Advice please... 45 Colt

[RonC]

I have an AWA cowboy 45 with 5.5 inch barrel. I cast some bullets using Lee 452-255. I slugged the barrel by driving a cast bullet nose first down the barrel with a wood dowel. The groove diameter by this method is about 451-451.5. A bullet as cast is about 452-452.5. I tumble lubed the bullets, unsized, using Lee liquid alox. I did not try to anneal the bullets. The lead is mostly recovered bullet lead from the range backstop, composition unknown. I loaded to a velocity of about 800 fps, maybe a much as 810.

Never fired the gun much but last time I fired about 20 rounds through it. Man, talk about leading. I finally got the barrel reasonably clean using wads of Chore Boy. Lead came out in long slivers.

I have made up a batch of Felix lube and loaded a few more of the bullets. Have not yet tried them.

Reading Lyman's books, it seems there may be several reasons for my problem. Undersized bullets, high velocity, poor lubing.

I am hoping the problem is lubrication and that the Felix lube will solve the problem. However...

Any thoughts?

[Char-Gar]

I think you are on the track. Proceed ahead with the good lube.

I didn't get the anneal thing. When you anneal something you remove the temper/hardness. Did you water drop these gizmos if so that might be a part of your problem. There is no need for hard bullets for your task and often they cause more problems than they fix.

[felix]

If the range lead you melted down was primarily from jacketed boolits, the chances are that lead has little or no tin to compensate for as much as 3 percent antimony and/or bismuth and/or who-knows. Today's ammo factory uses junk lead made into 250 pound blocks to be inserted into wire making machines which is all on location. Quality control is NOT what it used to be in terms of exact lead composition because of the improvements in "professional" fast-loading equipment brought on-line because of the ammo demand is for quantity in lieu of quality. That being the situation, any little bit out-of-time your revolter has will exasperate the condition you are seeing. First and foremost, add enough tin to your lead to hopefully prevent SIGNIFICANT leading for at least 25 rounds before blaming the lube of any kind. Mixing motor mica into the lube by hand will eliminate about all of the subsequent lighter leading. Keep using less motor mica, per lube batch, as the gun system smooths out or is indeed fixed. ... felix

[RonC]

Thanks, guys.

Char-Gar: Annealing lead alloys harden them, annealing brass softens it. Lyman tells how.

Felix: The source of lead was in the back of my mind as a problem. Much of it came from jacketed bullets. Maybe I should measure the Brinell hardness next time. I can use quick and dirty method of the steel ball squeezed between alloy under test and pure lead.

In lieu of tin would gas checks help?

[RickinTN]

Follow-up question for Felix on this subject: Does the added motor mica in this instance serve as a very light lapping compound? or is it just a good addition to the lube. I'm not sure I understood the reasoning behind adding it, then reducing the amount. Could you expound please?
Thanks,
Rick

[felix]

Motor mica is a special rock when ground into a powder still has barbs on the individual granules. The barbs have oxygen as a center magnet to hold the barbs. The barbs are microscopic and hold onto both external sliding surfaces at the same time. The "lube" is the oxygen. So, no, the motor mica will not cause excessive wear to the steel used in today's guns made from the likes of SAE 4140, 416. The barbs will wear down to nothing as time goes by without using additional motor mica. In general, and emphatically, 99 percent of the worlds mica is NOT classified as being "motor" capable, so be careful where the mica is obtained.

Tin is preferred to cover the aspects of leading in revolters, especially when using slow powders. Gas checks help things too when faster (hotter) powders are used because of the cylinder gap allows gas cutting which means lead is blown forward to get rolled down by the passing boolit.

... felix

[Larry Gibson]

Concur with felix on allloy. Suggest you add 20-30% lead and then add 2% tin to that. That's what I do with my rrange lead and it make an excellent alloy then. I also suggest you TL the bullets twice as per Lee's instructions. The as cast diameter will be a bit larger so a .454 sizer might be handy to use.

You don't need GCs for your 45 Colt loads. What powder/charge are you using?

