45 acp leading issues would like opinions on possible remedies

[Strtspdlx]

My load data*
s&w m&p 45 acp 4.5" barrel
bullets are Lee mold 452-230-tc as cast no sizing
lead is approximately 95% coww >1% tin give or take a little. Not water dropped. They're weighing in around 240gn.
Oal in the book calls for 1.230 which does not pass the plunk test. I have to seat to 1.176 to pass plunk test.
Accurate #7 is the powder I have. I may try to get ahold of some unique or bullseye if money allows (buying my first home). I loaded 10 rounds in above format with 10gn and 10 more with 10.5gn. They felt really hard hitting and leaded the last 1.5" of the barrel after only 10 shots. The 10.5 I mixed in with Fmj ammo as it would lock the slide back after each shot with any of my three magazines and my fingers now there near the slide release. All my loads shot between 3-8" low with the higher powered load shooting lowest. Someone told me if you velocity is really high it will shoot low, is this true? So here's my main question. I want to make these bullets work I was going to either cut the charge down to between 6-9gn which is have to test to see what works best. Or should I be looking at my alloy? Also lube is liquid Alox. Which I may have not put enough on initially. I lubed more recently with three coats and I can now see a ring in the grooves of lube. I know I'm missing a lot, if you need more info please let me know so I can give it to you. My load data says at their specs my fps should be 979fps. Also if there's any casters local to southern New Jersey that wouldn't mind me picking their brain please let me know. I'd definetely love to get these working and I haven't even started on my wife's glock22 yet.

[I'll Make Mine]

The biggest reason for leading is undersize boolits; gas blowby melts the lead which then deposits inside the (relatively) cool barrel. First, slug your bore. Then, if your boolits aren't dropping at least .001" larger than groove diameter, look into beagling or leementing to add a thousandth or two to your as-cast size (sometimes, especially with aluminum molds, you can just run the mold hotter and/or the melt a little cooler and gain that much, or get it by changing alloy). You don't want to exceed groove plus .002", but if you're seeing leading, you aren't getting that.

[Shiloh]

What is the measurement diameter as cast?? Need more info. What does the bore slug at?? have you slugged it??
Mine are sized at .4524. I also uses pretty much range scrap for lower velocity 38's and .45 ACP. About 825 fps. for the .45
No issues at all.


Shiloh

[Strtspdlx]

As cast they're dropping anywhere from .4523-.4529 the bore slugs at .4520 I wonder if this may be a good candidate for p/c. I'm not all that good at casting just started about 2-3 months ago and these are my first loads. When I slug the barrel it seems to have a good seal on the rear drive band and the front one isn't bad. But on the rear band you can see the rifling and even on the lube grooves. And the lube grooves are very lightly flattened from the grooves of the barrel. Also does the charge worry anyone for how much more I have to seat the bullet?

[243winxb]

Reduce the powder charge and dont mix lead with jacketed while shooting. Lube needs to condition the barrel.

[bullet maker 57]

Try a little softer alloy. Sometimes that helps.

[runfiverun]

try 9grs.
lube size lube.

[Strtspdlx]

Just tried 9grs. Significantly better. Still a light coat of lead after 5 bullets. I just made 5 more in 8grs so we'll see how that goes. It's still way low. But the gun feels like it should at 9grs. I'm hoping 8 will be close to the sweet spot. I think I'm going to buy a 200gr mold and see if I can't get those to work. I've never shot anything except 230gr so I don't know what else this gun likes.

[Strtspdlx]

Reduce the powder charge and dont mix lead with jacketed while shooting. Lube needs to condition the barrel.
is there a specific reason not to
Mix lead with jacketed? I did it just to keep the barrel clean. One shot leads jacketed would clean out that lead. And I had 7-8 left to shoot and didn't want to leave them sitting around as I don't have a bullet puller yet.

Edit: sorry for the sideways picture. I don't know why it uploaded that way.

[jcren]

That is a good bullet for 230. Lead may be a bit hard, cut it with a little pure is you can. Size is king, especially when pushing that much velocity, try to get them to drop a little bigger, .453-.454 if you are slugging .452. Pull a bullet that has been loaded and he sure your dies or process is not squeezing it down, you may be surprised to find a bullet .451 or smaller if you aren't flaring enough, or you may be scraping lube off during loading.
Btw, more is less with alox. Too much won't make it lead, but all you need is a barely there film.

