can brass cartridge swage a soft lead boolit?

[Groo]

Groo here
1# the softer the boolet the slower you can drive it
2# the softer the boolet the easier it will slug up [expand in barrel due to pressure]
The harder ,,,reverse the above
You are shooting a gun [NA] designed for hot loads,, the keyhole rounds are too light increase loading and test[don't go over max]
The keyhole is usually caused by undersized bullet not spinning up [will lead the bore] or a load so light [to slow]
Lastly seat deep and crimp OVER the boolet with a good firm role crimp ,,, ever see factory target loads NOT heavily crimped??????

[uscra112]

.......ever see factory target loads NOT heavily crimped??????

Y'know,, when I started out with the aforementioned Colt, I copied factory target loads - seat deep, crimp over the end of the bullet. But being more of a rifle kinda guy, I tried moving them out so the bullet was into the throat. Groups shrank. My final load was, honest-to-Pete, a fairly hard semi-wadcutter, seated as far out as I could, over 3.0 grains of Bullseye. At 15 yards, 5 would go into one hole, every time, unless I got careless. I had a guy out in Idaho trying to recruit me when he saw me do that.

[sv44]

need some clarification- do you consider BHN 11-12 hard or soft (i have been lead to believe it is on the soft side although not as soft as the near pure lead I made the original ones out of).

[uscra112]

Pure lead is about 8. Those semiwadcutters I mentioned were ~15 BHN.

[sv44]

thank you sir

[TD1886]

thank you sir

Don't forget that Elmer Keith shot a lot of tin/lead alloy and he pushed it hard and it worked. It's not as hard as the Antimony/Arsenic/Lead/Tin alloys.

[sv44]

update on my progress:
1) no more key holing with a bit harder lead
2) using either expanded cartridge on a separate press or expanding it with the dillon SDB makes no difference to my shooting- i am not good enough to see how it changes things and hope to get there
3) wadcutter brass vs starline brass seems to make no difference so far

i fully admit my limited abilities makes the difference negligible at this point- i appreciate everyones input and help in this

[Shiloh]

These NOE expanders come in all kinds of sized. They are awesome.
https://noebulletmolds.com/site/prod...r-plug-pistol/

Shiloh