In the beginning there was lead(ing)

[Jack Stanley]

I think I have my bullet mold problems straightened out unless the leading now is because of bullet design . The mold is a 452374 Lyman that drops a bullet from both cavities the measure .4528" to about .456" . The sizing die I have makes them nice and round at .4522" maybe just a touch larger .

The lube is Javelina fifty-fifty that has worked well for lots of other calibers at velocities beyond where I'm at now .

The gun is a Springfield INC. 1911 chambered in .45 ACP , it has shot thousands of other lead bullets with no leading for thousands of rounds .

The powder is SMP-231 that is supposed to be like or at least similar to HP-38 and Winchester 231 . Winchester large pistol primers and take your pick with cases , it will lead using anything . Powder charges have been four point seven to five point three grains of powder . I even tried four point seven grains of Bullseye and still got leading .

The leading is confined to the beginning of the rifling and the front of the barrel is clean with no evidence of leading at all . In fact it will leave the muzzle with a grease star or at least moist with lube . Accuracy at least for the twenty rounds I've used in every test is good , at least as good as I expect hardball to be . I'm just afraid to continue because I don't want to clean still more leading .


Now fellas , I have a flat nose mold that drops a little heavier bullet that wasn't this much trouble to housebreak . Is there a trick to loading these standard Lyman round nose bullets ? If it was an issue of fit I could understand it leading by the chamber but the other bullets were sized the same with the same lube and didn't lead at all . Bearing length to short maybe ? Overall cartridge length is 1.270 using a taper crimp and bullet hardness is twelve brinell using half lino and wheel weights .

Thanks for any help , Jack

[bhn22]

I've had 4 of those moulds, and had a miserable time with all but one. My issues seemed to revolve around the bullet being undersized ahead of the grease groove. They were all okay at the base. Only one worked well for me. I normally cast with two identical 2 cavity moulds at a time, but couldn't get two out of the four to work for me, so I gave up, and bought an LBT mould for 45 ACP that behaves itself. If it helps, these may be some NOE 45 ACP round nose moulds left in the vendors section. They look like they'd work well. I feel the bearing area is so short on the Lyman that it allows no margin for error, and that it may be too easy to seat the bullets slightly crooked and never realize it. I'm sure the next post will be by someone who's cast tens of thousands of 452374 without incident.

[mooman76]

I would either go with a softer alloy or harder lube or both. You don't need a hard boolit for 45acp, straight WWs should be fine. Sounds like your boolit is getting bumped up to size but not right off.

[9.3X62AL]

Taper crimp dies are a tool of the devil. And expander spuds like the one in my RCBS die set (.447") are similarly diabolical. Either or both can potentially down-size your boolit through too-small case mouths or over-application of taper crimp.

#452374 doesn't have a whole lot of full-caliber engagement surface anyway, so it would be relatively easy for either or both of these items to be shrinking your boolits. The taper crimp die can REALLY downsize things if the crimp is applied at the same time the boolit is seated. If you must taper-crimp with a cast boolit, do it as a seperate die step after the boolit is fully seated.

Die sets and their instructions "assume" use of jacketed bullets, esp. autopistol caliber sets. I combined a .449" expander plug (from a 45 Colt die set) with .452" boolits to good effect, and am lucky enough to have an old-school seater die in my 45 ACP set that is a roll-crimp type. I set the roll-crimp shoulder to just straighten the case mouth flare out, AND THAT'S ALL.

[Jack Stanley]

I'm loading on Dillon dies and I can back off the taper crimp a little more if needed . A roll crimp ... I don't think I own one . I can go check the size of the bullets forward of the groove and make sure it's aboove .452" . I could pull out the expander funnel and see what it measures at , hard telling what Dillon makes them at

Changing the alloy would be easy enough , how soft dare I make it to work with the charge listed or close ? I would after all like this stuff to simulate hardball , I can change back to LBT blue but it may not be easy . The LBT is in the lube-a-matic with a .451" die and the alox is in the Star with a .452" die

I hate to keep fooling with it if it's isn't gonna work for me , I've got some of Verals molds and I like them a great deal . If I can't get this thing together perhaps either a LBT or a used Hensley & Gibbs number thirty-four . Of course the cheap way would be to try some of the commercial casters offerings . I'd hoped to get a mold that would work well so I wouldn't have to buy a few thousand commercial bullets .



Just a thought , I don't have a round nose punch for the Star so I adjusted bullets to go through nose first . I wonder if there is a slight "wire-edge" left on the slugs that may be getting plastered onto the barrel . The other bullets I send through the Star all go base first and I never have a problem .

Jack

[dubber123]

Jack, I shot 1 match with boolits cast of 50/50 WW-Pure in my Springfield 1911. I didn't notice a huge difference from ACWW, but if anything, I thought the softer boolits may have been a touch cleaner. The load is a 230 RN @ 850 fps. Might be worth a try.

[Jack Stanley]

After getting my chores done today I can get after looking into the suggestions everyone has made . I'm thinking there might be something to the idea that the forward band might be small and not lining up the bullet right . I dunno , I'll have to check it out .

It would be nice to run this with a softer alloy , linotype isn't something I have a lot of .

