Resizing die for 45 acp: why have i been using it?

[Char-Gar]

An unfired round of 45 ACP (WCC 71) measures .4695 at the point just above the web. After firing it measures .477. After a trip through my RCBS sizer, it measures .469.

So, we have the brass expanding .008 at it's largest point. Will that make a difference in how the round feeds and functions? Maybe so in some guns and maybe not in others, but the object is to have handloads with the same specs and performance as factory ammo. You don't get reports of good 1911 pistols choking on good factory ammo.

I still enjoy reloading ammo with the Lyman 310 tool, which only neck sizes cases, even handgun cases. With this set up, even the 38 Special cases must be used in the same revolver in which it was fired. Go to another handgun and it may or may not chamber. As a result I FL size all 38 Special brass as you don't know where it might end up. The same is true for the 45 ACP case.

[DrCaveman]

It's raining here, light but non-stop so Im not gonna go get all my stuff soaking wet. Hey, I get to play with this issue some more!

I will have to humbly say that my efforts prior to now seemed misguided. You were right, I was wrong. I was able to achieve my goal (at least as far as I can test it without firing) of getting a .4525" boolit into chamber without being sized down.

I basically started from scratch with my die settings, THIS TIME disregarding the instructions from lee and the general guidelines from Lyman. I also have hornady and nosler manuals but they seem more focused on rifle rounds.

Gradually lowered the sizing die as a pushed a case in, back it out and observed. I could easily see the reduced size portion working its way down the case, until the die was about 0.01" from shell holder, at which point the case looked uniform. +1 for mfgr instructions.

I honed out my .452 sizing die. It now produces .4528" boolits. Hope I didn't go too far. But at least I now have the potential to be shooting boolits 0.0013" over groove. Since I beagled my mold, it is dropping around .454" and the sized boolits are more round than any I have measured since I got my micrometer. So far so good.

Took apart the expander/powder through die and really saw what was happening in there. Cleaned things real well, applied some light lube to rubbing surfaces, and did about the same as the sizing die as I lowered, tested, lowered, tested. Boolit was able to seat with much less flare than I expected, given that these boolits are .001 larger than previously. The setting I found was a bit higher than those found by following mfgr instructions, meaning less flare. The bevel base of my boolit probably helped. Still doing good I think.

Took seating die apart, cleaned everything up, looked inside to find the roll crimp ring, realized that I may have been accidentally roll crimping this whole time. In order to stay well clear of the roll crimp ring, the bottom of die is a solid 5/8" from the shell holder, maybe a little more because it is up inside the bushing and hard to see. Setting the actual seating plug was same as usual. -1 for mfgr instructions here. The setting I found was a good 4-6 turns above their recommended spot.

Factory crimp die. This one was a bit harder to judge. I went ahead and lightly lapped (mostly polished, I think) the carbide sizing ring and also the crimping ring. I left the crimp ring out, and screwed the die down onto the sample case (with boolit now seated) until it began to 'work' the case. Rather than measuring after each adjustment, I just kept my barrel next to me and tried the plunk test over and over. With each lowering of the die, the boolit would drop further into the case. By the time the die was touching the shell holder, my boolit was dropping into the barrel but still sitting about 1/16" proud of the barrel hood.

Put the crimp ring back in, tried a variety of settings, slowly increasing. Ended up that after turning the plug about 3/5 turn beyond light contact with case mouth, I got a nice smooth plunk that fell back out. Mouth OD is close to .472". This seems big, but it is plunking...

Good news here is that my OAL is the longest that I have gotten this boolit to work at... 1.240". I know that most h&g 68 style boolits can go that long but I was stuck between 1.225-1.23" for consistent chambering until now.

So to finish up, I pulled this test boolit and guess the diameter? .4528" on the nose. No size reduction through the process. Hell yeah.

This was probably all covered in stickies but it is rewarding to work through it. Looking back, cleaning my dies was probably a big part, and really wrapping my head around what each one was doing.

Thanks for all the help, I'll post some group pics if things turn out as great as I hope.

[DrCaveman]

Here's another odd one about boolit setback.

