Leading in a Springfield XD 45

[mjwcaster]

So I have gotten a few casting and load testing sessions complete with my Springfield XD45, and I am getting some leading.

Lee 452-230-TC 2 cav (just added a set screw, can't wait to cast with it again).
Springfield XD45 full size.
Tumble lubed with White label 45-45-10.
Shooting as cast ~.454
Range lead, from both cast and jacketed bullets, Hardness- ?? can't scratch with thumb.

Loads (going from memory, I do not have my notes with me, so no one even think about using my posted numbers, please).

Loads-
OAL- ??? don't even want to guess
Blue Dot ~9.5 gr- Leads horribly, fills in the rifling. 2 test batches both the same result

Green Dot- Maybe 4.5gr? Slight leading after ~30 rounds.

My first test load (blue dot) I wasn't crimping enough, (didn't want to crush bullet) some feeding issues and shaving of lead, resulted in horrible leading in barrel.

Second test load (blue dot) was crimped enough, functioned fine, leaded like crazy.

Third test load (green dot) (second batch of cast boolits) functioned fine, leaded slightly.
Fired some of the blue dot loads after the green dot and started to fill in the rifling within 20 rounds.

I am planning on getting a sizer, guns functions fine, but extracting an unfired round is a little harder than normal.

I know the XD is notorious for short/tight throats and my look into throating it in the future.

Does any one think that sizing will help with my leading issue?
I plan on coating in the future, so I will need a sizer then anyway.
Fun money is extremely tight right now, so I want to spend it the best way I can right now.

So I can shoot the green dot loads right now and just have to clean out my barrel, but from this site I know that I can get this down to no leading.

Additional info-
Lubing- , added way too much on my first batch (lubed twice) and I think I still had more than enough with my second batch, the container I tumbled in was lubed well.
I heat the bullets with a heat gun and and heat the lube, so I get good coverage.

All measurement made with caliper (I know, mics are on my long wish list), but I verify with store bought bullets and I come up with the correct values, ie 9mm jacketed I get .355, 9mm lead-.356, sized 45-.452 and my own cast .454

I visually inspect all bullets and discard large parting lines along with other major defects.
I have weighed bullets after sorting and my weight is 234gr +-1.5gr or less variance.

Thanks,

Matt

[mjwcaster]

So I got a PM warning me about my BD Load.
Once again I do not have my notes or manual in front of me, but it was pulled from my Lyman manual and double checked against some other sources (online, for what it's worth, I wouldn't start online, but if it jives with the manual in front of me ...)

****Edit for correct info ***
Lyman 47th lists 225 gr LRN Blue Dot 7.5-10.7gr OAL 1.272
My load- 234gr actual Lee TC 9.0gr BD OAL 1.18
Corrected for the difference in bullet lengths, this difference in OAL still gives me about the same case capacity, best I could cipher it)
************

From memory (I will try to get my notes and manual later, haven't been home much lately)
BD for a 225 or 230gr lead 7.5-10.5 gr.

I started at 8gr and got tons of unburned powder, I mean point the barrel down and the white table was covered with powder (with some blue dots left, so I knew I had the right powder).
I may only be at 9.0 grs of BD, once again from memory, maybe I shouldn't have even posted load data until I had my notes.

Also mentioned was the weight of the boolits- from what I have read being a little heavy was nothing to worry about, 230gr advertised vs 234gr actual. Less than 2%
I even asked on here about it when I started casting and was told not to worry.

Also told to try shooting them as cast (and I gave my best measured dimensions then) by members here.

Any way feel free to offer advise, I welcome it.
And if I am doing something dangerous, please tell me.

Also please keep the discussion public, if I am doing something wrong, then maybe someone else can learn from my mistakes (those that don't have to pee on the electric fence themselves).

Thanks,

Matt

[mjwcaster]

And I would like to slug the barrel, but not going to bother until I get a set of mics.

Matt

[Cherokee]

Personally, I have used Bluedot with 230 TC CB's, years ago, around the same range as you noted. I decided the load generated too much slide velocity and would eventually batter the all steel 1911 I was shooting it in. Performance was good but that level was not required for my use and I did not want to have a short life for the 1911. I have an XDM 45 ACP 5.25" and use the Lee 230 TC with lube grooves and White Lable CR @ 452 size with ony tace leading I clean out after about 5-600 rounds. Slight leading only becomes a problem if it keeps building up as to affect accuracy. I know a lot of people like the TL and it works for them, I just prefer the conventional lube method. I would stick with the Green Dot loads and see how they do over time.

