.45 ACP driving me nuts

[markinalpine]

Or is your crimp die reducing the boolit diameter as the Lee FCD will sometimes do as it irons the case out.

Will somebody explain to me how the Lee FCD will reduce the diameter of a cast booolit if it is used properly? The internal diameter of the carbide ring at the base of the Lee FCD for .45 ACP is 0.475"
Now the Lee FCD, or probably any other manufacturers crimp die can be improperly adjusted to overcrimp the cartridge, and possibly resize a boolit too small, but it isn't because the carbide resizing ring at the base of the die is too small.

Mark
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Watch out for the fireworks now.

[fredj338]

As I said- I'm using them as cast and the bullet measures 1-2/1000 over groove diameter, depending on what cavity in the mold it comes out of. Bore measures .453 across the grooves, bullets are dropping .454-5.

Did you actually slug the barrel or measure from the muzzle? That is pretty over size for most 45acp. The BE load is pretty slow for ACWW IMO, but every bbl is diff. Lapping might actually have made it worse if it made the bore larger. Certainly trying new bbl. should work, but sucks to buy a cheap 1911 & then make it more spendy w/ a $180 bbl.
I can only suggest working w/ fewer variables. Choose one powder, run it mild to wild, try one bullet alloy, say acww, then try actually sizing them to groove dia. or 0.001" over. If your groove dia. is actually 0.453", I think you are not fixing that w/ alloy, lube or sizing.

[870TC]

Maybe a odd way of thinking here but, how about shooting some of your ammo through someone else's gun, see if your loads lead in their gun.

[HeavyMetal]

Markinalpine:
You've hit the nail on the head with the "Used Properly" line!

It never has been and never will be the carbide ring ( unless made wrong at the factory) that resizes the boolit in the Lee FCD die( pending over sized boolit matched to thick brass) it is the taper crimp adjustment that is applied, in way to many case's, to "hard"!

Many that have been taught to load for a wheel gun, 38 special the most obvious suspect here, have been taught to "roll Crimp". This type crimp can easily be seen even with "experienced" eyes.

Not so with the Taper crimp! If you adjust a taper crimp die until you can actually see the crimp, no matter how slight, you've tweaked your boolit bearing area big time!

While that may be a contributing factor here I still think the barrel is a bit rough but with out pictures it's tough to make a diffinative call.

I like the idea of shooting these rounds in another pistol. If the load leads in 10 to 15 rounds in the OP's pistol it should surely do so in any other pistol if it were a die, or lube, or alloy related issue!

Perhaps a local member is handy to help out?

[223tenx]

Yikes!!! I just bought one of these and haven't had a chance to shoot it yet.

[chris in va]

FWIW, my .002 larger 9mm boolits shoot like **** out of my CZ. A nice gentleman gave me some 38 Special 125 grainers sized at .358 (.003 over bore slug) and they shoot MUCH better, with leading only present in the first 1/4" of the barrel.

Just a thought. Might need a bigger bullet/smaller barrel.

[gefiltephish]

My RIA does not like tumble lube in any form I've tried. Ditto for my XD9. Straight LLA, straight Rooster Jacket, 45/45 LLA/JPW/MS, 50/50 LLA/MS, single and double coats. All with zero success. I switched to a Lyman 450 and the problem went away completely for the RIA, while the XD was much improved. This past weekend I tried tumble lubed.358's in the XD because I don't have a .358 sizer die yet. Still leaded, but seemed to be more accurate.

Maybe I missed something, but the op said that there were rough spots at the muzzle end. Seems to me that if the leading is occurring throughout the rest of the barrel, that roughness is not causing it. If the barrel is genuinely bad, send the gun back to advanced tactical. Excellent customer service.

[jonk]

Thanks guys, I'm going to try 3 things:

1. See if the bullets are truly concentric
2. Section a loaded round and measure diameter of the bullet to see if the dies are squeezing it.
3. If all else fails, buy a new barrel.

I did put about 400 jacketed through this gun at its start. Another 1600? Sounds great but 1600 jacketed bullets cost a lot of money!