I grabbed the only factory 45 ammo I have, Winchester 185 silver tip, and tried the most stressful feed test I came up with- loading a single round into a mag with slide locked back, and dropping the slide using slide release. The boolit set back an average of 0.01" each time, as it went from 1.213" down to 1.149".

That's not very encouraging.

Pulled the round of course, to make damn sure it didn't get shot, and out fell 4.5 gr of a small shiny flake powder. It looks the closest to Titegroup of any elders I have on hand, but 4.5 is not supposed to be getting 980 fps which is what I clocked the win ST at.

Any ideas of the powder? It is a nice shooting load, and accurate as my hand loads.

[Char-Gar]

Shoving autopistol bullets back in the case while loading is a very common experience. For this reason, folks don't keep placing the same round on the top of the magazine and doing as you do, over and over. You have just discovered what most professionals have known for years. Rounds ejected from chambers are placed in a box for practice, they are not subjected to those stresses time and time again. To do so is asking for problems down the line.

I find myself running out of patience with this thread, so I will take my leave now.

[DrCaveman]

I am not a professional shooter, caster, loader, machinist, nor to I claim to be. Why my knowledge level being less than that of a professional causes one's patience to be tested on an open-information forum such as this one is beyond me.

Char gar I appreciate the insights you have given and the general advice. However your situation and mine are not the same, so if you are annoyed then I bid you farewell with respect.

[prs]

One item Dr Caveman failed to consider is the diameter of his internal size die. The ones in Lee powder through dies are meant for copper condom bullets and are a bit small. The ones for lead boolits like the "M" die are larger by just a tad. When full length sizing, and then using an "M" die that part of the case to be occupied by the boolit is now larger than the mid and rear sections of the case. With no great effort, the boundry of that enlargement can be set to match the bottom of the boolit and then the tendency to smack the boolit back into the case is greatly reduced. Safety first.

Dr, those are some nice deep grooves in your barrel. My 1911 is good bit scant compared to that.

prs (who did have a 45ACP kaboom due to bullet set-back).

[DrCaveman]

Prs

Good timing. At the gun show yesterday, there were several hundred rifles for sale! And at least 2000 primers! Going at $10 per 100 pack. Sickening.

But I found a lyman 45 m-die. I asked the seller, 'can this work with 45 acp?' and he says 'of course, it works with any 45 cartridge'. Not wanting to be the dick consumer that so many people like to be, I said, 'great thanks, I load 45 acp and 45-70 so this is great'.

Bought it, came home, and realized in about 10 seconds that this wouldn't work for 45 acp. The plug is too short or the die is too long, either way the expander ain't touching a 45 acp case. Good thing I also have a 45-70 or I would have been downright annoyed.

So now on my wish list is an m-die for 45 acp, midway seems to be backordered at the moment (surprise).

I did shoot my larger boolits today and the accuracy improvement was noticeable, though not huge. I've probably found another plateau where I need to hone my shooting before any more improvement will be seen from simple cartridge adjustment. Further, other factors like uniform boolit weight and uniform powder charge +/- 2% are currently outside my scope of analness so I should probably call it good and work on my shooting.

FWIW I briefly attempted shooting the rounds loaded with no case sizing nor flaring.

After dropping the slide release on the top cartridge (which I never do otherwise, I like the slingshot) I dropped the mag and racked out the cartridge. Serious boolit setback. I tried it once more with the same result. So I put those away, to be pulled.

Sorry that I didn't just take the suggestions as rote. Honestly I think if I did it over again I would go the exact same route. Mindless adherence to passed-down suggestions is not the way of a thinking person. Cold facts relating to the question at hand, well those are worth heeding.

It doesn't take an idiot to think of things that will blow yourself up. It takes an idiot to actually follow through with those things. It also takes an idiot to never consider them.

[gunoil]

i size and have a lee bb kit if i need it, I use dillon crimp die, and 45 case gage all before boxing.

[Wayne Smith]

Lyman M dies come in two bodies, a long for rifles and a short for pistol/revolver rounds. Sounds like you have the long body. You may have a .459 stem or a .454 stem or a .451 stem. The first is for the 45-70, the second is for the 45 Colt, and the third is for the 45ACP. The guy didn't know what he was talking about!

