45 Size

[tbierley]

I just made a sizing die for a 45 ACP in the size of .453. Some of the books show .451 and some show .452. So can someone shed some light on this matter.

[dgill99]

I use .452 for 45 Long Colt and .451 for 45 ACP.

[MtGun44]

I recommend and use .452 for all .45 ACP and for some modern .45 Colt. Old .45 Colts are often
much happier with larger, frequently they have a .454 groove diam and throat diams can be anywhere.

It is a rare .45 ACP that isn't happy with .452, some will lead at .451 or turn in reduced accy.

The best way to know for sure for your gun is to slug the bore and shoot about .001 or so bigger.
If you really want to, have at it. Personally, I just shoot .452 in all of them, haven't slugged
a .45 ACP barrel in a couple decades.

The most common reloading problem is failure to taper crimp with a separate TC die. Strongly
recommend this, use about .470 or so diam at case mouth, smaller by .005 or so is OK,
larger is often not.

Bill

[LUCKYDAWG13]

i use .452 for 45 acp and 454 casull

[Silver Jack Hammer]

I just tried some .454" sized boolits in my very reliable newer Colt 1911 5" and they wouldn't chamber.

[khmer6]

454 sounds a but large for a new 1911. It needs broken in and even then night still not chamber

[Char-Gar]

I have used .452 in dozens of 1911s over the past fifty years with good results. Prewar Colt SSAs had .454 barrels but New Service models were .452. Post war Colts, Smiths and Rugers in 45 all will run .451 - .452.

I size six gun bullets according to cylinder throat size, usually .452 or .454.

[Larry Gibson]

.452 is pretty much the standard size for cast in 45 ACP semi autos. Some pistols with "match" chambers need a .451 size bullet to reliably chamber ( my P14 for instance). The 45 ACP headspaces off the case mouth and there is a sharp shoulder in the chamber where that happens. An over sized bullet (.453+) can bump into that headspace shoulder and cause the slide not to close unless the bullet is seated deeper. With such bullets seated deeper lead is then scraped off the side of the bullet on firing as it enters the throat by that headspace edge of the chamber. The result then is leading. Size to .451 or .452.

I've shot a bajillion .451s and .452s in many, many 45 handguns and even a few subguns. With a good alloy and a good lube you won't get leading with either. I tested several M1911 match pistols in a Ramsom Rest once and could not find any difference in accuracy either. Unfortunately we are led to believe that we must size cast bullet .001 - to whatever size over the groove diameter or we will get leading and inaccuracy.........many times it just isn't so. The 45 ACP in semi auto pistols is a good example.

Larry Gibson

[376Steyr]

I have a Government Model that gobbles up .453" boolits with no leading. Seeing how you can't turn that .453 die into a .452, I recommend loading up a few .453" rounds and see if your pistol likes them.

[Love Life]

If it will chamber than no worries.

.452 is what I size to for 45 ACP. Even with significant tool marks in the barrel (good ol' Colt quality) thre is no leading and accuracy is good for capabilities.

[jonp]

.452 works in my bh45lc and my 45acps but my non-1911 45acp likes .451. I can use .452 in it so that is what I buy

[TCFAN]

I have a Lyman 4 cavity 452374 mold that drops WW boolits at .453. I size and lube in a Lyman H die marked .452 that does not touch the sides of the boolit.So I am really loading the boolit unsized.I use a Lee Carbide Crimp die and pulled boolits come out at .451.I have never had any leading issues with my Colt 1911 Combat Elite.
I have also tried some of these boolits at .453 using a RCBS taper crimp die with the same results.No leading.......Terry

[searcher4851]

I've had several 1911's over the years and .452 was pretty much all I ever used in any of them. The .453 wouldn't be that much of a problem, as long as the round chambers reliably.

[Jack Stanley]

My 1911 is a mid-eighties Springfield aromory that for years I used .452" slugs in it with moderate loads because more would lead . I got a .453" dies and tried that and now loads are about factory equivalent without leading . So I guess I'd just have to say try it and see what works for you .

