Loading 45 colt long enough to jam against the lands?

[Tripplebeards]

I loaded up a bunch at 1.662” last year with 5.2 grains of trail boss and cci LMP primers after reading here loading long enough to just behind to just touching the forcing cones aids in accuracy. I was impressed as my load shot extremely tight groups in my new vaquero. I made a boo boo and forgot to size 50 of them and loaded. I ended up pulling them all because of course they wouldn’t fully seat in my chamber. When I pulled these boolits I ran them through my .451 sizer die. I reloaded them all yesterday after sitting for a year. For some reason I had to seat them deeper to 1.650” this time to get the ammo to seat flush in my cylinder. I tested every one. I removed my cylinder and dropped each one in to make sure they all seated flush. Only two sat proud. If I pushed with my thumb pretty hard to get them to seat flush. I removed both rounds by pushing the boolit back out with a plastic primer tray. I repeated to see if the boolit pushed on a little or swaged from the seat of force. Nope, still tight on the two rounds I had trouble with. I did notice a dirty black powder ring up on boolit where it jammed into the forcing cone. So I need to clean my forcing cones. Can I shoot these two rounds safely with them jammed onto the forcing cones like this? I will be loading another 50 today but will be freshly sizing the boolits to .451” first. I will also clean my cylinders forcing cones before hand as well. I’m guessing I have some leading or build causing to load short? I shot some factory loaded HSM loads through it that might have caused sone leading or build up? I cleaned the pistol after the shooting session but never looked at the forcing cones with a flashlight to see if the factory cast loads caused any leading. My PC loads do not. I’m guessing I have some fouling build up on my cylinder forcing cones causing to issue of having to load short this time.

[35remington]

I’m wondering how it is possible to jam a bullet against the lands or forcing cone when you are shooting a revolver

?

Both of those are in the barrel. I presume you mean sizing for a slip fit in the cylinder throats? The bullet must be smaller than that to enter it. If the bullet is only a little larger than the cylinder throats and the rounds freely enter the chamber and seat bullet without hard interference they are safe to fire.

[contender1]

You are confusing the Forcing cone with the chamber throats.

The forcing cone is in the barrel,, and the lands are in the barrel. You can't touch either one with a revolving cylinder. My first thought when I was reading this was you had to be loading a single-shot gun.

The cylinder throats do have a small area that should be properly sized for the gun & bore diameter. Polished & clean works very well when done right. And the .45 Colt has a history of having sizes all over the map.

Judging by your load data,, you should be just fine shooting the loads mentioned.
Clean the chambers,, it will help.
Rough, sticky chambers & throats can be easily fixed by a good proper throating & such. Most of my .45 Colts have already been cut & polished to .4525. DougGuy or 2dogs (both members here,) can help with this,, AND do so very reasonably in price.

[Tripplebeards]

Yep...jammed against my chamber throats. My chamber throats are all .451” and my barrel slugs at .4505”. It’s extremely accurate with this load and shoots great. I would assume my chamber throats have build up. I’ll get them cleaned before I load up the other 50 today and re test the two loads I had issues with a see if they re chamber flush. I just figured instead of pulling them I’d rather shoot the two rounds. Out of the 53 rounds I loaded only 2 didn’t drop in flush. I’m guessing these might not have been sized properly to .451” like the others. I had three different bags of cast boolits I pulled laying around that I loaded up I used for these. It looked like they all had been sized so I loaded them up instead of putting back in my melting pot. Today I will be using unsized boolits that I will sizing to .451” before loading.

[rintinglen]

What is the boolit weight? I seriously doubt that your Vaquero is at risk at all. That's like a 13000 psi load, if those are 250-ish grain boolits, so even a jump of 20% would not be hazardous, save to the size of your groups. And that seems very unlikely, given the powder coating.

Just too clarify, the forcing cone is the funnel at the anterior end of the barrel. I think you are planning on cleaning the chamber throats in the cylinder. What I suspect is that those two cases may be slightly longer than the others and the crimp die bulged them out slightly. Remove the decapping pin from your sizing die and run those two cases into the die just far enough to give the last 1/4" a squeeze. I will hazard a guess they will drop right in then.
My slow typing brings me late to the fair again.

