Cast boolit in .45 ACP

[Wayne Smith]

MP molds is you neighbor in Slovenia. Miha makes beautiful molds and they should be easily available to you. MP is Miha Previc, by the way. I use one of his 200gr HP molds for my .45. I think you will need a solid, but Miha makes those too.

[mjwcaster]

Make sure you plunk test with dummy rounds before loading.
Not sure if they have changed but the older XD45 has a short throat/leade that some bullets will jam into.
I have to seat my Lee 452-230TC a little short because of this.

And as has been stated the XD does not feed SWC, at least not the older ones.
The XDM will.

Post pics of your pistol when you can, including the underside of the slide.
And the barrel where the guide rod sits.

That is one change I have seen, on the older XDs the guide rod sat on a flat and could move to the side on reassembly, locking the pistol up.
The newer ones I have seen, at least the Mod 2s have a dished cutout for the guide rod so it can’t get out of alignment.

Do you hunt hogs only in daylight or can you spotlight them?
Night sights on my XD were very nice when spotlighting hogs.


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[311-200]

mjvcaster, I'll post pics as soon as I have my gun in my hands! The procedures here in BG is so slow and if you want something you must wait! I bought the pistol on 30.08 and I gave it for registration in the police office on the 02.09! Yesterday I have visited the police office for second time and the registration was still not ready! The policeman who must do this was resting till Wednesday! I have ordered from Germany molds, I have cast some boolits, I have powder coated them, I have load them ... but still I have not my pistol yet!

[Good Cheer]

Everyone has different ways of accomplishing a task so this is just my version...
For 45ACP the best combination seems to be soft alloy, a rounded nose contour for reliable feeding, a large hollow point to assure expansion and heavy weight to assure penetration even when the nose turns inside out.

But with or without expansion, if you want penetration for hunting then weight is still your friend.

[OS OK]

I would naturally go with a design that will feed in 99.9% of all 45's made and that would be a 230 Gr. RN. Will feed, function, and stop wild boars.

Ditto...

[oldsalt444]

Wild boars are tough animals. Any hard cast bullet with a flat point (TC, SWC, RNFP) at the higher velocities would take a boar cleanly. All of the powders you mention are quite suitable for the task. I would recommend velocities of 850-900 fps (260-275 m/s).

[megasupermagnum]

I don't see where you mention what you hunt. For small game a round nose works just fine. Once you get into medium game, say 150+ pounds, then absolutely not. A round nose bullet is not a good choice for deer/pig size animals. That Lee truncated cone mold you bought should be a good one. Feeding is the #1 priority, but a good handgun will feed flat nose bullets within reason. A TC nose with a moderate size flat is a great feeding combo. That slight radius of the meplat helps tremendously too.

Also I'm of the extremely unpopular opinion that most 230gr round nose bullets are not great shooters. I've never found one that wowed me in the accuracy department.

[mjwcaster]

And for future reference you do not need the tumble lube version to tumble lube.
The conventional groves versions tumble lube just fine.
I have used 45/45/10(recluse lube) for years on conventional groved cast bullets.

I haven’t heard anything bad about the mold you ordered but some of the TL Lee designs have a reputation as problem children.




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[311-200]

Finally I have my gun!
Here are the pics. This afternoon I'll try it on the range.I have round S&B-FMJ,Hornady XTP and cast Lee 452-230TC - lubed and powder coated loaded with 4.9gr.N320. I'll post pics after that.

[Conditor22]

I'd say slug the bore but most 45 ACP's I've seen work well with .452 (but what do I know )

definitely do a barrel drop test with each boolit type. I like to test with an empty primer-less case then when I get the fit I want I mark the cartridge and save it for future reference.

Lee 452-200-RF need to seat deep PC'd over 5 grn BE

LYMAN 452460 PC'd over 5-5.5 (depending on the gun) grn BE fits better in guns with tighter throats

Both are accurate

[Rick B]

The cast load of the Lee 230 TC with N320 should function and shoot well.
Rick

[mjwcaster]

Looks like our XD.
The XDM has a hump on the bottom on the slide that presses the top round in the magazine down while reciprocating.
This allows feeding of wadcutters.

My XD45 is over 10 years old and has cracked a guide rod (just developed a crack in the round portion, not broken).

Probably shot between 15-30,000 rounds.

Other than the tight throat / lack of leade necessitating short seating of some rounds it has functioned great.

Take the guide rod out and look at where it sits on the barrel.
Is it flat or dished?

The originals were flat, allowing the guide rod to shift on reassembly.
Locking the gun up, with the guide rod sticking out the front of the slide.

To fix, take a box end wrench, hook onto the exposed guide rod, hit the wrench with a hammer, compressing the recoil spring and allowing the guide rod to seat in the proper position.

Newer guns seem to have added the dished cutout, better holding the guide rod in place.


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[311-200]

I just shot my first shot with my gun! 5 shot with Lee 230TC, lubed with averige speed 710 fps under 4,9 gr.N320 and the same cast, but PC with 760 fps under 4,9 gr. N320. I wonder the big diference of the speed between lubed and PC! Tomorrow I'll continue the test. In fact this was my second ever shot with pistol.

[Old School Big Bore]

I just spotted this thread. I was going to recommend the TiteGroup you already have on hand and a truncated cone between 200-240 grains from M-P.
I have a Springfield XD45 but since I don't shoot it in matches I haven't shot any handloads through it yet. All my .45 ACP loading has been for a match-prepped 1911 and a S&W .45 revolver.
Welcome to the board. Good luck with the .45. It should do well on boars.

[311-200]

I tryed N 320 -4.9gr., - 760 fps.
5.0 gr.,-790fps.
5.1gr.,-810 fps.
5.2gr.,-836fps.
5.3gr.,
and 5.4gr.870 fps.
But without any accuracy. Finally I killed the chrony with the last shot!
Than I decided to slug the barrel - 11.45 mm - 0.4507". Boolits drops 11.5mm -0.4527.
Everything looks normal, but I do not know how to receive good accuracy.

[ShooterAZ]

Ouch....Sorry about the chrono! What I would do next would be to try a different powder. Since you can get Titegroup, that would have been my first pick anyway. The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook #4 lists 4.2 to 4.7 grains with that exact boolit. Also, take care you are not damaging or swaging down the boolit during the seating process.

[Wag]

What lead hardness are you using? If it's too hard, it won't obturate properly and accuracy will suffer.

--Wag--

[311-200]

@Wag - I use soft lead powder coated.
But even PC - the measure is .4527. I read that the PC put additional .001-.002.It seems to me that the boolit does not fit good to the barrel ! QuickLoad shows 836 fps for 4.9 N320 - I have 760 fps! 871fps-5.2 N320 -I made 836 fps.

[Wag]

It seems your boolits are dropping at a good size. I use .451 to .452 and they work fine but I don't PC, either.

--Wag--

[Wag]

Oh, and if you try to shoot a batch not PC'd, use a hardness that approximates the level of Lyman #2. As always, consistency is key.

--Wag--