than a hard underside bullet.

Loose the water and size it back to .452.
9 to 10 BNH is plenty hard.

I have used Orange Magic. It is a excellent lube. I don't think lube is the problem but If you are shooting outdoors try lubing the crimp ring. If you are shooting indoors you will probably get run out of the range by a bunch of coughing handgunners.


.

[geargnasher]

Leading in the first inch, in that setup, could indicate your front band is shaving lead at the end of the chamber or at a step in the rifling origin.

Gear

[Bigslug]

I DO love the company of big brains with experience!

I think this particular gun/boolit combo just became my main self-education focus - learn a bunch there, save lots of time elsewhere. . .

I'd pretty much already decided that Unique is not the powder of choice - at least for this lube. In the scientific interests of only changing one variable at a time, however, I'm probably going to roll with it a little bit longer.

Since I've already got .452 boolits cast at 14 BHN lubed with Lyman Orange, and the sizer is still filled with it, the easiest thing to do at this point is to try the .451/.452 experiment again with the crimp groove filled with grease.

Depending on what THAT does, switching to Bullseye is probably the next easy change. I'd like to try that with the Lyman lube anyway just to see what the smoke factor is.

Next easiest will be to make more boolits and not quench them - - at least not quench ALL of them, because. . .

. . .the first batch of Ben's Red lube gets mixed up on Sunday - unless it looks like the predicted 20% chance of rain for my deer hunting area is going to come true. Gotta get out in the wet and help Dad fill his tag. Work. . .work. . .work. . .

I have the feeling this gun wants .451's made of softer stuff, but we'll see what the results say.

HangfireW8: I've not slugged this barrel yet, but will at the point I have some softer pills to push through. Unfortunately, with me and .45ACPs this is ultimately NOT going to be a one-gun load. Hopefully I learn enough on this gun to come up with a non-fussy solution that runs clean in most.

Gear: Appears to be a very nicely finished Springfield stainless barrel with a clean leade. It does appear to consistently leave small bits of lead in certain areas that cling more tenaciously than others - but not directly at the juncture between chamber and rifling. Most notably this was a pin-head sized deposit in one of the grooves, but no visible flaw in the barrel once this was removed.

[geargnasher]

Leading is caused by bits of lead being smeared on the bore. (No kidding, right?) The cause of the existence of those bits is often misunderstood. Most of the time, the lead deposits in the barrel were torn free of the boolit in the form of dust which was abraded by high-pressure gas leaks. Sometimes it's abrasion or shaved lead if there are rough spots or burrs that can tear it away from the boolit's surface.

So basically look for gas leaks at any point in the firing cycle. Refer to Btroj's recent thread on FIT.

Gear

[runfiverun]

you know that boolit has the same drive band set-up as the 452-400 which is a rn.
your weight really isn't all that heavy,and you have a fairly delicate rear drive band.
you might could up the load some more and help yourself out some also.
i don't know if you have pulled a loaded boolit, and seen if you have squished a boolit either, but that's worth looking at too.

[frkelly74]

Make sure that your boolit isn't being sized down when you are seating/ crimping the boolit in. Pull some and measure with a good micrometer. I had the worst leading I have ever personally seen just from this scenario in my 45. I expanded the case mouth a little more and Eased up on the crimp and problem went away.


Great minds do think alike!

[Bigslug]

Gear: Point well taken on gas leakage. It seems to be sealing fine farther down the tube. If the various upcoming attempts don't do the trick, there may be cause to do some light lapping. My last post wasn't too clear on that - there is one tiny specific spot in one specific groove that seems to resist cleaning out after the rest of the schmear has been scrubbed away.

Runfiverun: Pretty sure I'm done with the 5.0 charge at the very least. 5.5 is feeling pretty close to hardball recoil levels, so until I can chrono, I'll probably stay there. I think Hangfire's got the right idea with Bullseye to provide a swifter kick in the butt though, and now that I think it over, that experiment can be easily loaded right before and in conjunction with the extra lube effort.

frkelly: I pulled a slug to check for the issue of "sizing by seating" fairly early on in the process. We seem to have that item under control, though I may open things up a little more for the sake of overkill. I admit to being a little shy about decreasing taper crimp, due to the fact that one of the more recalcitrant batches of .45 jacketed I ever experienced was the result of a lack of it. The joys of re-learning. . .

ALSO: 160 posts and I'm a "Boolit Master"? I think we need to work on that scale. . .

[Char-Gar]

I was shooting 452423 out of 1911 autopistols long before folks though it was possible. Leading has not been a real issue. A brass brush and some good solvent always do the job. Here are my thoughts on your issues.

1. Bullets too hard. Ditch the water quenching.
2. I size to .452
3. I do lube the crimp groove
4. I seat the bullet until their is just a smidge of body showing, just enough to get a good taper crimp.
5. I have used nothing but Bullseye powder. I don't give out charge weights on such things on the Internet.