Jack

[Char-Gar]

Jack.......Have you slugged the bore of that Springer to get the groove diameter. I am betting (guessing), that it is on the large size and the .452 bullets were allowing gas to slide by part of the bullets.

I had one Springer but became unhappy with the performance. I put in a good Colt barrel and groups shrank in half. This just to say, I didn't have good luck with the one Springer barrel I owned. It was not of good quality.

I have had very good luck with newer Colt barrels in the 1911 pistols. I have them in my Colt GM and both Norinco 1911A1s. They are all a uniform .451 and very slick with no burrs on the end of the chamber. .452 bullets do very well in these barrels.

[Jack Stanley]

No .... haven't slugged it that I remember , I think what made the light come on for me was a bullet mold that I had that dropped .453 and a little bit more . I was fooling with liquid Alox a little at the time and thought why not and lubed a small batch of bullets . Powder charges increased untill I was satified it was close to hardball so I got a regular sizer for the Star and tried that . They did indeed work and worked well with the only proviso that this particular barrel likes the lead to be about eleven BHN in hardness .

I don't shoot the 1911 platform near as well as an "N" frame Smith & Wesson but I'm now happy with the way it groups . I'm sure someone with more skill could tell it's a bum barrel .

Jack

[Char-Gar]

Bhn 11 is pretty soft, about like ACWW which I like. When I started with the 1911, the word was it took hard bullets to hold the shallow rifling. Keith and everybody else spouted this hard bullet mantra. About 1964 or thereabout Speer came out with soft swaged 200 SWC and 230 RN bullets for the 45 ACP round. These were quite soft and I figured they would not do well in the shallow rifling. To my surprise they shot as good or better than the harder stuff. Poof..another myth gone.

Still to this day, you will have folks repeating the myth about the need for hard bullets in the 1911 pistol because of the shallow rifling. This stuff has been repeated for so long, folks just assume it to be true.

[tbierley]

I loaded up some test rounds last night. And they would not chamber in any of my 1911s. I then slugged the bores of 2 of my 1911s they slugged out at .451. So I am going re size them to .452 and run with them.

[Jack Stanley]

And here we are Reverend , right in the heart of myth busters .

Jack

[hermans]

I have 2 x 45 ACP 1911 pistols, one with a Kart barrel and the other with and old Barsto that has 50k + rounds. I shoot .453 in both, no problem with leading, or any problems with feeding.

[kartooo]

i had a chambering problem when sized to .452 and using a seating/crimp combo die.
went to a separate seating and separate crimp die and problem solved.

[DougGuy]

I never used anything but .452" in all my 45s but the Kahr pistol I have now won't go fully into battery with anything but a .451" and it's a PITA to find cast boolits that are sized .451" most days. On the other hand, the diminutive little 3.5" barreled gun is surprisingly accurate so I won't b*tch about having to feed it .451" boolits.

[NHPaul]

my 1911's and 45 colt newvaquero all like 452 just fine.

[Char-Gar]

I sized my bullets in a Lyman .452 die for many years and was completely satisfied for years. One day I put a mic on a sized bullet and it was .453. The die was out of spec. I bought new .452 and .451 dies and sized true to specs.

I then sized thousands of bullets with the two new dies. When it was all over I could see no difference between .451, .452, and .453 in my pistols. I settled on .452 for no particular reason related to performance

Bottom line is, I take these types of discussions with a grain of salt. A thou one way or another may make a difference in a few folks pistols, but for the majority of us that shoot 1911 pistols in the original barrel and chamber specs there will be no significant difference.

[DougGuy]

A thou one way or another may make a difference in a few folks pistols, but for the majority of us that shoot 1911 pistols in the original barrel and chamber specs there will be no significant difference.

You can thank John Moses Browning for that, as the trials of 1908 included rusty barrels, sand, badly corroded brass and bullets, bent cases, faulty magazines, anything and everything the U.S. Army could come up with to make the vaunted 1911 fail. Which it did not. The chamber specs if adhered to, would not distinguish .001" boolit diameter.

Nowdays, some makers are chambering their barrels on the tight side of things, and quite a few loads won't function in those guns. I liked it the old way better.

