glock 21 and lee boolits

[twc1964]

Ok folks, i have a g-21 with a kkm barrel in it. i recently loaded my first boolits, lee 452-228 round nose. i loaded em at 1.265 oal and now they tend to jam. they passed the plunk test so I'm not sure if i should seat deeper or what? if yall have any suggestions i would appeciate them. thanks. oh, la oad is 6.0 unique.

[Ben]

If the rounds chamber smoothly , but the gun still malfunctions, seems that the nose contour of your current Lee cast bullet and your feed ramp / magazine feed angle aren't an ideal arrangement for smooth feeding.

May have to borrow / trade / buy some other 45 ACP cast bullet designs and try them in your pistol ? ?

Occasionally, shooters find that a particular design just will not work well in their particular pistol.

[twc1964]

Ben, i don't understand as I've shot fmj hanloads out of it for yrs and not a bobble unless i limp wristed it or didn't have case flare fully removed but that was a rarity. this boolit has almost identical profile as my fmj's. i have some swc loads that i used in my 1911 but glocks aren't known for feeding those much of the time. i read a post a few days ago and the fellow used the exact same set-up and had to seat a bit deeper to get relible feeding. i just can't find the post though. i thsnk you though for your suggestions and am planning on some more molds in the future.

[43PU]

My 21 G4 feeds the LEE 200 SWC like corn through a goose, I haven't tried my 228 RND yet but I will.. oh that is a stock barrel. I have put over 3000 rounds of lead cast in the stock barrel with out a hiccup no leading no problems and accuracy is well....Glock accuracy

[twc1964]

Well good to know, guess i will dig out my swc loads and try em out. i have never shot anything but ball and hp loads from this gun as of now. i am confident that these can be tinkered with and made to shoot well and feed but I'm hoping someone chimes in that has tried this type of set up. thx for the info. these swc loads have been sitting for yrs and sre tying up some good brass lol.

[RobS]

You will likely need to seat the boolit a bit shorter. Try 1.24 next and go from there. The 228-1R isn't a typical ball equivalent a 2 Radius is though and Lee's TL 230 RN is however I don't like the tumble lube part nor the step it has from the ogive to the TL grooves. I've shot the Lee 228-1R before and simply seated it to a bit shorter of a COAL to get it to run in my 45 autos.

[mdi]

No personal experience, but have seen on forms a few times; the 1R profile of that particular bullet has the full diameter pretty far forward. The consensus was to seat deeper...

[Love Life]

Seat deeper.

[Ben]

twc1964

45 autos can be very picky as to the cartridge OAL and nose ogive shape.

[StratsMan]

I also use an aftermarket barrel in my G-21 for shooting cast. Like your KKM, it has a match chamber and is fully supported. The main result I have is that it is much more particular about the ammo than the standard Glock barrel. By the way, the standard barrel shoots cast boolits just fine... Standard caveats for sizing and alloys apply to prevent leading. Bottom line, the tighter match chamber wants what it wants. As others have said, the ogive of the 452-228 isn't ideal for that chamber at that OAL. Seat it down so the beginning of the ogive is much closer to the brass... Or just shoot the Glock barrel...

Oh... and the Accurate load data for lead bullets with maximum Unique charge is closer to 5.4 grains than 6.0... (Personally, I use 4.2 - 4.5 grains of Bullseye with 200 grain cast boolits...) So if you do seat deeper, I think it would be wise to load it down a ways... better to work up to a comfortable load than to work down from a high pressure load...

[twc1964]

Yeah, i will download when i reduxe c.o.a.l . i have loaded for many years and really haven't had many problems at all. now with using lead boolits and a match type barrel, welllets say it threw me a curve ball lol. i thank everyone who commented about my dilema. thx.

[Jailer]

I have the same setup you do and the only SWC I have had feeding problems with was an H&G 130 clone. Any RN or TC boolit has fed fine in both the factory barrel and the KKM.

My current favorite is an H&G 68 clone from accurate molds.

[twc1964]

Thanks for the info jailer. i will try those swc boolits when i get to the range.

[primersp]

in my 21 clone h&g 68 and rcbs 230grs rn feed and shoot well ,original barrel

[W.R.Buchanan]

Use the Glock Barrel.

Randy

[Love Life]

Use the Glock Barrel.

Randy

I agree.

[twc1964]

Well, loaded up ten rounds at 1.245. Had 1 ftf on the 9th shot. dam! Those loads were accurate. 15yrds and a 2.5 inch group offhand. well, i will download and reduce oal some more. on the bright side, when i do find a oal thatl shoot, i will be using a lot less powder lol

[W.R.Buchanan]

Next time shoot 10 thru the Aftermarket barrel and ten thru the Glock barrel. Bet the Glock barrel won't malfunction.

I have a Storm Lake barrel for my G35 in .40 S&W I have never gotten a full magazine thru it, and I am talking factory loads as well as my reloads which are very close dimensionally to the Winchester Factory 165 gr target loads.