[Strtspdlx]

That is a good bullet for 230. Lead may be a bit hard, cut it with a little pure is you can. Size is king, especially when pushing that much velocity, try to get them to drop a little bigger, .453-.454 if you are slugging .452. Pull a bullet that has been loaded and he sure your dies or process is not squeezing it down, you may be surprised to find a bullet .451 or smaller if you aren't flaring enough, or you may be scraping lube off during loading.
Btw, more is less with alox. Too much won't make it lead, but all you need is a barely there film.
im glad you said that about the Alox. I felt like I didn't get enough the first batch. Does the attached photo look like the correct amount? How can I get them to drop bigger? And I need to source some pure lead I don't have any. I have a few pieces but not enough to mix a batch. I can scratch these boolits with my thumbnail after 2-3 weeks aging

[Tom W.]

With LLA just a light coat is best. You might want to try lubing with Johnson's Paste wax. Tumble lube , let dry and see if the leading stops.

[Strtspdlx]

I think 8gr was the magic load. Shot 5 all hot poa poi. Light lead on the rifling like with Fmj. I'm going to load 50 and see how that goes. If it goes well I'll load 50 more. Gun felt really good with this load. I'm excited now.

[Strtspdlx]

With LLA just a light coat is best. You might want to try lubing with Johnson's Paste wax. Tumble lube , let dry and see if the leading stops.
I can get Johnsons paste wax at one of the big box stores? Or am I thinking of Johnsons car wax paste. I'm willing to give anything a try. Heck I'm shooting boolits I cast so why not?

[turtlezx]

Ive found jpw at LOWES
most stores dont carry it in ny
should be mixed with lla 45-45-10
whole post on mixing that stuff

[243winxb]

.4523-.4529 the bore slugs at .4520 Diameter looks OK to me. More pure will make the diameter smaller and bullet softer. Not the way i would go. Adding linotype that contains antimony will make a larger/harder diameter bullet as it drops from the mold. This i would do.

[jcren]

When you said wheel weights, are they all clip-on? Usually straight clip-on are harder than that. Try running your melt cooler and the mold hotter to get a little bigger bullet, right at the point of frosting should get you a thousandth or so. You can also lap or beagle the mold (search box at top right) which has my 230 tc droppin a hair over .453. Anyway, those still have more than enough alox on them, and Johnson's is available in the floor cleaning supplies most places around here. It is a thick carnuba past wax for floors.

[Strtspdlx]

When you said wheel weights, are they all clip-on? Usually straight clip-on are harder than that. Try running your melt cooler and the mold hotter to get a little bigger bullet, right at the point of frosting should get you a thousandth or so. You can also lap or beagle the mold (search box at top right) which has my 230 tc droppin a hair over .453. Anyway, those still have more than enough alox on them, and Johnson's is available in the floor cleaning supplies most places around here. It is a thick carnuba past wax for floors.
the majority is coww. I was ignorant when I started and mixing coww with soww but it may have been about 3-5 pounds of the 120 pounds I got from wheel weights. I know better now to sort them and melt them down seperately. But what's done is done. I may try somehow getting these boolits a bit larger. I think it would help a little. It's funny though if I run them through a .451 sizer I have the drive bands and lube grooves really flatten out. But I haven't sized any of them aside from 2-3 to make dummies for plunk testing.
I think my 8gn load got it. I just loaded 50 to shoot tomorrow so hopefully I'll have good news. Otherwise im going to have to slow it down more. I really need a thermometer and a chronograph. It would take a lot of the guess work put
of what im doing now.

[runfiverun]

never mind the 451 diameter get to 452 or slightly larger. [as in don't size]
if you have a 452 barrel then 453 would be more appropriate.
I think your on the right track you just need a little more time to think things through a bit.

if your getting some copper streaking and some lead streaking in the same place you have a gun problem not a boolit problem.
I wouldn't worry about a sliver of lead along a land as long as it don't build up or start stringing out the barrel.