[Dave C.]

DrCaveman:

Remove the LEE factory crimp die. Walk to the edge of the nearest lake or river and
throw it as far as you can. This will do more for you reaching your goal of improving
the accuracy of your hand loads than anything else. If your gun will chamber the
finished round use boolits sized to. 453". If not use the largest size that will.

[Kull]

DrCaveman I've lost track after reading the thread of what exactly the problem is your trying to fix. You should full length resize 45 ACP to make sure you have proper tension on the bullet. It's so important for safety and consistency. Your finished rounds shouldn't look perfectly straight. A slight bulging where the bullet is is good and shows you have good tension. With crimping it shouldn't be called crimping. Deflaring would be a better description.

[Char-Gar]

"Sorry that I didn't just take the suggestions as rote. Honestly I think if I did it over again I would go the exact same route. Mindless adherence to passed-down suggestions is not the way of a thinking person. Cold facts relating to the question at hand, well those are worth heeding."...DrCaveman

It takes discernment to distinguish between "suggestions" and "cold facts". When folks with decades of experience with "the question at hand", tell you there is a right and wrong way to do this things, and the way you are doing it is the wrong way..well that is a cold hard fact and not a suggestion.

You have received lots of good factual information in this thread. Information you will do well to heed and follow. Discontinuing the use of the Lee FCD and the acquisition of a taper crimp die, would be a good place to start your new learning curve. The use of a correct dimensioned sizing die and expander plug would the next step. Cast bullets of .452 - 453 can be loaded quite easily with a standard set of 45 ACP reloading dies of a good make.

To disregard the collect experience and wisdom of 100 years of reloading the 45 ACP is not the "way of a thinking man". Or, so it would seem to me. We are never to old or educated to think we can strike out on our own in a new area and disregard the experience of those who have gone before. Size may not matter, but knowledge gained by experience does.

I am neither a professional caster, shooter or machinist. I am just a 70 year old guy who has been reloading and shooting the 45 ACP pistol since 1960. During that period of time I fired in very high level competition and loaded well over 1/4 million rounds of 45ACP cast bullet ammunition. I learned the facts of doing so, from men who had be doing so for many years before I was born. These men helped me produce high quality match ammo very quickly with a short learning curve. They made no suggestions to me, but just told me how to do it, and I listened and did as they said.

Your original post displayed a total lack of understanding of the basics of loading the 45 ACP round and the dynamics of a 1911 pistol. Folks have been trying to help you with facts based on experience and knowledge, not suggestions. You were as lost as a goose in a snow storm, but didn't seem to know it.

Herein is the source of my frustration.

[Dave C.]

Prs

It doesn't take an idiot to think of things that will blow yourself up. It takes an idiot to actually follow through with those things. It also takes an idiot to never consider them.

Words can not begin to describe how happy I am that the closest that you will be shooting to me is 3000 miles away.

[EDG]

>>>Mindless adherence to passed-down suggestions is not the way of a thinking person.<<<

Dr Caveman
If you are going to ask for help and then argue with the answers or ignore them you are wasting the members time. Why do you comes here and do that?

[462]

Mindless adherence to passed-down suggestions is not the way of a thinking person. Cold facts relating to the question at hand, well those are worth heeding.

Early on, like many others did, I offered a few "cold facts", but you chose to ignore them. After you made the above statement, I deleted my two posts, because I no longer wanted to be associated with your thread.

However . . .

I reckon that you consider yourself a "thinking person". If so, and you want to out-think Mr. Browning, please do so in such a manner that your experiment(s) will not harm anyone but yourself.

[DrCaveman]

I will ignore the last three posts. I considered for a moment deleting the whole thread because it doesn't seem to be doing anyone (other than me) any good.

But maybe there is a lesson contained here for other arrogant, experienced-enough-to-be-dangerous, free thinking individuals such as myself.

Char gar I appreciate the return and the civility. You are correct that I was feeling lost, but it was more of a fear that I had once again been duped out of reaching my guns potential by the lawyer-edited loading manuals. I was trying to get to the bottom of why my reloading procedures were producing such seemingly different results than so many others here. And I will admit that my understanding of each die's function was not complete. It wasn't entirely non-existent, just incomplete.

