Seating depth of Lee 405 grain for my Trapdoor.

[aprayinbear]

While I've been reloading for some time I am new to BP cartridge reloading. I have a lee 457. 405 mold, which drops bullets at approx. 458.5 . I am using some homemade lube (beeswax, lard and oil) and I'm using the softest of the wheelweights I can find (I have a bunch of the extra large weights used for big trucks. These seem to be much softer then the typical car weights.) I'm using a drop tube and I place a lubed cookie between powder and bullet. I do not have a compression die yet, so the final compression is done when I seat the bullet over the cookie. I'm loading between 55 and 60 grains of FFg Goex. I know this is not ideal for accuracy, but I just wanted to put together some safe loads for shooting 50-100 yards.

The lee loading data for this bullet (over Trail Boss) is 2.54 min loa. Problem is that my trapdoor will not chamber this bullet at that length. I have to go down to 2.45 - 2.47 to get the cartridge to load easily. Is that safe? My understanding is that I am probably not "overcompressing the BP." What do you think?

Happy Shooting !

[country gent]

All seems to be okay other than compressing the powder with the grease cookie in place with a bullet, this can force the grease cookie to penetrate into the powder charge deadening it ranomly. What I would recomend if you feel the grease cookie is neccesary is to place a card wad .010-.060 thick ( can be cut from tablet backing, playing cards, 3x5 index cards, thin cork gasket material, napa ruber fiber gasket) and place that on top of the powder. iwith some dies you can use the stem of the expander to compress or a flat bullet seater set low. Compress to a depth that allows the bullet to hand seat at or slightly above finished over all length. Insert grease cookie and seat into place with a hand punch. A cleaning jag with the centing point cut off or dowel works great. Place a thhin paper wad on the grease cookie as it keeps it from sticking to base of bullet, seat bullet slightly compressing everything enough to know there is no air pockets left. Lightly crimp if you wish. If the bullet is grease grooved you may not need the grease cookie even. Shoot a few rounds with out it and if there is a grease star on the muzzle you may be okay with out it.

[aprayinbear]

Great suggestions Gent!

I'll give them a try!

[Col4570]

Make up a depth gauge from an old case by drilling out the primer pocket,tap the hole and fit a bolt.fit a loose bullet and use the tool for giving you an exact measurement to your rifling.Compress powder to this measurement.I use a thin card as a divider but do not if the bullet is hollow based,the card will blow into the base.A Hollow based Bullet directly onto the powder is efficient.

[country gent]

You could make a dowel to fit inside the sized case with a slip fit ( free of tension just a nice running fit) from wood brass or aliminum or steel. make it 1 1/2" - 1 3/4" long flat and square on base and a radioused nose, Sort of a dummy bullet that could be used with your seating die to compress the powder and first wad to depth also. A 500 grn jacketed bullet could be polished down to around .454 dia and used also. In use set bullet seater high ( no crimp) and adjust to compresion depth set dummy bullet in place and seat wad and powder to depth, remove, seat GC and card then bullet.

[Lead pot]

Here is an easy way to get your overall length.
For a .45 caliber get a 3/8" dowel rod longer then your barrel.
Insert the bullet into the chamber with out using the case. Push it solid into the throat with no more pressure you would use seating the loaded round.
Now push the dowel from the muzzle till it comes in contact with the bullet.
Take a pencil and put a marl on the dowel flush with the muzzle.
Now push the bullet out and close the breach.
Push the dowel down till it comes in contact with the face of the breach block.
Mark this like you did before.
Now measure the two marks you have on the dowel and this will be the overall length of your round.
Different shapes of bullets will give you different over all lengths. So mark the marks on the dowel for the bullet you used.

[MtGun44]

I had superb results with the hollow base version of Lee's 405 in my TD. Terrible results with the solid
base version. Good luck.

Bill

[curator]

Be a bit careful using TrailBoss in an original trapdoor rifle. The barrels on those are pretty soft and TrailBoss has a reputation for fast pressure rise, particularly if you seat bullets deeply. If you don't get the kind of accuracy you desire with the Lee 405/.457 plain base boolit it will be due to the as cast size of .4585. While the occasional trapdoor rifle shows up now and then with a groove diameter of .457 they are pretty rare. Most have groove diameters that run .461" to .465" and measuring a slug correctly requires a specialized "V-anvil micrometer." The 3-groove bore often confuses people who measure from the land to groove diameter. Air-cooled wheel weight alloy works fine if the boolits are large enough, and your lube is a good one. Compressing the powder as you seat the bullet might work but usually deforms the bullet and reduces accuracy. It is easy to make a wooden plug the same size as a bullet and use that to compress the powder charge in the seating die. The .457/405 grain Lee boolit is really designed for modern guns and smokeless powder so it has tiny lube grooves that won't hold enough lube to work very well with black powder. On the other hand, the Lee .459/405 HB boolit is designed expressly for the trapdoor rifle and black powder loads, casts large enough (usually .462+) and has large, deep lube grooves. This boolit shoots very well and is inexpensive enough to warrant getting one and trading the other for something that works. To save yourself a lot of problems consider getting J.S. Wolf's book: http://4570products.info/Loading-Car...ingfield-1.htm

[Toymaker]

Careful with TrailBoss. You may get better accuracy with 4759 or 5744 around 23 to 24 grains. You can use Large Pistol Primers too.

To compress black powder you can make a false bullet out of wood - I made one out of stainless steel. Just put a rod in a drill press and used a file to shape it, then polished it with emery cloth. You want to put your cardboard wad over the dropped powder, compress and THEN put in the grease wad. Store them nose down and keep them cool. You don't want the grease migrating into your powder. If you've a good bullet lube you really don't really need a grease wad. Wipe between shots or use a blow tube. Black powder is most efficient when compressed at about 65 lbs - figure that one out. Quarter inch compression is about right. Swiss BP doesn't like compression.