A short story about loading .458s in my .454 Casull

[ThaDoubleJ]

Recently got some Redding dies for my .454, so I figured I'd do some casting and loading for it. Problem is, even a 300gr boolit is screaming fast from this thing, and being a cheap-o, I mostly only do Lee molds. Already have a 340gr .457 Lee mold though, figured I'd use that. They drop at .457 for me, and then I make a disaster out of Hi-Teking them and bring them to .458. Ran them through a Lee .457 sizer, then through the .454 sizer. Smeared them with 45/45/10 since the lube grooves wouldn't hold any TAC. Opened up the mouths, and in they went, no problem. I thought I was good... Redding though, had different ideas. Having the case mouth that large means the seating die actually closes it back up before the boolit hits the stem, so I was rewarded with a shaved coating/lead/lube slurry. Oddity number 2 is that there is no roll crimp in the Redding seating die. The set includes a profile crimp die instead. I've used that crimp die on my 500 mag, but it wasn't liking the mess I'd made. I got out my 45 Colt Lee FCD, and it worked fine, although it's more of a taper crimp. We'll see. My COAL is also wrong, the nose beyond the crimp groove on the 340s is way out there, 1.770" is max I think, I came in around 1.8xx something. Odd thing is, the ker-plunked right into my cylinders, and fell out under gravity.

Since there is no load data that I could find for this odd combo, I used Lyman's 325gr GC data with 4227, starting .2gr above the recommended starting load, and only went up .5gr. Only made ten of these nightmares. We'll see what happens.

Gonna need to round up a .452 sizer as well I think.

[runfiverun]

fill the lube groove before sizing them down.

[Harter66]

The 457-340 single I had dropped at .460 and 353 gr .

There is 454 data for 360,370&395 gr bullets from Hogdon ,IMR and Accurate . 4227 shows a start load of 21 and a max of 24 with an OAL 1.790 with a CPB LWFN GC 360 GR . Do confirm this plz .

[ThaDoubleJ]

Run, that's a good idea, although it seems the sizing mostly eliminated them, but I'll try it.

Harter, I'll double check those sources before I pull the trigger.

[JSnover]

Run, that's a good idea, although it seems the sizing mostly eliminated them, but I'll try it.

Harter, I'll double check those sources before I pull the trigger.
R5R is right. Sizing is just a matter of displacing metal and the easiest route was the squeeze the driving bands down until the grooves were almost gone. Having lube in them would provide support as the groove enters the die, causing the lead displacement to make place somewhere else (for the most part). The grooves will still shrink a bit but not as much as thy would if they were empty.

[ThaDoubleJ]

That makes sense, the lube would non compressible as a liquid. I'll give it a shot.

[runfiverun]

it works when I swage some of my boolits into different shapes.
the groove might get a bit thinner but it's still there.

[ThaDoubleJ]

I took these out and fired them today, fairly drama free to be honest, although I had something happen that I've not seen before. Velocities were in the 1050 to 1080 range, which seems slow to me. Starting charges left unburnt powder, but a half grain bump cleared that up. Cases were clean, primers round, ejection via gravity. Recoil was stout, but not full house. Here's the weird part:

180654

[depoloni]

Looks like that 45 Colt FCD die used the neck of your case to swage down the base of that bullet. Front part cleared the die, thus engaged the rifling.

[ThaDoubleJ]

That bullet didn't leave the barrel, I had to whack it back into the cylinder after it got halfway into the rifling and stopped from the pressure of the primer, which failed to ignite a single grain of powder for some reason. I've had a squib or two in my day, but I was the bonehead that forgot to charge the case, this one looks to have had plenty of powder available.

[depoloni]

Ah! Well, I humbly apologize. Mis-read the photo you posted it appears. I had the same thing happen with H110 using starting loads with a light-weight cast bullet (~115gr) in 357 mag once. Slow powders take a bit of pressure to properly burn, and the line between "full burn" and "burns for squat" is surprisingly small at times I guess.

[ThaDoubleJ]

I got no burn, that's the part that I can't figure out. That pile of powder is what I poured from the case after I got the cylinder open. It's still black and new, just like I poured it from the can.

I also just pulled a brush through the bore, and then several more, pulling out piles of powdered lead each time. It wasn't the normal leading I'm used to though. Usually you get the groove shaped smears, this was powder, and after about a dozen pulls through, the rifling looked sharp again.

When I cast these boolits, my mold got too hot, running too fast, and most of them picked up a crystal-like appearance, I think it's called frosted. Is this how frosted bullets lead barrels?

[dubber123]

I got no burn, that's the part that I can't figure out. That pile of powder is what I poured from the case after I got the cylinder open. It's still black and new, just like I poured it from the can.

I also just pulled a brush through the bore, and then several more, pulling out piles of powdered lead each time. It wasn't the normal leading I'm used to though. Usually you get the groove shaped smears, this was powder, and after about a dozen pulls through, the rifling looked sharp again.

When I cast these boolits, my mold got too hot, running too fast, and most of them picked up a crystal-like appearance, I think it's called frosted. Is this how frosted bullets lead barrels?

Not in my experience, myself and many others prefer an evenly frosted boolit. I'm thinking you may have been getting the deterrent off of the incorrectly burning powder in your loads perhaps?

[ThaDoubleJ]

That's possible, this was a new one for me, but it was pretty silvery. After I size and load these boolits properly, see what happens, and then I'll worry about it. Came out with about 10 pulls through, no biggie.

[Moonie]

I've got a nice 350gr mold from NOE for my 45 Colt.

[454PB]

I've had quite a few of those squibs in my .454's, but always when using slow burning ball powders. I've never used 4227 in my Casulls, but maybe it is subject to the same problems at "starting loads". Did you use a SR magnum primer?

I use that same boolit sized down to .452" and it works well.

[ThaDoubleJ]

I used Alcan Max-Fire primers. From what I could glean, they were considered magnums, but they're super soft. It had enough sauce to push that big fat boolit about 2/3 into the forcing cone I'd guess, got no idea why that powder didn't light though, definitely the weirdest personal reloading experience I've had to date.

[Doog-Meister]

I've seen the same thing in my SRH .454, using 27.0 gr, Win 296, 300 gr boolit with solid roll crimp, and CCI SR primers - but only in the fall/winter. Cooler than about 55 degrees air temp seems to result in about 30% mis-fires. Primer lights, but not enough oomph to torch the 296. Back of the powder is gold-colored, and boolit sticks in the forcing cone. Found that by keeping the box of cartridges in the cab of the truck until time to load (warmed by the sun - in the inside pocket seems to work also), they work fine. Switched to using SR Magnum primers, and no more problems at any temperature. Speer manuals all call for SP Magnum primers when using Win 296 in the 44 mag. Just have about 300 more rounds loaded with the SR primers to be use up. Keeping scrupulous notes helps.

[Artful]

I used Alcan Max-Fire primers. From what I could glean, they were considered magnums, but they're super soft. It had enough sauce to push that big fat boolit about 2/3 into the forcing cone I'd guess, got no idea why that powder didn't light though, definitely the weirdest personal reloading experience I've had to date.

Saw this in a friends 458 Mag - there wasn't enough crimp to hold it long enough so that the powder could ignite (though his powder turned to yellowish jell) once we got enough crimp and case tension it fired fine.