.456 220gr in 45Acp

[sinwagon71]

Has anyone sized down .456 200gr using Lee mold and a lee sizer to run in 45acp was planning on powder coating and using Lyman #2 recipe

[gwpercle]

Sizing a boolit down from .456" to .452" will be a .004 " reduction and if you power coat the boolit you will need to size it down .006" ... you will need a strong sturdy press , a lot of muscle ... I'm not sure it's possible or shall we say practical to reduce a boolit that much.
What I would do ... is beg , borrow , steal or buy (if that's possible) a proper sized two cavity Lee mould made for the 45 acp like the Lee #452-200-SWC . You can powder coat or lube it as you wish and not have to size it down much at all .

I too have one 45 acp that will only chamber .451" sized boolits ... so when you buy a sizer get both .
Gary

[sinwagon71]

Thanks for the input I have a 452 mold just got this one in a batch of other molds and wondering if it was feasible being I am new to casting. I will probably just move this one along

[243winxb]

Down more than .003" may hurt accuracy? (Lyman said)

[Piedmont]

Sinwagon, I'm not familiar with that mold but have done this sort of thing lots of times. Nose first sizing (which the Lee kit does is best for this). If you are stuck with that alloy, size the bullets shortly after casting. They start to harden within the first day. If they are softer the sizing goes easier. I've never done the powder coating, but I would size the bullets without the coating shortly after casting and probably once again after I had powder coated them. Four thousandths shouldn't be too much to size them, especially if using a nose-first method as you are.

[sinwagon71]

Thanks for the info @piedmont I was considering cast-size-powder coat-size method, good news is i found another set of .452 dies on here from @axeman so will probably just use those and not worry about using these

[Conditor22]

Welcome to cast boolits.


Has anyone sized down .456 200gr using Lee mold and a lee sizer to run in 45acp was planning on powder coating and using Lyman #2 recipe

Lyman #2 is much harder than you need for 45 acp.

The basic rule is 1 BHN for every 100 FPS the boolit will be pushed, ad PC to the equation and you can lower the 100 FPS to 120 fps or more depending on the speed of powder and use of GC.
I would mix that Lyman #2 (15 bhn) 2/5 with pure (5 bhn) giving you 8.5 bhn

you can use case lube to help make sizing easier, also a lith polishing of the sizer helps also.

what .452 mold did you get? Some have smaller noses than others.

45 ACP chambers are all over the place for seating boolits, I have guns that will feed/chamber/shoot anything I put in them and others that I have to seat cast boolits really deep to function (if this is the case make sure you are not compressing the powder)

You can get the chamber throated to handle fatter PC'd boolits

[sinwagon71]

Welcome to cast boolits.



Lyman #2 is much harder than you need for 45 acp.

The basic rule is 1 BHN for every 100 FPS the boolit will be pushed, ad PC to the equation and you can lower the 100 FPS to 120 fps or more depending on the speed of powder and use of GC.
I would mix that Lyman #2 (15 bhn) 2/5 with pure (5 bhn) giving you 8.5 bhn

you can use case lube to help make sizing easier, also a lith polishing of the sizer helps also.

what .452 mold did you get? Some have smaller noses than others.

45 ACP chambers are all over the place for seating boolits, I have guns that will feed/chamber/shoot anything I put in them and others that I have to seat cast boolits really deep to function (if this is the case make sure you are not compressing the powder)

You can get the chamber throated to handle fatter PC'd boolits

Appreciate all the info I got the Rcbs 45-225-rn mold and I have some pure lead to bring the hardness down. I need to cast the chamber on the pistol to see what it is i have run some commercial cast through it with no issues but the more data points the better