[prs]

I've pretty much given up on using tumble lube and variants. The stuff is marginal at best and really does not deserve that rating. NRA 50:50 seems superior and Felix lube better yet. No lube will be able to make-up for poor boolit fit or inappropriate hardness, or even a poor chamber to rifling leade.

prs

[pretzelxx]

Try out powder coat. Very cheap startup and works wonders in adding diameter. Sounds like a diameter issue with that much leading. Good luck!!

[mjwcaster]

I plan on getting into coating, still kicking myself for not picking up a toaster oven for $5 when I was hitting the thrift stores for casting supplies. Just didn't want any more junk around until I needed it.

In case anyone wonders why blue/green dot, they were the only thing that would work in pistols that I could find at a gun show a while back and I still haven't found anything better.

There are 2 things I do like about blue dot, it fills the case over half way, so easy to spot a double charge and the blue dots help identifying the powder to triple check that I have the right stuff.
I like idiot proof for everything but especially things that can kill you.

I need to go on a search soon, out of BD and LPP.

I don't want +P for all my shooting, but I would like to be able to load +P to duplicate Fed HST1 45acp that I carry.

Also I may be a little touched, but after all my research here I know that lead can be shot cleanly and I would like to achieve that before heading off to coating, just to be able to prove it to all the nay sayers, and myself.

I am going to go with a sizer first, since I will need it for coating, but I may still look at throating the barrel.

I know I could have it done, but once again I just need to be able to do it myself, so I will pick up the reamer sometime.

Thanks for the input.

Matt

[birddog]

Bullseye, Tightgroup, or WW231 would be a much better choice. And then I would look at fire lapping, every rifled barrel I have in the safe has been fire lapped. All shoot better than before and very few have liading issue unless I do something wrong.
Charlie

[True.grit]

Try softening your alloy. I found that the 45 likes BH of 7-8. I shoot a XD as well . My go to load is...
Lee 230gr tc with 45-10-10 sized to .452 with 4gr red dot. I use SWW with 1-2% tin. I powder coat all my boolets for other calibers exsept the 45. I also shoot it in a AR 45 as well. good luck, happy shooting

[mjwcaster]

Bullseye, Tightgroup, or WW231 would be a much better choice. And then I would look at fire lapping, every rifled barrel I have in the safe has been fire lapped. All shoot better than before and very few have liading issue unless I do something wrong.
Charlie

There are lots of better choices manufactured, but I haven't seen them.
Not that I have looked that hard, just picked up what I could when set up at the local fun show. Other times they didn't even have the Dot powders, nothing that would even work for pistols.
And as a vendor I get first pick before the doors open, it just didn't exist.

But I did find a $35 can of red dot at another show, and left it there.
That was the only thing in the entire show that could work in a pistol. This was a few months ago.

And the local reloading supplier has an even worse selection, as in no pistol powder they just laugh when I ask.

If I dedicated myself to the search I could probably find some other choices, but in my wanderings I haven't seen any pistol powder anywhere, even at a shop 300 miles away.

They may get some in, but never around when I am there.

Even the trap house manager at the my local gun club who brings in 100's of lbs of powder at a time (or at least used to) hasn't gotten his grubby mits on pistol powder for a long time.
Haven't checked in a few months, back then he said that he only splits what little he could get among the regulars but would hook me up if he could find something since I help the club out.
And it was- here is the powder I could find, can you use it.
Not like the old days of- I am making a run, just tell me what to bring back.
He was basically the reloading supplier for the entire gun club, all flavors, rifle, pistol and shotgun.

I know it is getting better, but still not great.

Matt

[454PB]

I suggest you try one of the traditional groove lubes rather than tumble lubes, that will cost very little. If you don't have a lubrisizer, you can smear it into the grooves with your fingers.......you won't need many for testing purposes.

I use that same boolit in my .45 ACP pistols, and it requires fairly deep seating for proper feeding/chambering. The fact that it's difficult to remove an unfired round makes me wonder if you are either not seating it deeply enough, or the boolit is simply oversize.

BlueDot is about my favorite multi-use powders, but marginally slow for .45 ACP. That may be why you're seeing unburned powder. If you are seating to the proper OAL for that Lee boolit, you are probably compressing the powder.

[rsrocket1]

I get zero leading and I mean none at all with my TL452-230-TC's unsized and TL'ed with 45/45/10 but it's all about the fit. Are you using a Lee FCD to "iron" out the case mouth flare or are you using a separate taper crimp die? Did you pull a bullet from a fully processed cartridge to make sure you haven't swaged down those bullets to a smaller diameter than your bore?

