Re: Loading for 1911, problem

[ole_270]

I'm planning to get it to DougGuy this week. Mine looks similar to the Springfield in DougGuys post but with a bit shallower ramp angle. It's hard to see with my eyes,but the ramp may be rough as well.
Does the increased freebore cause any problem with the swc not approaching the lands in the chamber?

[tazman]

Having a boolit not touching the lands in a semi auto pistol is a necessity. If it hits the lands the action normally won't close. It will not effect your accuracy for most pistol shooting done with a 45acp.

[reddog81]

Sending the barrel to get throated correctly is a good idea but I doubt it will help with leading. If the powder coat was done correctly you shouldn't get leading in .45 ACP. If you can pull some bullets I'd bet the powder coat is scraping off or not cured correctly. I under-cooked a batch of 9mm bullets and it was a big problem, but done correctly should be a able to withstand .357 velocities and pressure.

The small free bore jump shouldn't be a problem at all. Think of a 45 ACP revolver that has to slide through the large N frame cylinder, through the barrel cylinder gap, and into the forcing cone before entering the rifling and you can get accuracy just as good as a 1911.

[jsizemore]

The driving bands on a #68 swc are longer then the throat cut by Dougguy. So the boolit hasn't entirely cleared the case before fully engaging the lands at the front driving band. The increased friction wants to slow down the front of the boolit so the boolit base gets to bump up/obturate as it crosses from the case to leade. I had Dougguy recut my chambers from .888" ,minimum case length, to .900" which is max case length +.002". The end result is an easier recoiling gun with clean powder burn and no leading. I'm shooting a very round Kart barrel that's .450" in the groove and size my boolits to .4517" and pulled boolits are .4513". My alloy runs in the 8-9BHN.

[gwpercle]

The increased free bore , or throat , actually solves a lot of problems. Loading for two newer 9 mm's that had no throats , gave all kinds of feeding problems unless the boolits were seated just right. An old WWII military P-38 that had a generous throat would feed anything , even 158 grain SWC revolver boolits . Also the free bore will lessen pressure because the boolit isn't jammed into the rifling when the powder ignites.
To me , a decent throat with cast boolits is much better than the new throat-less ones .
Sized to .357 they chamber with no problem at all.
Gary

[DougGuy]

The driving bands on a #68 swc are longer then the throat cut by Dougguy.

I'm not real sure on that one. The throat on the right in the photo was done with a Manson reamer, it has I think a 3 degree leade in maybe? My PT&G reamer has either 1 degree or 1 1/2 degree leade in, and the whole throat is stretched out a little more. If the barrel is tight, it comes out even longer.

Also I have the freebore on a taper as well so it's not parallel. It mimics the SAAMI throat for a 9mm auto. If you look at a SAAMI drawing of the 9mm throat, it shows the freebore on a taper. I do my 45 ACP throats the same way so length of freebore is pretty close to the driving bands on a 68.

The freebore is tighter than the walls of the expanded case, so if you imagine the case walls expanding until they are tight against the chamber walls upon firing, the I.D. of the case is greater than the I.D. of the freebore I put in the throat so the boolit, is guided to the leade in being held quite concentric in the bore, and fairly square to the centerline of the bore as well.

Factory throats don't have this gentle transition from case mouth to leade in, and when the boolits are jammed into the rifling while most of the driving band is still inside the case, once the case walls are expanded, the boolit can tilt, it can be eccentric when it swages into the lands, there are any number of things that the boolit can be subjected to and once the soft lead alloy takes to the rifling a tad off kilter, it's going to remain that way. The longer, smoother, tapered freebore takes care of aligning the boolit to the bore before it engages the leade in and IMO it's a much better and much more functional throat.

There was a comment earlier about the throat not helping with the leading, in fact it helps tremendously with cutting down on leading because powder gas is more contained in the tapered freebore than it is in the expanded case so you have little or no gas cutting now.

[ole_270]

Just got home and had to try something. Drove a PC'd bullet through the barrel and there was no cutting of the PC. The bullet was in fine shape. I mic'd it and it came out .451 where the pure lead round ball was .450. I suppose that's to be expected considering softer slug would deform easier than the alloyed one.
One other thing. I've been mixing my alloy lately by the XRF tests I had a local scrap yard run for me and using the calculator to get to the 10-12 Bhn area. I had some ingots I got from a local guy who said he got them from a printing company selling out a few years ago. The scrap yard XRF showed 2.32SN, 3.5SB so I just figured it was pretty well depleted. I added some to the mix I had been using trying to get slightly more SB than SN and both just over 2%. Cast a few test bullets before leaving Friday and tested them with the Cabine Tree tester tonight. Got 22 Bhn. Starting to think they need to re-calibrate their machine. I'll start mixing again tomorrow, I've got some SOWW that should work at about 3/1

[Whitespider]

Wow‼ At 22 BHN I'm thinkin' you could use SOWW at 4/1 without a problem.
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[jsizemore]

I'm not real sure on that one.

My chamber headspace is cut to .900", ,002 over max case length. When I drive a sized and lubed boolit in to .800" from rear of hood to base of boolit, the front driving band shows engagement with the start of the lands. At .810" the lube groove side of the rear driving band starts to show signs of engaging the origin of the lands. At .875" , .013" shy of minimum case length, there is a noticed change of force needed to continue driving the boolit into the chamber. This could be from me hammering the boolit into the chamber and the base obturating. When I drive the base of the boolit flush or just beyond the start of the leade or lip that the case headspaces on, the base dimension is .4517", my sized dimension. When I drop a boolit in the chamber, the measurement to the boolit base is .630". The driving band length from front of front driving band to base of boolit .300" on my San Diego #68. I load so that the front driving band shoulder sticks out the case to help it feed correctly in my pistol. That measurement is .9022-.9023 from boolit shoulder to case base. It appears from the other measurements that I have about .007-8" boolit jump before engaging the throat so I pass the plunk test. Not all chambers and throats are cut like mine but that's what I wanted and Doug did what I wanted. The gun shoots great with no leading.

