45ACP dies...

[BSkerj]

get the fcd. It solved alot of my problems.

Ratt

++++1

[jimmeyjack]

Have not used mine in 9mm, .38 super, .357, .45 acp or .44 since I learned how to properly crimp on this site. As a + my leading has all but gone away.

[nicholst55]

The FCD is a solution looking for a problem. Not needed for normal guns. I do not
shoot Glocks, so maybe that is one of their many "advantages" that I don't appreciate.

The primary problem with .45 ACP loading is failure to taper crimp, followed by too long
a boolit seating length with the boolit engaging the rifling before the cartidge is fully
seated. If you pull your barrel and set the boolit seating depth properly and then
adjust the TC to push about half the thickness of the brass case mouth into the
lead (by eyeball or maybe with a magnifier, this is not rocket science). Once they
will drop into the chamber full depth with no more than about 1 lb of finger pressure,
you are good to go.

The FCD can oversize the loaded round, making the cast boolit, which is normally a
bit larger than a jacketed boolit, smaller than it was originally. This can result in
leading and inaccuracy.

I say avoid the FCD. But then I have only loaded about 250,000+ rounds of
.45 ACP over the last 30 years.

Bill

I agree with Bill and others. Personally, I see no need for the FCD at all, especially for .45 ACP. I've probably only loaded ~100,000 rounds of .45 since 1976, but I have never used a FCD on a single round. My ammo functions flawlessly in every .45 pistol I've ever tried it in, including a few box-stock M1911A1s that belonged to Uncle.

My RCBS .45 ACP die set predates the Taper Crimp die; I had to buy that one separate and add it to the set. Same with the carbide sizer. I think the FCD is a band-aid for marginal reloading/die adjustment procedures, myself.

Just MHO.

[Bkid]

Just don't overcrimp!
Any crimp die can be set too agressively, and downsize your boolits. I did this with a RCBS die set for .45 Colt before I figured out I had it too tight. Since I was reloading dummy rounds to check thing out, I just had to take them apart and recycle the boolits, but I was surprised. I do use the Lee FCD for .45 AP, but this is for a 1911A1 that is up to spec, .45 barrel with .451 groove diameter, and the different lead pellets I've cast and size to .452 are still .452 after running thru the FCD.
Mark

I agree mine come out at .452 every time even with lead bullets.

I really like the FCD especially on my 40 Cal bullets.

[casterofboolits]

No FCD is required for auto pistols if you correctly set your taper crimp dies. I use .001 per side. Having competed in IPSC for 25 yeas with 45 ACP, 38 Super, and 9mm, I fired up to 6000 rounds a year.

Also seating depth of the boolit must be correct. IE, a FP requires a different SD than a RN or a SWC

Over crimping is a prime cause of barrel leading by an under size boolit skiding down the barrel being too small to engage the rifeling.

My 9mm Hi-Power would key hole at five feet with a .356 boolit and lead like a b---h! A .357 would clean the leading out and was extremly acurate.

[deerslayer]

After a pm conversation with a very experienced loader who I will not mention as i have not asked permission. This is the PM I recieved from him and this has helped me tremendously. Hope this helps you as much as it did me. This made the FCD an unneeded step for me.





The point of making your own ammunition is to make it
work for YOUR gun. So, the ammo has to fit the chamber
and the throat. There are several potential issues. First,
is the brass resized enough to fit the chamber. This is
almost never an issue, so we'll pass it. The next issue is
whether the boolit/bullet will hit the rifling before the
case is seated in the chamber so that the base is flush
with the hood (on a 1911) or whatever else of the
barrel matches the location of the breech face with
a fully closed slide. If the loaded cartridge will fully seat in
the chamber of the dismounted barrel (being used as
a gage) with no or at most a pound or two of force, then
it should close properly during the feeding cycle.

Start with a dummy round, seat the boolit out maybe
1/8" too long and try this dummy round. Look for marks
that indicate that the rifling (6 marks spaced around) or
the whole throat (a solid mark all the way around) are
hitting the full diam portion of the boolit/bullet. A jacketed
bullet will show little shiny marks. Adjust the seating
depth until the cartridge case is fully seated with no marks on the boolit. This is the correct MAX seating depth for your
particular pistol. If you only have one, you are done
with seating depth. If you need to satisfy many, you
need to check against each one to see which has the
shortest seating depth and then make your ammo to
that std, as long as the others are happy too - and they
will be as far as seating depth if you have checked, but
maybe too short may cause feeding malfunctions in one
or more. Probably not.

The final issue is to add a taper crimp, preferably as
a separate process. Set up enough TC so that the
cartridge seats easily, after you have had the boolit
seated deep enough, you may well still have a bit of
resistance in the last 1/4 to 1/3 of chambering due to
the case mouth hitting the walls of the chamber. I
set my TC die to push about half the brass case mouth
thickness into a lead boolit, visually. The loaded round
drops all the way to fully seated in a clean chamber in
most guns.

