Beginners Question

[Jammer Six]

Okay, here's a question from a beginning caster.

What alloy?

I've read Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbook, and I've slugged my way through the LASC book. Both are excellent books, if a little revolver-centric. Apparently one doesn't shoot a 1911 at silhouettes in L.A.

I understand that my 1911 is a low pressure, slow load. 830 fps is the standard, and it appears from both sources that a Brinell hardness of 8-10 would be fine for such a speed.

However, both books also allude to semi-auto handguns, and imply in passing that a “harder” bullet would be needed.

And watching what chambering a jacketed bullet goes through, I can say “well, yeah...”

If I chamber a jacketed bullet and take it out and look at it, I can usually find the spot on the nose of the round that hit the feed ramp. If I slam a nice, soft lead boolit with a hardness of, say, 10 into that ramp, it's going to leave a flat spot. And that boolit is going to be less accurate.

So how hard does a 1911 lead boolit need to be?

And what alloy will get me there?

[jblee10]

One reason harder alloys are used in the 45 acp is they typically have shallow rifling. Your boolit needs to be tough enough to hold the rifling without skidding. But what they called hard in the old days, some people call soft now. I have shot thousands of wheel weight boolits in the 45 acp and they have worked fine. Slug your barrel and go one thousands over. And hope your chamber will except a round with that size boolit.

[454PB]

Some guys use hard alloys for the reasons mentioned above, I've done it myself.

For the most part, alloys of 10 to 15 BHN work fine as long as the boolit is bore diameter or a little over. As far as dings on the boolit nose, that's not usually a problem. If the boolit is digging into the feed ramp enough to cause feed problems, that's not due to alloy hardness.

[btroj]

What alloy depends somewhat upon what you are using as a lead source.
If using wheel weights try 50/50 WW to pure lead.
I have a bit of monotype and I am getting ready to try 2 pounds monotype to 18 pounds pure lead. Gives about 2 % Sb and just below 1% Sn. It is relatively soft.

Some people like really hard bullets for autoloaders, some prefer soft. Part of the "trick" to shooting cast is to find what works for you and run with it.

[sqlbullet]

I run hard boolits in my autos, which are all 10mm. A BHN of 10-12 would be fine for shooting in them, but harder boolits work fine too and I find them easier to deal with if they are water dropped from the mold.

I have loaded air-cooled plenty of times. I will say I find it a little harder to dial in the crimp right with a softer boolit. Maybe it is just my technique. Not saying it won't work for you, or that it doesn't for me, just that a softer boolit is less forgiving of too much crimp.

[40Super]

I've run 20bhn(approx,Penn) down to 14 all the same od, they all shot ok,but the 14's did have the occational "flier".I never could figure out why,I now use 18's from Missouri and they seem to be the best of both worlds,they do get a small dent/shined up area from the feed ramp. I'm getting set up to start casting my own,so I'll be trying more softer ones again.

[stubshaft]

I've shot alot of 12BHN boolits out of my 45's and yes the noses had a slight ding in them, and no I couldn't see any loss of accuracy.

454PB and btroj have it right. Shoot what your gun likes not what works in mine.