New member witha problem....

[AJH]

First off, all I can say is .. WOW ! the amount of info on this site is amazing. I've been lurking here for a couple months and finally decided to join. I've been casting for a little while now and things have been great. Although according to my wife I should have took up snorting crack as it would have been cheaper.:-P

However, I ran into a problem with a new mold. It is the Lee 452-200-rf. First thing is all my other molds drop bullets within 1-5 grains of the advertized weight. This new 45 mold is dropping at 19 over !! Not much of a problem really but, when I setup my dies I had to set the seating depth at 1.14 to even get them to headspace correctly in my 1911. Any longer than that and the will get "stuck". I am assuming that the throat of my barrel is tight and is holding the bullet because when you do get the cartridge out it has a ring on the bullet. At this seating depth I am afraid that the pressure is going to be too hight right off the bat.

I guess what I need to know is with the combination of the mold being so much heavier than it should be, and the short seating depth; what is the first thought ?Bad mold ? Or just start with reduced load and work up.

Sorry for being long winded, but figured I needed to explain what is going on. Thanks for everything.

[Bill*]

How big are the boolits? .452? or fatter?
Oh Yeah.......Welcome to the site :mrgreen:

[AJH]

How big are the boolits? .452? or fatter?
Oh Yeah.......Welcome to the site :mrgreen:

Thanks !

Straight out of the mold they measure .453-.454. The barrel slugged out at .4495-.4498 measured with a known good set of mics. SO i have them sized right now at 451, more for concentricity than anything else.

[1Shirt]

It has been my experiance with a large percentage of Lee molds that they cast more than a little bit heavier than advertized. Doesn't bother me however, as I kinda like heavier blts.
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[lylejb]

The barrel slugged out at .4495-.4498 :shock:

Are you SURE about that? Is that the groove dia. (largest OD of the slug) or the bore dia. ( inside the grooves in the slug) ?

normally, groove dia on a 45 acp is more like .451 or .452. While not impossible, .449 would be tight. If so, This may be contributing to your problem.

A while back, I started a thread on that very mould for a 1911. The general concensus was that some 1911's were fine with this boolit, some would not feed it, and your just going to have to start low and work up a load that works for your individual gun.

I still like the look of that boolit, but have held off on buying the mold. I'm chicken about buying a mould on a maybe

[putteral]

MY mold does about the same as yours . Mine drop out at 210 grs. Size mine to .452. I have to seat mine to 1.15 to fit properly in my P220, 24/7 Pro and Charles Daly EFS. Never had any leading ever.

[AJH]

:shock:

Are you SURE about that? Is that the groove dia. (largest OD of the slug) or the bore dia. ( inside the grooves in the slug) ?



This caught me by surprise too. I slugged the barrel 3 different times thinking I screwed it up somehow. Each time I got the same measurement. I even tried getting the calipers in the muzzle between the lands to verify. This gun is used but new to me and I am new to the 1911 platform. Having come from all Glock to this I thought it was somewhat normal to have tighter tolerances... guess I was wrong about that. It does appear to have an aftermarket barrel, but I don't know the manufacturer.

I have noticed that some of the lighter practices loads I had worked up for other guns seem to be a little tight in this gun. I figured on working up a load from the min but with having to seat the bullet so deeply it has me a little leary.

[Bass Ackward]

You may or may not have a problem or see any difference. But how will you know? Answer is that you won't.

I had two revolvers with .449 and change. Both used that slug at .452. One was right where the manual said it should be and one was almost 100 fps faster with the same batch of ammo. What does that tell ya? Both have now cleaned up and are within a few feet of each other.

The simple thing is to start low and come up. I would also start with a slower powder that will have more margin for error like Unique before I went to the blazing stuff.

But I would advise EXACTLY the same thing even if you thought everything was ideal simply because it is a new to you gun.

[XWrench3]

i think ALL of my lee boolits have to be seated deeper than jacketed bullets. i suspect it is in the design of the molds. it took me a while to figure it out, but now that i know where to set all of them, it is no big deal. as far as jamming / overpressure, you are probably correct. of course, that depends on the load. but i can tell you from experience, that slaming the bolt (slide) home after every round is a royal p.i.t.a.! i did it twice (two different guns/calibers), because it was to far to go home to get replacement rounds, and i really wanted o shoot. and they were starting loads, and i was not to worried about pressure. after the second time, i made certain to chamber 4 or 5 from any new loads i try. now, i have it figured out, andi have a seperate oal chart for all my lee boolits. other than that, welcome to the site, glad to have you. cast like it is going out of style, and shoot like there is going to be no tomorrow!

[AJH]

Well, I think I'm going to load up a few a hair under the min just to play it safe. Then work my way up from there. I got a couple pounds of Unique so I may just try that.

Thanks for all your help !!

[MtGun44]

You sound like you have it figured out as far as needing to seat deeper due to short throat
and tight bore. If you need to seat a tad deeper, most of the time a small adjustment is
pretty irrelavant - you always need to start low and work up. If you are seating a lot deeper
than normal, then back off your starting load a bit more and give it a try. Just remember that
if you are getting normal velocities you are getting normal pressures. Folks somehow want
to believe in a magic barrel that will produce higher velocities with the same pressures. To
a small extent this is possible with a smooth barrel, but basically (comparing cast to cast and
jacketed to jacketed, since the friction of the two types is very different) you need to stop
at the point when your gun produces the book max velocity because you can pretty much
bet you are also at the max pressure, too.

People would love to believe in free velocity - but all velocity comes from pressure.

Welcome to the site and take care.

Bill