[Tripplebeards]

They are a 255 grain lee. It’s a minimum load of trail boss. Its a pretty wimpy load and recoils like a stout 22 WMR on steroids. I’m guessing close to a 38 special recoil but I’ve never shot one for comparison. A 357 kicks a lot more than this load. For the first time in my life I never trimmed all my pistol cases to the same minimum length before reloading. They all were under max SAMMI length when I checked them.

[Good Cheer]

Nice nose on the boolit. It'll center itself up on the lands before the full diameter body gets to the barrel. Over the years I came to believe that's a benefit to be exploited in a carbon steel Ruger with relatively wide lands. And that if the boolit is designed specifically to accomplish that pre-alignment so much the better.

[Tripplebeards]

What is the boolit weight? I seriously doubt that your Vaquero is at risk at all. That's like a 13000 psi load, if those are 250-ish grain boolits, so even a jump of 20% would not be hazardous, save to the size of your groups. And that seems very unlikely, given the powder coating.

Just too clarify, the forcing cone is the funnel at the anterior end of the barrel. I think you are planning on cleaning the chamber throats in the cylinder. What I suspect is that those two cases may be slightly longer than the others and the crimp die bulged them out slightly. Remove the decapping pin from your sizing die and run those two cases into the die just far enough to give the last 1/4" a squeeze. I will hazard a guess they will drop right in then.
My slow typing brings me late to the fair again.

Thanks for the tip. I experimented and tried a 1/4 down with my Lee sizer die. It took the bulge out but still sat proud. I ran it all the way and still sat proud. I then seated both rounds deeper till they dropped right in and sat flush. I did shave a little lead ring off when seating deeper because I crimped it prior. I re crimped them once i had the correct depth. I would assume I never sized these boolits or sized them to .452" and not .451". I cleaned all cylinders with chore boy and then polished.Didnt have any lead build up that I could see just powder residue build up on the chamber throats. My ammo drops in nice and loose now alot better than before.

I figured I'd plink with the 2 rounds as it shouldn't hurt anything.

Here is photo of two different rounds sitting in my cylinder. You can see how far I had to seat the round in vs a .451” freshly sized boolit I loaded at 1.650”. I colored the two round with a black marker to identify so the next time I hit the range I’ll use them for plinking and not target shooting.




They are the 2 in top right all by themselves. I tell ya, that traffic purple looks more like pink lipstick! I made the mistake of not sizing these boolits after I PC’d them thinking I might size a few at .452” for my 450BM. This is the 2nd run in ive had because I didn’t size them. From now on every boolit gets sized right after PCing to save me a future headache. I’m sure I just didn’t size those two or sized at .452” with my other lee sizer by accident.

[Tripplebeards]

I shot the two loads that were loaded short. They shot a few inches higher than the longer ammo at 25 yards
I did run my 1.650" 5.2 grains of Trail boss ammo across my chronograph today. I kept getting an error reading for some reason. I backed up about 20' and ended up with two readings of 567 and 588 fps. I also set up 4 shotgun shells at 25 yards and hit 4 for 4. It recoils like a 22WMR on steroids and is a tac driver!

[DougGuy]

You will gain even more accuracy if you do not "jam" the boolits against the chamfer, but hone the throats to a diameter sufficiently greater than the groove diameter, THEN size the boolits and load them long so that they seat fully inside the throat.

Say you have a .4505" bore, which in actuality is likely a .451" bore since Ruger has been right at .451" groove diameter for decades now, and you size your boolit .001" over groove diameter, and you size the throats so the boolits are a light drag fit in the throats. Now, the throats hold the boolit centered in the chamber instead of letting lt lay against the side, which is what happens when you load shorter, and the boolit has to negotiate the chamfer and find the throat as it travels.

This brings us to the pretty much "industry standard" .452" size for 45 caliber, and the resulting .4525" throat diameter which is perfect for that boolit.

Also, regardless of what you size to when you load, if it won't fit through or into the throats, it will exit the front of the cylinder at throat diameter. You cannot fire a .452" though a .451" throat and expect it to be .452" when it exits the front of the cylinder, it doesn't work like that.

[Tripplebeards]

I have all the ammo so they are loaded long so they are seated in the throats. Just before touching them. You helped with the process a few years back. I could hit a fly at 25 yards one handed with my 5.2 grains of TB load. If I up the carge any my POA starts to climb.