[243winxb]

Add to you list the most important item IMO. Size your bullets to .452"

[HORNET]

Mark,
If the inside diameter of the carbide ring is .475" and you're using a .452 diameter boolit, then the case wall thickness needs to be .0115" or LESS all along the contact length of the case wall and the boolit. Otherwise, the boolit will be squeezed down. This changes if the carbide ring diameter is smaller (manufacturing tolerances) or if the boolit has a larger actual diameter (sizing die wear, tolerances, different alloy, etc.).
Please note that .38 Special cases intended for factory loading with full wadcutters have very little case wall taper until well down into the case in order for the factories to avoid the same problem on their equipment. OTOH, I had some military .38 cases that wouldn't chamber in a Blackhawk if loaded with a .356" boolit due to the very heavy case walls.
Case wall thickness is rarely considered by handgunners.

[BABore]

Will somebody explain to me how the Lee FCD will reduce the diameter of a cast booolit if it is used properly? The internal diameter of the carbide ring at the base of the Lee FCD for .45 ACP is 0.475"
Now the Lee FCD, or probably any other manufacturers crimp die can be improperly adjusted to overcrimp the cartridge, and possibly resize a boolit too small, but it isn't because the carbide resizing ring at the base of the die is too small.

Mark
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Watch out for the fireworks now.

There's a couple ways the resizing ring at the die bottom will do it. One is they get it too small to start with. Lee has a real tight handle on their quality control at all times and never screws anything up right? The second is suppose you use Mil brass which is commonly thicker walled. And, suppose you found you need a boolit that is say 0.453. The die is designed for a certain expected casse wall and boolit size. You could very well exceed this and size your boolit down. this doesn't happen too often, but it's something you need to be aware of and look for, especially if a problem should arise.

[Cloudpeak]

Jonk, I'll bet that Arnel or Ivan at Armscor/RIA would fix you up. I'd give them a call. You could also look/post on this forum to see if anyone there can help you:http://forum.m1911.org/forumdisplay.php?f=17

Did you clean the copper "wash" out of your barrel? If not, you might try doing so with some copper solvent and then slicking the bore up with some J-B bore paste.

[Echo]

Well, Jonk, you are sure getting a lot of advice. Not enough, I guess, because I feel like I need to add to the fray.

Really, nothing new, just a +1 for investigating wall thickness/OD of the loaded round. If your boolits are sized .453, and the OD at then mouth is .475, then as has been pointed out before, the wall thickness @ the mouth is .011 over the diameter of the boolit. If the wall thickness before loading is .012, then you are sizing down the boolit .002, to .451, and that's leading territory.

If that is the case, you might try R-P cases - my experience is that they are thinner than others, and might work OK.

New thought. What cases are you using? GI? That could be the problem, with their thicker walls.

[HangFireW8]

Make a dummy. Chamber and eject it smartly.

How does the boolit look? OK or chewed up?

-HF

[markinalpine]

OK folks, let's calm down. Jonk said he isn't using a FCD.
I just object to the tendency of some people to automatically blame the equipment when their results aren't satisfactory.
And please don't try to justify your comments by saying IF this and IF that.
For standard reloads for a pretty much to specification weapon, with the reloading equipment properly adjusted, (and properly made! Yes, I've received equipment from several manufacturers that wasn't entirely up to par, and had to deal with their respective customer service depts to get things corrected).
Now IF you have a weapon that needs some out of specification component, or IF your brass is non-standard, then the standard reloading equipment might not be the best to use.
Mark

[Edubya]

Mark, how about starting your own thread. Hi-jacking is rude, crude and un-called for.
EW

[Char-Gar]

Well, I agree you have a crappy barrel. Some of these bottom line 1911s have them. I had a new Springer GI that leaded and shot 5", 25 yard groups. I changed out the barrel for a Colt bbl and bushing and the groups shrank to 2.5". Leading also went away.

.453 is over spec anyway. A good 1911 barrel should run .450-451 with .452 being a good sizing diameter.

[Russel Nash]

A dumb question for our OP....

Do you have a case gauge....and will your loaded rounds drop right into the case gauge and then fall right back out?

[markinalpine]

Mark, how about starting your own thread. Hi-jacking is rude, crude and un-called for.
EW

Someone else started the blame the equipment hi-jacking. HELLO
This is apparently an issue of boolit fit, and jonk may have a way out of spec barrel. The FCD issue doesn't really apply because jonk said he isn't using one. So why blame the equipment that isn't even being used?

Mark

ps, still waiting on a set of pin gages to measure cylinder diameters, but will also use them to measure the boolit crushing diameters of the few Lee FCD that I have been using to reload cast boolit cartridges successfully.

[Heavy lead]

Mark, how about starting your own thread. Hi-jacking is rude, crude and un-called for.
EW

Huh?
What would you call the above post?
A hijack of a hijack?
And a rude one at that.