255 gr 45 ACP OAL

[prangr51]

okay, I know/have seen this load covered before, but I havent found an answer to this: the leade on my springfield 1911 is pretty much nill and i have to seat these lee 255 gr boolits down to 1.136" oal, I did this over 4.2 grs of unique and i didnt appear to have an issue. appearances can be deceiving though so i come to you guy for advice.
is seating that short safe? can I up my load at all?

[muskeg13]

I load Lyman 452664 boolits that weigh ~255 gr depending on the alloy, in my Springfield M1911. The mould designs seem very similar, both are RN flat point, with very wide metplats, which maximizes weight for the boolit length. I seat mine to an OAL of 1.162 over 4.5gr of Unique. This load shoots fine in my pistol (one ragged hole at 10 yds, right to the point of aim), and seems mild with no signs of excessive pressure. This load averages 739 fps.

As for your load, you use a little less Unique, but are probably seating the boolit deeper, which can increase pressure. I intend to gradually work up to 5.0 gr of Unique to see if I can safely increase the velocity. I'd like to get about 800 fps if possible without excessive pressure and recoil.

[looseprojectile]

My loads for bowling pins in two different 45 autos is one inch two hundred thousandths long and I have my powder measure set at six grains of Unique.
The OAL needs to be changed for different boolits [can be too long for the magazine] but I don't change the powder between two hundred and two fiftyfive grain boolits.

If I were to want to shoot just paper I would use bullseye or red dot in much smaller amounts. What ever makes the gun reliable.

Lymans cast bullet handbook lists a 225 grain boolit at 905 FPS with 7.3 grains of Unique.
Hornady says 6.3 grains of Unique gets 900 FPS with their 230 grain lead boolit.


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