[shorty500M]

alloy hardness and type of alloy along with as cast diameter will all play an effect on finished size as will actual diameter of the die itself. Over years have collected and or made dies for .451 , .452, .454, .456, .457, .458 and .459. Use the lyman .451 for acp and certain colt/casull slugs to get a true .452 slug. Normally my colt chambered revolvers get my .452 die for a .4525-.453 slug. Rarely use .454 and .456 dies. Use .457 to fit throats on one oversive m25 with a .454 dia. Gro0ve. Use .458 in my BFR .45-70 and the .459 for my marlin and sharps

[USSR]

I sized my bullets in a Lyman .452 die for many years and was completely satisfied for years. One day I put a mic on a sized bullet and it was .453. The die was out of spec.

I sized my .45 ACP bullets with a .452" die, and found my loads would not chamber reliably in my Gold Cup. Turns out my bullets were coming out of the die at .453". So, bought a .451" die. Guess what size they come out of that die at? .452". Hey, at least they are consistent.

Don

[Char-Gar]

I sized my .45 ACP bullets with a .452" die, and found my loads would not chamber reliably in my Gold Cup. Turns out my bullets were coming out of the die at .453". So, bought a .451" die. Guess what size they come out of that die at? .452". Hey, at least they are consistent.Don

Before we get too worked up at the die makers, let's realize that when the alloy is swaged in the die, there will be some springback when it gets free of the squeeze. This will vary depending on caliber and alloy. Sometimes it is too small to be measured with the tools we have and sometimes it can be measured with ease. Most of the time, it won't make a difference in how the bullet performs, but sometimes like your case it will.

This is just one of the annoying things we have to put up with and the reason we tend to collect sizing dies.

So very often folks will just buy a die and have at it, thinking the number marked on the die will be the size of the bullet that comes out of it. Then in the case of the 45 ACP, they use a roll crimp that enlarges the case mouth and then come here with their angst.

The 45 ACP round is very easy to load with cast bullets and produce rounds that function through the pistol and produce first rate accuracy. However there are cetain basic that must be followed and either folks don't know the basics or think they can reinvent the wheel and do it "their way". The former folks problems can be fixed with information but there is no fix for the latter types. I have often noted that "stubborn" and "stupid", both begin with the letter "s". There must be some kind of connection. :-)

[garym1a2]

I size to .452 and it runs well in my Kimber 1911 and my factory barrell Glock 21SF. I like the boolits with the fat lube groove and a soft lube.

[USSR]

Char-Gar,

Not "worked up" at all, just making a comment.


The 45 ACP round is very easy to load with cast bullets and produce rounds that function through the pistol and produce first rate accuracy. However there are cetain basic that must be followed and either folks don't know the basics or think they can reinvent the wheel and do it "their way". The former folks problems can be fixed with information but there is no fix for the latter types. I have often noted that "stubborn" and "stupid", both begin with the letter "s". There must be some kind of connection. :-)

Also not a neophyte. However, you may be on to something with "s". What comes to my mind is "surly" and "stick-it".

Don

[lksmith]

.452 if it'll chamber. Might cause a little extra pressure vs 451, but that is unlikely and since 45ACP is such a low pressure round it's not enough to be concerned.
I have sized both .451 and .452 and can't tell any difference between the 2 accuracy wise, and the .451 seem to jam a little less in my gun, so that's what I size to

[Char-Gar]

[QUOTE=USSR;2258877]Char-Gar,

Not "worked up" at all, just making


Also not a neophyte. However, you may be on to something with "s". What comes to my mind is "surly" and "stick-it".

Just a phrase not to be taken literally, certainly nothing to get worked up about.

[9.3X62AL]

I've used the sized boolits from a .452" RCBS H&I die for close to 30 years now. As best I can tell with my mic, there is about a .0004" "spread" in sized diameters from WW metal to 92/6/2 alloy. The "mean" is a tenth or so over .452". These castings so processed have run well in a number of 45 ACP pistols and a couple revolvers. If it ain't broke, I say don't try fixing it. Just for grins, I tried some .454"-sized Lee 230 TCs in a Glock 21 some time ago.......they fed and functioned as well as those sized @ .452".