A gifted mould perfect for a 45.

[Harter66]

Well not quite perfect and no idea what kind of outcome to expect. I don't have huge expectations so I won't be too disappointed if it doesn't work.
I had a 357rifle that shot everything that shot in the companion pistols better faster and consistently even way past any resonable 357 ranges. I expected similar from the new last year 45. No such luck and more than that my preferred hunting bullet did really odd things at full bore.

Last winter I was gifted a Lyman 429424, a Keith 44 SWC at 257gr . This 1 was just big enough to be hit and miss so the former owner and machinist had relieved it in several cuts due to technical issues. The finished mould is now .448 dia . 448+.007 is 455 and that should be about right for the lever gun . The down side is of course that the pistols won't share with the rifle both ways , that isn't a big deal as the rifle chamber is way bigger than the pistols.

I guess my hope is that the patched boolit will be faster and more accurate at longer range than the Lee 452-252 SWC and the 452-255 RNFP. The chamber will allow for an extended seating of full dia bullets of 453 and excepts 455+ cast as fired . The long nose may be a feeding issue but the 92' Rosschester is scaled to accommodate 454 Casull so as long as the geometry in the action will work.
I guess the tube magazine will need some crimp and a taper crimp is sort of preferred if you have to have 1 . H110 may pay off for this particular application . So what do I need is crimp advice and possibly a powder suggestion ,like most I have stupid slow rifle powder, 4350 is the fast 1,and Unique, H110 and a little 10x . The rifle is the 16" 92' with I think 1-16 twist. The fastest standard Colts loads shoot well enough but when they get into +P they get wild with the Lee SWC ,I haven't run the 255s up into the +P .

[Harter66]

A quick trip to the scale gives me 257gr and side by side looks like the crimp groove is in the same place +-.

The picture shows the 426424 ,452-255 and 45-200. It sure looks swoopy side by side.


Well there is a feed issue issue but I'm not convinced that it is the long nose alone. If it is visible there is a line that matches the 252s nose dia. Seating deeper doesn't seem to change the feed problem which seems to be the rim hanging up inside . More tinkering.


A dummy round !!

[Harter66]

Well after a fair amount of mucking about and some polishing of the vertical guide grooves and a change from Rem brass to Winchester the feeding seems to be improved . With that resolved I moved onto loading . 2 wraps of green bar gave me .456 after a trip through a 454 sizer to iron down the patch . The fit was snug but allowed thumb seating . Having only a 429 front band allowed a heavy roll crimp which actually hit the crimp groove and that gave me a radiused crimpjust under the front band. I loaded 5 each with Speer recommend H110 data , 18.5 ,19,19.3 gr . There was a lot of powder debris with all of the loads ,19gr gave the best group of 5 at 50 yd. I did have mostly good patch desentigration although there were a couple of ribbons of patch that I think were ion the front band . I don't know what the velocity is was but it appeared to be faster than the naked Unique loads . The primers were unremarkable although I don't have a lot of load work up experience with mag primers and the Blackhawk didn't play nice with the H110.

Does anyone have enough time in with H110 to have an educated guess as to where in the pressure curve it cleans up ?

[Harter66]

Well, that didn't work out quite like I thought it would.
I'm on my 2nd Chrony because .......gas check. It reads what the 1st did load for load.

So what bugs me is that it seems like middle Ruger load should go faster than a top Colts load. I know we are out here mucking about in no man's land and I should be happy with a 16" carbine in Colts turning in 1350s and field groups under 3" at 50 yd. Past experience tells me that when the blood is pumping that closes some just because I don't have time for the rock in my knee to bother me.
I guess this is just 1 of those that isn't going to gain anything for the extra effort.

Note to those that have planes to try it . The 429424 is a huge accuracy improvement over the 452 252 Lee . I did gain 100 fps by stepping up from 9.5 Unique under the 262 gr 452-252 SWC to the paper patched 429424 with 19.0 H110 and a mag primer but I would expect that or nearly that from just the change to paper.
As for clean ,may as well stick with Unique here also unless I want to really step up to maximum limits. The Speer 12th edition shows 20.0 as a max under a 260 gr Mag JHP for a max pressure of 25k cup . It shows 9.5-10.5 for Unique. I really don't think this is hitting the numbers because I'm smoking 1x cases I took out of the sealed Winchester bag. I guess I will try Unique under the patched boolits To see if there is any gain I'd had such high hopes for the 1500s.

[bearcove]

"Does anyone have enough time in with H110 to have an educated guess as to where in the pressure curve it cleans up ?"
H110/296 runs nice right at max loads, not less

[Harter66]

I may try this again with another powder at a later time . I think I could have run the H110 up higher with the patch but without having the time in with known data and what it does when it reaches certain levels that would be unwise.