Looks like my brother is sending a Rock Island 1911 with a half dozen mags my direction for some work I did on a vehicle.
Nice guy. If the magazines are stock Rock Island magazines, remove the follower and polish the edges of the stampings to eliminate sharp edges and smooth things out, then clean and lube. The stock RIA mags are good mags with good springs, but the followers generally have rough edges. Once polished, the mags run as good as any mags I've bought for 1911's.
This will be my first 45 so I'm wondering if anybody has any boolit experience with these?
I loaded Lee molds and a group buy copy of the H&G #68.
I've been doing some reading on molds for this thing and will pick up a Lee of some sort
I owned the tumble lube and standard versions. If I had it to do over, based on various issues, I'd not buy the tumble lube version again. The standard versions work ok.
before I put some real money into a NOE or HM2 mold.
My suggestion is to go ahead and buy an H&G #68 NOE mold right from the start and save yourself some money long term. That particular boolit shoots extremely accurate and feeds well in all my 1911 pistols. Note: I do have the ramps polished on all my 1911's. Which you should do or have done if you're going to be using anything but USGI ball ammo, as the stock pistol was designed to feed ball ammo best.
The big questions I have at this point are:
Lube - Is tumble lube good enough at 45 velocities, or do I need to use my Lyman 450?
It will work fine, but my advice is to go Lyman 450 from the start. You'll get tired of tumbling lubing much sooner than the pistols will get tired of shooting up the tumble lubed boolits.
Alloy - I've always ran straight wheel weights through my 9's, mainly because I didn't have enough pure to cut it, but now I do. WW, pure, or mix?
I shot a lot of WW, but that's because I had a lot to shoot. If you have access to both, shoot a more pure lead and extend the amount of hardened lead you have. I don't think I'd shoot pure, depending on velocity, but I wouldn't shoot straight WW now either. Since I've got enough reloaded 45 to last me into next year, I probably won't be casting any mixed yet.
TC vs RN - In a Lee mold with this gun...any difference?
In a Lee mold, I would go RN, but if you've polished the ramp, it should feed either. The RN is easier to get the cartridge setup right to me, but that may just be me. Again, after all that, I'd just go ahead and buy a copy of the H&G 68 and spend my energies there first. You're more likely to be rewarded with the best accuracy there.