I did a few experiments to measure the force required to push a 45ACP boolit into the case. Unfortunately all I had today was ALOX'd and unlubed boolits. I will do PC'd boolits later. There are also several combinations of PC, ALOX, and case prep I'd like to measure as well.
The test setup is a drill press with a center punch in the chuck. The center punch is small enough in diameter to fit inside the boolit hollow point noise (MP-452-200).
The loaded round is placed on top of a bathroom scale which is on the drill press platform. As the center punch is pushed on the boolit, pushing it into the case, the scale measures the force. Since its pushed inside the hollow point, the nose isnt distorted and I can measure COAL accurately.
I did three tests:
Boolit is MP-452-200 with circular hollow point with alloy between 9 and 11bhn probably
Cases are federal with small primers range pickup (since its likely once-fired)
3 different cases and 3 different boolits were used for each test
All cases were full length sized, decapped, and flared using the powder disc expander.
Crimping of any type was not performed. Flare remained. Boolit was seated then immediately put on the fixture to measure setback force.
NO LUBE, AS-CAST BOOLIT
Seat to 1.175"
No crimp
Case 1 265lbs
Case 2 250lbs
Case 3 280lbs
Confirmed no change in COAL at 200 lbs
ALOX'd UNSIZED boolit (approx 0.453" diameter)
Case 1 150lbs
Case 2 175lbs
Case 3 150lbs
Confirmed no change in COAL w/100 lbs
NOE 0.452" expander used after flaring (0.330" deep)
Case 1 50lbs
Case 2 80lbs
Case 3 70lbs
Confirmed no change in COAL w/40 lbs
So it would appear that, with ALOX, the 0.452" NOE expander is a little on the loose side, at least for me.
I also have a NOE 0.451" NOE expander I can try, as well as PC boolits.
I could also drill holes in the primer pockets of the cases, so I can carefully pull the boolits out and compare their before and after diameters.