I got tired of losing when the gun malfunctioned and I was forced to reload an extra time which always means you lose. There is little difference between the aftermarket barrel and the Glock barrel as far as accuracy is concerned.

If you are worried about some of the Internet BS about Glocks blowing up with Cast boolits,,, I will be the first here to tell you ,,, I ain't so.

Here is 21 pages and 400+ posts about this exact subject.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?33855-The-Truth-about-Glocks-and-Cast

Randy

[twc1964]

Well last nite i dug out some 230 gr reloads i have been shooting. these have the old bullx boolits and they feed fine. i measured the oal and they are at 1.224. These are 230 gr roundnose. i have 10 loaded at 1.230 and will try them tonite. I'm betting these will feed but i can always go to 1.224 and i know itl work. i am going to try a lee 452-230tc real soon as I've heard good reports on that one with aftermarket barrels. we shall see.

[Ben]

twc1964

Lee vs. Old BullX

If the nose profiles aren't IDENTICAL, the OAL of one and the OAL of the other have no bearing on one another.

Just because both are 230 gr. cast bullets means little.

[DougGuy]

One of my customers wanted to use the C452-255-RF in his G21 for .45 Super and I had to throat the barrel so he could get his OAL like he wanted.

[twc1964]

Ok guys, shot the batch at 1.230. Fed fine but 5.0 seems a bit warm as primers are starting to flatten a bit. may have to have some work done on the gun as I'm getting nicks on the rim and a scratch on case bodt near nick. extractor prob or just too warm of a load? i will get this gun shooting right before i pull my hair out....i don't have enuff to pull out.

[Tom W.]

Yeah...... I have a bunch of those loaded up. They didn't shoot worth a flip in my Glock, but they did well in my Ruger Black Hawk and my former Colt GM... Now I'm shooting all of them in my Black Hawk and will probably trade the mold for a LEE swc that shoots in the Glock.


And I did have to seat the bullets rather deep to feed in the Colt..

[twc1964]

I shot a batch today that was 1.230 with 4.5 grains of unique. damn accurate load. fed well and primers were not flattened. gotta go shoot these thru a chrono to check velocity. guess this will save me a bit of powder over my usual 6.0 load.

[twc1964]

Oh, forgot to sat that the tack driver load was fired thru the stock barrel. no leading at all. i still want to use the new bbl so I'm going to have somebody take a look at my setup and diagnose my problems as far as the case rims getting gouged and the scratch on the case body. til then i guess its the factory bbl.

[W.R.Buchanan]

TWC the problem is,,, That the chamber is tighter on the AM barrel. This alone will cause every problem you have had with this gun.

All of the AM barrel makers do this to gain some accuracy. However what they gain in accuracy, which is minimal, is lost in reliability. Obviously they also sell the conventional rifling that won't lead like the Glock barrel will right before it kills you in an atomic explosion. They are in the business of selling barrels. Glock is in the business of selling reliable handguns.

If you plan on using this gun for IDPA or Three Gun Shooting, you will find out quickly that the stages all seem to be the same number of targets for however many rounds you are allowed to load in each mag. This promotes accurate shooting and reliability of the gun. IE: it is designed to simulate a real life situation where a malfunction or missed shot might put you far enough behind the curve so as to get you killed.

One miss and you're screwed and will have to reload. However a malfunction will create the added frustration and the extra work of a malfunction clearance, followed by a premature reload. This serves to take your attention from the targets to running the gun.

A simple miss can be followed by a follow up shot which is nothing more than re-aiming and pulling the trigger. A malfunction requires you to completely re-establish your grip on the gun, after you have dealt with a magazine change and pocketing the stray mag since you can't just drop a mag with live rounds in it. Or in the best case a simple tap and rack, which still will take a second or two to accomplish.

My point here is reliability is key and a small gain of accuracy on the targets you will face is not going to be noticeable.

These games were designed to be played with stock guns.

Obviously your reloads will have to work properly, and 5 gr of Bullseye or 5.7 gr of W231 with a 230 gr ball style boolit will function properly in your gun over a wide variation of OAL with the stock barrel. 1.275" OAL is what I use. There are a bunch of other loads in the book that will work satisfactorily as well.

Good luck and I just know you're gonna figure this critter out. :mrgreen:

Randy

[twc1964]

W.R, i do realize that the chamber is tighter than the stock bbl. I'm just hard headed so i keep trying. i may at some point have the chamber opened up a bit on the kkm bbl. i know that many folks use the stock bbl for cast and that's fine, but i just want the piece of mind that i get from a bbl with standard rifling. my gun shot quite accurately with the stock bbl so opening up the chamber closer to stock dimensions would serve my purposes nicely. i don't shoot competitively, I'm just an old country boy trying to make it wprk and save a bit of cash over the precision delta fmj's i normally shoot. i like this forum because in situations like this, i can hace folks such as yourself bounce ideas around so i can make a fairly informed decision. thanks all for the bouncing. i will get my lee 452-230tc mold and try it out whether i use the stock set-up or kkn its all good for now.