Larry Gibson

[Dan Cash]

You need to determine the diameter of your chamber throats. If they are smaller than the bore, there is little you can do to stop the leading until you ream the throats to bore diameter + a tad. To define the "tad," you will need to consult a gunsmith. Good luck to you. A .45 Colt will shoot plain base 40:1 lead to tin ratio at 850 to 900 fps with no leading.

[RonC]

Thanks for all the responses. I will check and select harder alloys in the future, since I don't have a source of tin at present. I have some ingots cast from wheel weights which should be harder.

Larry Gibson: I am using 8 gr of Unique. The bullets run about 259 grains. Actual velocity runs about 840 fps, a little higher than I thought when I posted above.

[44MAG#1]

Annealing lead alloys does not harden them it softens them. You are reading more into Lymans statement than it needs.
Where is that statement by the way?
Annealing draws back the hardness.
People who have water quenched their bullets for years have the experience.

[9.3X62AL]

I dunno, guys......that much barrel leading in that short a time just about SCREAMS "undersize throats". Seen that movie my own self in 45 Colt, no thanks to Sturm Ruger & Co. and their idiot 90s engineering ideas. I would check throat specs first, then start the lube and alloy gymnastics. 8.0 x Unique is a moderate load weight, and has been used for years in 45 Colt.

You gotta check EVERY tool that touches your brass, or at least check the brass that gets processed by them. Factory RCBS tungsten-carbide 45 Colt die set came with a T/C sizer that reduced brass diameter to .469", and an expander spud that mic'd @ .448". A case mouth processed by that spud will do BAD THINGS to softer-alloy boolits of .454" diameter. I've had to reverse-engineer my 45 Colt loading......use a steel sizing die to not over-work the brass, and have a custom expander spud made so my boolits aren't sized down when being seated. RELOADING DIES ASSUME JACKETED BULLET USAGE. This needs to be printed over everyone's loading bench.

[Char-Gar]

Annealing lead alloys does not harden them it softens them. You are reading more into Lymans statement than it needs.
Where is that statement by the way?
Annealing draws back the hardness.
People who have water quenched their bullets for years have the experience.

Yep..that is what I always understood.

[oscarflytyer]

You need to determine the diameter of your chamber throats. If they are smaller than the bore, there is little you can do to stop the leading until you ream the throats to bore diameter + a tad. To define the "tad," you will need to consult a gunsmith. Good luck to you. A .45 Colt will shoot plain base 40:1 lead to tin ratio at 850 to 900 fps with no leading.

+1. My thoughts as well. Dan beat me to it, but the size, and prob everything else is fine, my guess. If so, the throat(s) can be small and squeeze bullet too small for bore.

[Dan Cash]

Throats are too small and/or brass too small and sqweezing the bullet so that it is too small as pointed out by 9.3X62AL. What ever the cause, there is no reason you could not drive a pure lead bullet to 850 or so without leading.

If your throats are too small, rejoice as that can be fixed for about $40.00. I have a M25 Smith that has oversize throats; .455-.456. Can we say a special mould?

[9.3X62AL]

S&W 45 caliber revolvers with outsized throats are a common sight, or were in the 1970s and through the 1980s. I'm with Dan--if the maker can't get the throats right, then cut 'em undersized so the buyer can finish building the revolver properly. Oh, and sell the product as a kit, with price reduction consistent with that unfinished state.

No, I won't be holding my breath.

Dan, a pure lead #454424 would be one devastating game boolit at 800-850 FPS. That SWC would likely rivet right over and drop a deer like Thor's Hammer.

[RonC]

Annealing... If I read this right sounds like annealing hardens lead, at least wheel weight alloy.

44Mag#1: From Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook 3d Edition, page 115. Heating to 450 degF for one hour and then quenching raised BNH of wheelweights from 8.9 BNH to 27.1.

Ron

[smkummer]

I am using Lyman's 454190 bullet at .454 diameter with water quenched wheel weights. This is the classic 45 Colt bullet with 8.5-9.0 grains Unique in my Colt single actions, Colt New Service and Anaconda. Very accurate and no leading. I would add at least 50% wheel weights to your alloy to harden it up. I am dropping my cast bullets into a 5 gal. bucket that has about 3 gals. of water in it. The water bucket is on the other side and down low away from my casting pot so as no drop of water can get into the lead pot.