Enough wanking, here is my take home from all this:

-get a new set of dies, or at least replace a few of them. I will when they are in stock somewhere, and I don't plan to drop $175 for redding competition dies.

-start with mfgrs suggestions, beyond that go with the suggestions of users who have experience with those dies

-kill the FCD. If I regret it they are pretty cheap.

-my comment about 'mindless adherence' was not a slam of anyone contributing to this thread. It was more of a statement about my method of learning, going back to about middle school and serving me well. There is a way information is presented to the masses, and there is absolutely a need to dig deeper if you desire to understand things fully. I despise Fox news, MSNBC, CNN, and basically anything coming out of any politicians mouth. No disrespect intended

-I understand why I don't have many friends in the reloading/casting world! Despite my attempts to use the correct words and thorough descriptions, I obviously suck at communication. Well good thing my training was engineering, not broadcasting.

Best regards everyone.

PS it may provide some of you with satisfaction that I shoot by myself, way out in the woods. Yeah if I blow up I may bleed out but no one else is getting hurt. If I have company then I only shoot tried and tested ammo.

[Huntducks]

More reloading short cuts just love it, hope you don't pay for it dearly someday.

[DrCaveman]

More reloading short cuts just love it, hope you don't pay for it dearly someday.

Did you read the whole thread? I'm not taking any shortcuts at this point, in fact never was. Just trying to squeeze max boolit diameter out of my cartridge and improve accuracy. I still had to pump the handle the same number of times, nothing was any faster. Slower actually.

The whole point was to walk through the process here before squeezing the trigger. I did just that, and never squeezed the trigger on the unsafe rounds.

[Char-Gar]

DrCaveman... In 1980 and reprinted in 1986 was a 24 page booklet of articles published in the American Rifleman magazine on the 1911 pistol and the 45 ACP round. It contains several articles on reloading this great round for the pistol. The booklet is entitled "The 45 Automatic", Assembly, accurizing and reloading for the US Service pistol and the commercial model. It was available from the NRA Book Service, but is long out of print. Look for a copy on the internet and in due time, you will find one. It is a gold mine of reliable information on reloading for the 45 ACP round in the 1911 pistol.

With the 45 ACP round, now over 100 years old, reloading dies are readily available on Ebay. Used dies are plentiful and cheaper than new ones, although prices are going up even on these. A good set of RCBS, Redding, or other quality make can be found.

This past week, I bought a new old stock (1977 vintage) RCBS 44 Special sizing die for $5.00 and a new old stock RCBS 44 Magnum (1980 vintage) sizing die for $9.00. Combined shipping for both came to a little over $5.00. These are steel dies which I prefer. So, Ebay still offers good deals on reloading dies, if a fellow knows what to look for.

If, I can help you with your reloading goals on this round, please feel free to PM me on this board. I will do my best to be of help. The 45 ACP round is really a quite easy round to reload that holds no secrets or surprises. I think I gave the basics in a prior post.

As a final word, I will just say that learning requires a certain level of trust in the person or material that is used as a learning resource. Some folks find this trust to be very difficult, but without it, learning will never take place. Most of the folks that gave you input, had nothing but your best interest at heart. They wanted you to succeed in your shooting goals and be safe in the process. I certainly know that is where I come from. Take care and good shooting.

[r1kk1]

For what it's worth, in the early 21st century, Bullseye shooters did some extensive testing using a Ransom rest. The outcome was interesting. They could not see a discernible difference using same or mixed headstamps at the maximum 50 yds they shot at. The agreed bullet was a 200 grain SWC using Clays powder. They also noted that the 'bikini' look of loaded had no bearing on performance or function.

I have noticed different case wall thicknesses of different makes of brass. I did learn one thing from Bullseye guys, you will lose more cases from not finding them then the rigors of loading. My 45 ACP brass is quite old. I have seen a couple of split necks and these get crushed. I have lost more from not finding them on the ground.

PM sent DrCaveman

Take care

r1kk1