[Bigslug]

Hard, directly-transferable data on the same mold!

Thanks Char-Gar!

Sounds like the answer is somewhere between Bullseye and hardness.

If overhard turns out to be the issue, then I'll actually be pretty thrilled with this batch of range scrap - air cool for the ACP, the Webleys, and the light .38's, and water-drop for the magnums with no adjustments needed. SWEET!

[HangFireW8]

ALSO: 160 posts and I'm a "Boolit Master"? I think we need to work on that scale. . .

Yes, I remember feeling not quite the Master when I got to that point, too. Now, at over 1K posts, I'm still at the same rank... not sure how I feel about that, either.

HF

[40Super]

If it chambers .452 easily, my question is ,will it chamber .4525 or even .453? To me it seems quite a bit like the bullet is undersize and could stand to be a little bigger to seal from the get-go without having to rely on obturation to do it . Then what powder being used isn't as big a deal ( I use several and don't really have much problems if I try a different one). I know you don't want 2 sizes, but sometimes it is just needed, or what works best. I ended up with 2 sizes myself because one .45 barrel slugged at .4535 and 2 others at .4515. I played around for a bit like you and just got tired of cleaning so I quit sizing down for that 1 barrel. I just have 2 different colored ammo boxes for the loads, it's pretty easy to keep seperate.

For that rough spot, I have taken bore mops and saturate them with a fine metal polish and work it back and forth down the whole barrel, taking a little more time at the chamber end, it slightly rounds the sharp edges so less lead gets shaved when chambering a round, plus it helped quite a bit on leading and cleanup. Once your loads are figured out, cleaning lead should be a distant memory

[looseprojectile]

Been shooting bowling pins for the last several years. Weekly, Weakly.
Started out with a nearly new Para Ordnance P 14. It leaded some.

I tried most of the fixes stated here. Always used the same .452" sizer.

I have always used my own lube, a mix of beeswax, white tail fat and a dob of lanolin.
Cast boolits of all weights from 200 grain to 255 grain all with the same 6 grains of Unique. I always used a soft alloy as I thought that would work better in the pins. Heavier is better. 6 grains of Unique is more dependable.
Not much helped till I hand lapped the bore.
If I remember right it took me all of about an hour to fix this gun forever.
The bore always sparkles now. Not a speck of lead.

About the only time I really need to clean the gun is when it is time to clean the firing pin and extractor. About every two or three months.
[five or six hundred rounds].
In my opinion you can never hurt a bore by lapping it to smooth it up.
I would never use the firelapping method because it seems to take too long and is hard to control. Hand lapping is so easy and quick.


Life is good

[44man]

Gear has a handle on it but reading his posts still indicates one of two problems. He does lean that way too.
Gas cutting to be sure but the boolit might be skidding and that opens the rifling marks to cause leakage the same as a boolit too small.
The ACP does not expand farther down the bore, it will stop skidding and pressure is dropping. The little case and powder charge reaches peak pressure very fast, maybe all in the case. That is the point of max expansion. From that point on the pressure drops and can no longer "boot" a boolit up.
I will go out on a cliff about alloy hardness and say to toughen the boolit to resist skid, make it FIT first and no further expansion is needed. Softening just adds to skid and extends leading distance.
I have to apply revolver experience with the boolit jump, forcing cone and ability of the boolit to NOT skid at rifling origination by using hard lead. The big bore revolver is easier using slow powder for an extended pressure curve that can give a more gentle start.
The little guns use powder as a sledge hammer on the boolit and you can't expect it to turn when it hits the rifling.
That is why some guns use a progressive twist rate from almost nothing at the start to a faster twist. Just a skid stop!
I have always said as you shorten a barrel and lose velocity, you need a faster twist for stability but it is not done because of the leading issue, it gets worse.
I will never advocate softer when you have leading at rifling origin. There is no such thing as bump up when the boolit already fits. I do not believe in "flowing lead slump" to fill.
HEY, I came up with a new term! The silly putty syndrome!

[geargnasher]

I call it "balancing the load to the alloy". Bullseye and water-quenched wheel weights never worked well for me in anything.

Gear

[40Super]

Hey give that man a beer 44Man^^^

Thats a good way to describe it. I've always thought the 2 rules fought each other in the acp, Softer to seal, harder to grab the shallow rifling. Thats why I always try to stuff the biggest bullet that will chamber. Take care of fit and hardness doesn't come in to play very much.

[44man]

Just make the boolit turn, no more, no less.
Gear is right---BALANCE.
The revolver is the worst to work with but some things apply.
I hate softer or harder, it is finding what your gun can live with.
I lean to fit and hard enough.
The most important thing is to try stuff and never get stuck in a rut.

[340six]

I am having very good luck with soft range lead and isotope containments 06-2-2{SP?} in my 1911 at 452 and Lars Red Lube