You really need to slug your bore and match the bullet properly to it's diameter (1-2 mils wider) and make sure a seated bullet has not been squeezed down either. Sometimes, you could be lucky and bump the bullet up (obturate) to groove diameter with enough chamber pressure, but with a slower powder like Blue Dot, there could still be a lot of gas cutting before the pressure builds up.

Green Dot builds pressure quicker than Blue Dot so you might be helping things there. Are you getting leading starting at the chamber side or the muzzle end? If you checked after each round you would probably see lead build up at the beginning of the bullet journey before it has a chance to seal the bore. Your load at 1.19" is about the max pressure for 45ACP so you don't want to increase the charge any higher. Pmax is right at .2" so it is right when the base of the bullet exits the case mouth. You won't have a better chance of bumping up the bullet than that.

Slugging your barrel will help. You should also slug just the chamber end of the barrel too so you can see what diameter boolit you need to get a good seal and still make it into the throat.

Powder Coating does help but ensuring a good bore seal is most important in preventing gas cutting.

[Walstr]

Ditto what rsrocket1 says. You don't know your bbl specs, you don't know your boolit composition/hardness, you don't know your test rounds velocities. Your answer lies between the lines of your known specs. Good luck & get scientific on it!

[fredj338]

I shoot range scrap in my XD45tac. I do size to 0.452" but also lube using several diff stick lubes. Leading only appears occasionally right at the throat. I use faster powders like WST or Red Dot or W231. vel from 750-900fps.

[ravelode]

I shoot range scrap in my XD45tac. I do size to 0.452" but also lube using several diff stick lubes. Leading only appears occasionally right at the throat. I use faster powders like WST or Red Dot or W231. vel from 750-900fps.
I have similar results in my .45 Tactical, I use Lee 200 round flat nose-casts 211 gr with range scrap. I load with 4.8 gr Titegroup. TAC1 lube sized .452 in my Lyman 450. Slight leading in front of the throat. I clean every 300 rounds with Choreboy on brass brush. Leaded way more for the first couple hundred rounds, now barrel is smoother after 5K rounds of cast.

[trixter]

With my XDm 45ACP I have been shooting range scrap, 4.2gr Bullseye, 200gr SWC (Lee TL 452 200 SWC) and have not seen any leading. I coat them with Lee Liquid Alox, run them through a Lee 452 sizer and lightly coat them again. I usually let them dry for 2 or 3 days and them store them in Costco nut jars, I just pull them out as needed. I have experienced no leading in 3+ years of using this formula.

[mjwcaster]

Thanks for the replies, glad to hear from some other XD shooters.

I have decided to get the sizer first, since I will need it when I start coating anyway.
Just not sure when.
Also I have read plenty of reports on people having success with .452 cast bullets in XD's.

I would still like to throat the barrel, because that sharp transition can't be good and I would like to be able to seat bullets out further if needed.
Right now I have had to seat shorter to get certain styles to fit.

I really believe that if there was a smoother entry into the rifling some of my issues would go away.
I may even be scraping all my lube off of the bullets driving portion (tumble lubed) even if not cutting some lead off.
I never thought of this before, I wonder if that is why some people have more luck than others with tumble lubing?

Maybe another reason to try out a few traditionally lubed, hmm.

As far as slugging the barrel, I would love to do that, but resources are scarce and I have no mics.
I guess I can give it a shot and measure with my calipers and then keep the slugs until I get access to some mics.
I have read all the stickies and have been reading on here for a couple of years, so I know the best way to go about this, and I will someday, but for right now just making do with what I have available.

Right now getting a casting of the chamber/throat would interest me much more than the barrel.

Why?
Well why do we slug the barrel?
So we can make sure we are shooting a bullet larger than the bore.
I am already trying to stuff the largest bullet down the bore that can chamber, so if slugging the barrel shows that I need something bigger than I am stuck.

It would be nice to have an idea how small I can size the bullets.

And as far as my hardness, well I will just wing it.
Maybe someday I will spring for the artist pencils.
From all the test reports on mixed range scrap that I have read, they all seem to fall in the same hardness range and people have good luck with them.
Really what is the chance that I have smelted something together that is far outside the norm?
And how precise will my hardness testing be, so what if my range scrap is a couple of points harder or softer than yours, I don't think I would be able to accurately test the difference.
And we are talking 45acp here, not rifles. It seems that anything harder than pure will work.
And can you go too hard, as long as it fits correctly?
Again it would be nice info to know, but I don't think the world will end if I don't have a number, at least for 45.