These two things will cover the overwhelming majority
of .45 ACP chambering (FTC) problems.

Ignore seating depths provided by manufacturers
EXCEPT as a guide to pressures. If a manufacture has
a LOA of 1.275" with his bullet and you find it necessary
to us a LOA of 1.255", then you will get higher pressures
with your seating depth, so back off and expect to not
get all the way to their max load, perhaps. Maybe if
they say 5.5 gr of some powder is max, you may stay
with 5.4 or 5.3 gr with a deeper seating depth. Reducing
the combustion chamber by seating the bullet deeper into the case INCREASES the pressure.

One other case where you may use seating depth from
a manufacturer is when you are attempting to duplicate
a factory round with the exact same bullet. Then seat
to the same measured LOA as the factory round - taking advanatage
of their experience with that round feeding in many
guns. Not guaranteed, but likely to work.

I don't think the FCD is at all necessary and it may
over size the finished round, causing problems. I
have never used one and we have had many people
with problems from pistol FCDs. Note that RIFLE
FCDs are totally different, unrelated in any way
to the pistol FCD. Lee rifle FCDs are a great product.

Good luck.

[Jon]

It looks like I may have to go back and check my dies. I had all kinds of feeding trouble before I started using the FCD. Thanks.

[Shooter6br]

The lee die FCD has a carbide sizer ring in in, I put the 45ACP loaded round thur it. It sizes the round to proper specs.

[mdi]

Untold billions of rounds of .45 ACP have been loaded without a factory crimp die. As long as your sizer and taper crimp dies are properly adjusted, I don't think you really need one.

However it is only $10 more....


Robert

Yep, I reloaded thousands before the FCD came out. They all worked; 9mm feeds, 380 goes in and goes bang, 45 ACP all chamber and fire. The drawback for me with the FCD is the post seat sizing. I need some larger bullets for overbore guns and the FCD swages them down too much for me.

[BSkerj]

Get the FCD. It solved alot of my problems.

Ratt

What River said

[bigboredad]

I just shot 200 rounds made with a lee fcd and my barrel is bright and shiny as ever. I've always seated and crimped in separate steps and I've always used a lee taper crimp die but I got curious about the fcd and for 14.95 I thought why not. could it be there is more than one way to do things naaah couldn't be everybody knows there is only one way to get a job done right

[1hole]

"thank you 1hole. I've tried it both ways and in my 1911 it didn't seem to make a bit of diff. So, until something goes wrong, I'll not risk squeezin my boolits down. Mike "

Mike, it seems most folks miss the point of Lee's "post crimping"carbide ring. Actually, all the handgun FCD does is make sure the ammo will fit and chamber anything it's fed into. It's made for the largest SAAMI tolerance cartridge diameter and, therefore, has zero effect on rounds that are smaller. Ergo, some people use them and assume they are doing nothing and, for them, that's true. Other folks seem to have larger, sloppy chambers and for them the size ring may squeeze down ammo that may or should be left alone. Only proving that nothing's a certainity for every situation, how can it be otherwise?

I loaded a half ton of .38, .357, .44 mag and .45 ACP without a FCD before it was invented, most of it chambered properly, some didn't. Now I use an FCD and it all works! Bottom line, if you need an FCD, get it; it works and works good. But, if you don't need it, don't bother! Thing is, if you need it, just once, and don't have it you may have chambering problems when you can least afford it. I find it to be cheap insurance for reliability of my wife's defense loads. And, yeah, for my own too!

[Moonie]

I prefer to shoot my pistol boolits unsized, in MY 1911 with MY boolits the loaded round wouldn't slip into the chamber. I ran them through the FCD adding NO additional crimp and they slip in perfectly to the proper depth.

I too have loaded thousands of 45 rounds in a previous reloading life with no issues but with this gun/boolit it works.

[StarMetal]

Well I'm along a little different line then most here. I too have loaded hundred of thousand of 45 acp like Charger. I roll crimp and have never had a problem. I'll also put my loads up against any similar load that is taper crimped. I don't see a need for the FCD especially with cast. The NRA Cast Bullet book did a pretty thorough test with a sophisticated rifle action with a 45 acp barrel to eliminate any human error in shooting and the results came out in favoring the roll crimp. That was good enough for me then and good enough now. They said don't roll crimp more then .020 inch.

[AviatorTroy]

I have a FCD and didn't really ever feel the need to use it as the roll crimp always worked fine. Actually, I tried it just for S and Gs and it wouldn't shoot at all. All rounds bullets showed evidence of keyholeing. Terrible accuracy. Now, every gun is different but I sure wont be using it for my Star PD again.