[Strtspdlx]

never mind the 451 diameter get to 452 or slightly larger. [as in don't size]
if you have a 452 barrel then 453 would be more appropriate.
I think your on the right track you just need a little more time to think things through a bit.

if your getting some copper streaking and some lead streaking in the same place you have a gun problem not a boolit problem.
I wouldn't worry about a sliver of lead along a land as long as it don't build up or start stringing out the barrel.
the copper streaking is what I thought was normal to have in the center of the lands of the rifling. Every gun I've ever shot or owned had similar copper streaks there so I never worried about it.

[Tom W.]

Believe it or not I've never mixed the JPW with anything. Just used it straight and have excellent results.

[David2011]

Cartridge OAL with the .45 ACP is highly dependent on the boolit style. The published max OAL is only valid for the John Browning bullet profile. Look at a 1911 magazine with FMJ in it and it's real obvious why. A hard cornered boolit like your TC or a SWC seated to max OAL won't fit in the magazine because those corners would fall outside the radius of the magazine. With the TC the full boolit diameter will hit the leade/rifling and cause it to stop before going completely into the chamber. The ones you posted in post #9 look fine. Did they chamber OK?

I agree with Runfiverun that if copper and lead are both depositing at the same place there might be a problem with the barrel.

Your load of 979 fps is pretty stout. Factory FMJ 230 gr should chrono around 850 fps. Slower as you have seen may help.

Boolit fit is king to prevent leading. You might try cleaning the barrel and fire just one round. Check for leading. Shoot for a while and see if it gets worse. If not, it's not serious. If it rapidly gets worse there is a problem.

Someone local would be nice but you have a huge amount of experience available for you from all over the world.

Good luck!
David

[HangFireW8]

Make sure you're not sizing the bullet down in the seating/crimping stages. Pull a few with an inertial puller and measure. If so, you'll need less crimp or a deeper/wider expander. One from a 45 Colt die set, or the Lyman M die, would be an improvement over the simple flare-the-mouth type you get with most 45ACP die sets. Those are fine for jacketed only.

[Silverboolit]

Try loading them as cast with no sizing. LEE tumble grooves should work just fine as cast and lube with LLA. What do the as cast boolits measure for diameter?

[Strtspdlx]

As cast is .4523-.4529. I may try opening up this mold at some point possibly

[mjwcaster]

What are you using to measure the Boolits?
I had the same issue with a 2 cavity Lee 453-230.
Measured with calipers and they seemed fine.
Finally broke down and got a micrometer and found they were out of round at the parting line, undersize on one side, oversize on the other, mold halves out of alignment.
A 6 cavity replacement cast round Boolits that work fine, no leading even in glocks.
Fit is king, and you just cannot get an accurate enough measurement with calipers.

[Strtspdlx]

I have a set of mitutoyo micrometers that read in ten thousandths as my measurements have noted. I will say it does drop some odd shapes sometimes which I think is more temps then it is molds. But I will double check alignment. I don't think this particular cast boolit is going to work in this gun so im trying to find a different mold to try out. I have one failure to feed in less then 15 rounds. The other 35 went fine. Which may have been my fault for incorrect crimp if you can call it that. I need to buy a taper crimp die however I'm heavily considering switching solely to 40 s&w. Shot 100 rounds through my wife's glock and didn't clean the barrel and it looks as good as it does after it's cleaned.

[HangFireW8]

Fit is king, and you just cannot get an accurate enough measurement with calipers.

Please, ENOUGH with the mis-information. Perhaps YOU cannot get an accurate enough measurement with calipers. It is all about technique. Zero, check with a standard, measure across the center, same tension, check each dimension 3 times.

If you can't get it right with a dial caliper, chances are good you won't with a micrometer.

For me, dial calipers make some measurements possible that my Mitutoyo, B&S and Starrett's cannot, and I have pipe and blade, out to 1/10K. All have a use. For reloading, dial calipers do 99% of my measuring work.

[wistlepig1]

I can get Johnsons paste wax at one of the big box stores? Or am I thinking of Johnsons car wax paste. I'm willing to give anything a try. Heck I'm shooting boolits I cast so why not?

Lowes is were I find JPW, it is in the painting supplies at my store. Look for a bright yellow can or ask the clerk in Paint section.
Hope that helps