1911 Alloy Question

[oldhenry]

Prior to joining this forum all of my casting has been for handgun boolits using COWW only.

Due to the hot summer weather here in the south, I do all of my casting in the winter & stock up as many as I can. I have used up all of my #068 stock & have enough #452374 to last a while longer.

I've updated all revolver boolits to the 50/50+2 alloy from info that I picked up on this forum.

Question: how does the 50/50+2 formula perform in the 1911? I realize the rifling is swallower & wonder if the softer alloy will be OK.

Thanks for any input.

Henry

[RobS]

You should be fine. I cast 45 auto hollow points from 60/40 (soft lead / WW) alloy and have no issues. I do size them larger to help with the swage of the boolit base upon seating in the case.

[tazman]

Should be fine if sized appropriately since the 45acp is not a high pressure cartridge.
I am using range scrap and it works fine.

[oscarflytyer]

all mine are COWW +2% tin. Worked great for me. as mentioned above, size is almost everything

[DougGuy]

50/50+2% works in anything. Use soft lube with it as well.. Never need to clean the bore.

[Bzcraig]

Yup, that's what I shoot in all my handguns

[gray wolf]

Very, small thread drift
whats your Best guess at what B H N 50/50 is,

[DougGuy]

Very, small thread drift
whats your Best guess at what B H N 50/50 is,

12 maybe? I can scratch it with a thumbnail.

[gray wolf]

Thanks Doug.

[RobS]

Very, small thread drift
whats your Best guess at what B H N 50/50 is,

On average, clip on WW alloy is around 12 BHN by it's self. I have had some older stuff be a bit harder and some of the newer a bit softer. I find my 60/40 (lead / Clip on WW) to be around 8ish BHN.

[Tatume]

An alloy of 49% lead, 49% clip-on wheel weights and 2% tin should have a hardness of 11 BHN.

[RobS]

An alloy of 49% lead, 49% clip-on wheel weights and 2% tin should have a hardness of 11 BHN.

and just 50/50 no tin?

[2011redrider]

My range scrap and ww 50-50 is about 10 after a week on the last batch of 45 ACP bullets.

[Nines&Twos]

While not a 1911, I have cast 230g rn for my FN-FNX Tactical from straight stick on weights and powder coated them. I can’t tell one bit of difference for standard loads.
Accurate and zero leading.
It really doesn’t take anything special to make a 45 acp work well.

[Char-Gar]

A couple of generations ago, the gun rags told us that due to the shallow rifling in the 1911 pistol, all cast bullets had to be as hard as an IRS Agent's heart. Of course I believed that to be true as that is what the Xperts said, so I cast my 45ACP bullets from Linotype. Shoot, even Elmer Keith said that was what to do and he was always right. Nobody would dare go against St. Elmer.

About 1964 or 65 Speer came out with soft swaged 200 grain H&G 68 clone bullets. I thought it strange they would sell soft bullet that everybody knew were no good in the 1911 pistol. But I bought a box anyway and to my astonishment they shot better than the Linotype and did not lead the barrel. I made it back down to the Texas Gun Clinic (Houston) and bought several thousand more.

The lesson behind this little story, is if you think you must have hard 45 bullets for 1911 pistol, you have been lied to. Somebody puts something in print or on the screen and it gets repeated over and over and over again until it is accepted as fact. There are many such erroneous facts floating about in the cast bullet world. Another one, is size rifle bullet to match the bore of your rifle, so you need to slug the bore.

[oldhenry]

Thanks to all for the response.

This is a great forum.

Henry

[Tatume]

An alloy of 49% lead, 49% clip-on wheel weights and 2% tin should have a hardness of 11 BHN.


and just 50/50 no tin?

My alloy calculator says 50/50 lead/COWW should have a hardness of 10 BHN. I've checked the alloy calculator many times, and it is always very close to my measured hardness. It is so consistent that I don't bother checking anymore unless the alloy is unknown to me.

If you would like a copy of the alloy spreadsheet just PM your email address to me. It came from this forum, but I can't find it anymore.

Take care, Tom

[dubber123]

My alloy calculator says 50/50 lead/COWW should have a hardness of 10 BHN. I've checked the allow calculator many times, and it is always very close to my measured hardness. It is so consistent that I don't bother checking anymore unless the alloy is unknown to me.

If you would like a copy of the alloy spreadsheet just PM your email address to me. It came from this forum, but I can't find it anymore.

Take care, Tom

Per an LBT tester, I get 9 BHN for 50/50, so pretty close, and as most here seem to agree, plenty hard for 45 ACP.

[reddog81]

COWW hardness can vary. I get mine from a shop that does semi tires and there's a huge difference in hardness from the little .25 ounce ones and the giant 4 ounce ones. Some of the big ones can be scratched by a finger nail, while I have to smack some of the smaller ones with a hammer to see if they deform.

The large ones are pretty close to pure lead and some of be smaller ones are closer to 18 BNH or maybe even higher One persons mix can vary significantly from the next.

[oldhenry]

Reddog81,

Good food for thought. I have 2 COWW supply sources: 1 is a mix of passenger car types & heavy truck types. The other source: my next door neighbor manages a HD truck tire shop (all are big weights). Lately my neighbors contributions are about 50/50 COWW & SOWW (the popularity of alloy wheels seems to increase proportion of SOWW).

Henry

[Petrol & Powder]

You have a GOOD neighbor !

[LAH]

I am using range scrap and it works fine.

Like Char-Gar I once used hard stuff for my one 45. Now like tazman I shoot a lot a range scrap in my 45.

[nicholst55]

I can recall being involved in a couple of 'spirited discussions' on other forums about the necessary hardness for .45 ACP boolits. A lot of people still believe they have to be harder than woodpecker lips! When I asked the other participant(s) why so many millions of swaged lead boolits had been loaded and shot in 1911s with perfect satisfaction and no leading over the decades, they all got kind of quiet!

[salvadore]

The swaged loads in my lw commander were pretty filthy, but in my rough barreled 1917 were a disaster.