Well that is just a little more to explain my situation, thanks for all the suggestions.
While I am winging it, I am trying to make informed decisions as best I can with the resources available and concentrate on the largest problems first.

When I get ready to try my hand at casting for 9mm I will have to be better prepared.
Matt

[skizzums]

I gave up on trying to get a perfect alloy and lube and bullet fit etc. I would always get leading, especially in my sloppy barreled Taurus .357. I got the 9mm worked out pretty good as long as using .357 sized bullets. but now that I found tumble PC, I don't have those concerns anymore. It's less than 35$ to get set-up and I promise you will never look at any tumble lube again. I quit using lead altogether in my 300 BLK, it would liquefy the lead and deposit it all over my bolt and in my gas block, it would literally be dripping out around the gas-block. PC solved that problem too.

If you can't go buy the toaster oven, a container of BB's and a thing of cool-whip right now(nobody's that broke), your probably going to have to start hard-casting. But you need to run your bullets through a sizing dies for consistency, too big will lead just as much as too small, you'll have to find the size your gun likes.

[mjwcaster]

There have been enough reports of success with softer lead and range scrap in 45acp, I'm sure it can be done.
And even if I end up coating, I will keep playing with bare lead until I get it right on this gun.
It may take me a long time, but I just need to know that I can do it.

9mm may be another thing though, while I will play with bare lead a little, I am definitely planning on coating .

[Big Steve]

I use that bullet a lot in my XD 45 Tactical over Unique, almost zero leading. And whatis left in the bore cleans out extremely easy in thed XD. Much easier bore to clean all lead out than my 1911.

[JeffG]

Picked up an XD45 recently, using the Lee 452-230-TC with COWW and 2% tin and 50/50 lube. 6.4 grains SR 4756 and OAL = 1.190. Seems to like it, no leading and about 650 FPS average. Nice blaster.

[mjwcaster]

Wow, a blast from the past.
Guess I never updated this thread.

Turns out that the Lee 2 cav I have was out of round, figured it out as soon as I got a set of micrometers.

Once again, too small, even if on just a part of the boolit causes leading.

So I picked up a 6 cav version that started round and has stayed round.

I cast and shot at least 5k of the lee 452-230TC tumble lubed w/recluse last year, no leading.
Used several different powders, having picked up whatever I could during the shortages and using 45acp as a garbage disposal for whatever pistol powder I wanted to use up.

I went to the range today hoping to scrounge some range lead, but of course there were other shooters since it was such a nice day.

Did a little shooting with a shield, got bored of shooting at pieces of clays on the pistol range so I grabbed the XD and walked over to the rifle range. I had a couple of boxes of 45 in the range bag so I proceeded to try and hit some steel at 130yds from a rest.
I haven't done much long distance shooting with pistols, and the sights on the XD are not made for precision, the front sight covers the whole width of the large plate which is almost 2'x4'.

So take aim, cover the width of the plate from right to left and then hold just a little over the top.
It took me a while to get my hold over correct.
Best I did was 5/10 shots. But when I did hit the plate I was dead center.

Even hit the smaller swingers a couple of times.

Really could use a spotter, but at least the 45 is slow enough that I could fire and then look over the gun and see my impact.

All in all I was happy with my performance and wished I had grabbed some more 45 ammo.

I had wanted to play with my 38 on the rifle range, but I got the gun out of the safe, grabbed a coffee can has a bucket of ammo, and then left the gun at home.

And that is why I always try and take several guns/calibers to the range. And keep a few boxes of each caliber in my range bag. Even thought that as I was packing up, I had enough assortment that if I forgot something I would at least still shoot.
If I get done with work tomorrow early tomorrow I will head back out to play with some more long distance shooting.

[fredj338]

Alloy is not your problem, probably the lube failing. If the lead is all down the barrel, that is my guess. BD would never be my choice unless I wanted low pressure +P stuff. Medium burners work better for full power loads IMO. Even faster powders like RedDot, Bullseye & WST can get you full power equiv loads within std pressure limits. Cheaper to shoot too!

[JeffG]

My mold is a little out of round and upon sizing I can see it is not sizing a couple areas, but, there is no leading at all. COWW + 2% tin. I did need to go back and seat the rounds a little shorter, 1.180, so they are now consistently going into battery. .

[mjwcaster]

I am the op and just edited the first post to add solution.

This thread is from over 2 years ago when I started casting.

Solution in post 22.

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