[ole_270]

Back after more trials. I mixed 4-1 SOWW with the 22 Bhn lead I'd been using and it's running 10 Bhn or so after 2 days.
Did a smash test on a couple bullets and had no flaking or peeling. Oven thermometer shows about 425 when empty, I haven't checked with the thermometer in the middle of a tray of bullets.
I pulled a couple bullets to see if the powder coat was being scraped off since I was seating and taper crimping in the same op. The front band was completely scraped off.
I've flared the case mouths with a NOE expander plug size .455X.451
Loaded a few with the die backed off to only seat the bullet , then backed the seating stem off and taper crimped to .469. Pulled a couple of those and had about half as much bare lead showing as the all in one seating/crimping op., but still quite a bit. Front band only, the base band is fine. Evidently the crimped case mouth is pulling through the coating when the bullet is pulled, doubt it's anything different in the pistol.
This is with Randy's Dark Silver powder and I know others have been having good luck with it. The original loads were with PBTP durable gloss black powder.
I've tried BLL and a modified Emmerts lube instead of the PC, but it leads worse with those. I'm planning on having Doug work on the throat, but not sure even that will work with damage on the front band.
Any ideas?

[DougGuy]

Throating will make it smoother on any kind of boolit PC or plain either one will work better in the longer smoother throat. Mine don't lead and I never clean them. Nothing there to clean out. Just sayin'

[Whitespider]

Try shooting the softer boolits.
Just because pulling a boolit from the loaded round is scrapping off some coating on the front band does not mean the same will happen when the round is fired (it may, or may not, and may not matter anyway).

Don't get me wrong... I ain't sayin' you shouldn't have the throat work done regardless of what happens shooting the softer boolit. What I'm sayin' is, test to see if the softer boolit (crimped in a separate step) reduces or eliminated the leading problem before adding another variable by having the barrel work done. Even if the leading is eliminated with the softer alloy, there are still benefits to having the throat work done.
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[ole_270]

Okay, just stepped out on the porch and ripped off 6 shots with the separate seating and crimping steps, and the softer alloy. The barrel is fairly clean, some grey in the corners of the grooves, but then I'm using a dark silver PC. Not near what it was before. My only other PC is the gloss black. I'll keep shooting and see how it goes. In over 30 years of casting for rifles I've never had this kind of trouble, I always assumed the lower pressure and velocity of the 45 auto would be simple in comparison.
The boys get their turn with it this weekend and then it's off to Doug for throating. Got some of those 200RF cast of the softer alloy waiting for it's turn.
Thanks for the help guys, I'm not normally this much of a pain.

[Whitespider]

I will say that 10 BHN is still plenty hard for the .45 ACP... especially since it's only been 2 days, will likely get even a bit harder over the next 10-15 days or so.
I don't own a hardness tester, I can only guess at the hardness of the alloy I use... and I "guess" a 1:1 ratio of COWW:SOWW would be around 8 BHN at the hardest, and very likely something less than that. Think of the billions of nearly pure lead (5 BHN??) WCs and HBWCs fired in .38 Specials at comparable pressures/velocities using nothing more than a coating of what amounts to candle wax for lube?? Heck, I've run those Hornady and Speer soft swedged bullets over 1000 FPS without problems in a couple revolvers. One of my revolvers, a convertible Blackhawk .38-40/10mm I ran Hornady soft lead SWCs over 1100 FPS with no leading.

By-the-way, if anyone has tested a 1:1 COWW:SOWW alloy I'd be curious to know your results.
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[DougGuy]

By-the-way, if anyone has tested a 1:1 COWW:SOWW alloy I'd be curious to know your results.
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That's so close to 50/50 it ain't funny, and should be excellent air dropped for 1911. BHN 12-14 maybe?

I use the pencil test, there is a lengthy sticky about this, good stuffs..

[ole_270]

calculator shows 10.1, out of COWW or I could test it.

[Whitespider]

That's so close to 50/50 it ain't funny, and should be excellent air dropped for 1911. BHN 12-14 maybe?

Hmmmm.... that can't be correct, straight COWW (air cooled) is only 12 BHN at best (at least that's my understanding).
I've never seen a need for testing hardness; normally, in pistols and revolvers, if it leads I go softer... in rifles I go harder. However, I just melted down a bunch of range pick-ups (from my range) and I have no idea what it is as far as hardness... everything from shotgun slugs to commercial hard-cast and anything in between including jacketed stuff. It's the first time I've really found a use for the hardness tester I don't have.
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[DougGuy]

I was under the impression that coww was 15 or so? Maybe I was thinking of #2.

[Whitespider]

Thanks for the help guys, I'm not normally this much of a pain.

I missed this statement the first time through...
You ain't a pain... the only dumb question is the question not asked.
However, that don't mean the answer(s) you receive are automatically correct for your application... and yes, that includes my answers.
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[Whitespider]

I was under the impression that coww was 15 or so? Maybe I was thinking of #2.

Yes... I believe Lyman #2 runs about 15 BHN (again, my understanding).
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