[44man]

Annealing is always a softening process no matter the metal except for air hardening steels. Once hard I have not been able to soften that stuff!
What I see is using the wrong lead to slug---ONLY pure lead should be used.
Next I bet throats are too small and they need reamed.

[44MAG#1]

When annealing one does not quench the metal. One lets the metal cool by air cooling. When you quench hot bullets they then become hard. If you want to draw them down in hardness you heat the bullet to a certain degree for so long then air cool.
Don't confuse the two terms.
What Lyman is doing is HARDENING the bullet by heat treating the bullet by QUENCHING it in water.
ANNEAL means softening the bullet by drawing out the hardness by heating and then air cooling the bullet.

[shorty500M]

being that the gun in question is a model 625 which would have been made since say '87 or '88 through the present, its extremely doubtful throats are either over or under, most likely measure .4525-.453. most likely issue is the soft alloy

[canyon-ghost]

I am working with 45 Colt in a Contender and a Blackhawk. I get soft shooting loads at 6.0 grains of Unique and they began to "thump" the ground at 100 yards with 6.5 grains of Unique. I'd think if you're using 8 grains, something isn't fitting at all right. I'm pouring wheelweight to a Lyman 452424 mold that is 255 grains in weight.
8 grains sounds scary.

[44MAG#1]

"I am working with 45 Colt in a Contender and a Blackhawk. I get soft shooting loads at 6.0 grains of Unique and they began to "thump" the ground at 100 yards with 6.5 grains of Unique. I'd think if you're using 8 grains, something isn't fitting at all right. I'm pouring wheelweight to a Lyman 452424 mold that is 255 grains in weight.
8 grains sounds scary."

Doesn't sound scary to me. Why would it sound scary to you? Especially in a Blackhawk or a Contender?

[9.3X62AL]

Not scary here, either. 9.0 grains of Unique has been a long-time powder weight to duplicate blackpowder 45 Colt ballistics with the 250-260 grain bullets. I've shot thousands of these through Uberti, Colt, and Ruger single actions and S&W double-actions without issue. What am I missing here?

[Mohillbilly]

Standard load for my .45 Colt Ruger Blackhawks is 8.0 gr Unique under 200-300 gr lead Boolits .... Now my old 1909 Colt has shot a few 200-250 gr. Boolits with 8 gr. unique , but out of respect to a 100+ yr old historic piece I have found a " sweet spot " at 6.8 to 7.2 gr Unique .

[9.3X62AL]

That seems reasonable, given the century-old firearm involved. My remarks concerned modern revolvers of recent manufacture (say, 1960-forward) with regard to 8.0 to 9.0 grains of Unique. Since changing out the tungsten-carbide sizer die, case longevity has ceased to be an issue.

[RonC]

44Mag#1: You are right about annealing. I used the wrong words and misunderstood. What I was saying was I had not heat treated the bullets. The Lyman reference is indeed in reference to quenching.

Here is a discussion on this forum about heat treating and annealing. Seems either may be temporary and the effect definitely depends on composition of starting alloy, especially the amount of tin.

Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

Ron

[RonC]

Whoops. Here is the link

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?107059-Annealing-lead-bullets

Ron

[rexherring]

Take the range lead and add about 1/3 WW to the range scrap and water drop them if you don't have any tin. That should harden them up enough with a good lube. I've been shooting that in my .45 BH and never had a leading problem at those speeds.

[KCSO]

Just did one of these the other day, the chamber mouths were 355 the bore was 357. If that is NOT the problem check lube first. I shot some old shells the other day and the lube had dried out in the last 50 years or so and they leaded pretty bad too.

[jh45gun]

I use straight WW and have no leading issues with any of my pistol bullets or my rifle bullets. I think his bullets were too soft as others have said.

[DanWalker]

I shoot 50/50 WW/range scraps (BHN 12) at 1400-1500 fps in my win 94 45 LC with no leading issues. Lube is xlox. Load is 18.5 grains of 2400 and a 454424. 6.5 grains of Red Dot under this boolit is my favorite. It steams along at around 900 fps from my 45 sixguns.