Jack

[casterofboolits]

I got lucky and talked a buddy out of a four cavity 452374 mould that sizes as much above the grease groove as below the grease groove. I seat the upper sized area even with the case mouth and apply a .001 per side taper crimp. This is an extremly accurate boolit over 5.4 grains of 231 and was my standard IPSC load until switching to 200 grain H&G 68 and then to a 185 grain H&G #68.

Being naive, I purchased a second Lyman four cavity 452374 mould thinking it would be the same. OOPS! The second mould just barely sizes the bottom band at 452 and drops a full five grains lighter than the old mould!

One of my planned projects is to use boolits from the old mould to lap the cavities of the new mould in an attempt improve the new mould.

Other wise, I'll just stick with H&G #34's moulds made for the Magma Master caster or a six cavity H&G #519 which drops 220 grains with my alloy.

Lyman needs to revamp thier cherries and match my old mould. I've had that mould for 25 years, my buddy had it for 10 years and he bought it used

[376Steyr]

Maybe your bullet alloy doesn't like "fast" powders like the SMP-231 and Bullseye you used? If I had a bunch of boolits already cast, I'd try a moderate load using Unique or Universal Clays before recycling the lot.

[Jack Stanley]

I measured the forward band and it is the same as the base band . The bearing surface , including the groove is about .312" or so . Bullet length is somewhere over .600" , I forgot just what it was but the bands are a bit less than half the bullet length .

I could try some Universal Clays before I toss the idea of this mold . If I want to spend the time I could lap the front band a bit more but I don't think I have the ability to make it look like the band of a Hensley & Gibbs number thirty-four . Jut how much bearing length does a slug like this need to be straight and not lead a barrel .

Jack

[Jack Stanley]

I got some progress here I think . Before melting down the little pile of bullets that were fourteen brinell on my LBT tool I decided to load them . I didn't size them at all , just put a dribble of liquid Alox on them and rustled them around and let them dry a little . Later , I put almost the same amount of Johnson's paste Wax on them and rustled them up again and let them dry overnight .

The next day , I used a LEE .7cc scoop and Universal clays , bullets were seated to a over all length of 1.270" a rather stiff load I do say . It still leaded the barrel but not as bad , but it did leave streaks from breach to muzzle .

Those bullets all gone I changeed the alloy a bit , I was able to fit five pounds of pure lead into the Pro-melt and flux it well . That took the hardness from fourteen to just over ten . I tried a few of those with the 231 load again and there was a bit less lead and it was easier to brush out this time .

Casterofboolits suggested the front band wasn't long enough and since the mold wasn't impressing me . I began to think about the drilling hammer in the next room and "adjusting" the mold with that . Before things got that crazy though I thought I would lap it again and try to concentrate on the front band . A lathe would really have been a better choice here but since I didn't have one I reached for the jar of LBT lapping compound yet again .

Trying to concentrate with a paste is almost a lost cause but , oddly enough as it got everywhere . It did open the cavities equally and it did increase the size of the front band a little . How much you ask ? Well I didn't measure the length but compared to the base band after sizing , they look about the same .


I made up a few rounds to shoot and this time I backed off the taper crimp as 9.3x62AL suggested . While the case was belled it measured about .485" or there abouts depending on case length . After taper crimping the mouth measures .472" and they still slide into the chamber of the pistol . I took the twenty rounds out to shoot and they all hit the targets as long as I didn't mess up .

Inspecting the barrel showed that leading was much less than it had been . So somewhere between increasing the diameter of the mold , lengthening the front band and easing up the taper crimp I got some positive results . I noticed my cartridge length was different that some others so I made double certain the charge weight was still 5.3 grains of 231 and seated the bullets deeper . Twenty thousanths deeper to be exact for an overall length of 1.250 which put the front of the case just at or ahead of the sized portion of the bullet . Thinking that if there was an effect of crimp that might ease it up a little more . Also making a smaller combustion area that would bump pressure a bit and I could see if softer lead still might be the way to go .

I had an SR1 target on the range and the bench was thirty yards out so I sat down and tried to do as best as my limited capacity allows . I had one shot in the seven ring ( barely ) three in the eight ring and the rest were in the black . Cleaning the barrel showed only a little lead . Now these bullets are softer , about ten brinell , wallowed in a little paste wax then run nose first through my Star since I don't have a proper nose punch . They came out with a nice ring of Alox in the groove and sized to .4522" and round ( which is more than I can say for the mold :roll:) .

I loaded up another thirty or so of those bullets for tomorrows test and I have some cases cleaning in the polisher so I have a couple things to do tomorrow . I don't know how much this load is depending on the paste wax but I would like to reduce or eliminate that step . Reason is I think some of what I think is leading may be wax residue , not that it's a big deal though . Maybe if I make the alloy softer the leading will clear up completely and I can shoot hundreds of rounds wihout it at all .

Thanks for your input and bearing with me on this .

Jack

[dubber123]

Sounds like progress in the right direction. My Springfield barrel did smooth up a bit after it had some rounds down the tube. Their idea of "Match Grade" for a barrel doesn't exactly match mine... Mine prolly has several thousand down the barrel since it was last brushed out. I generally clean the chamber and leave the bore alone. Keep us updated.

[gray wolf]

Eric at hollow point molds can fix your mold for a modest price.
My mold of the same # 452374 cast a .454 base band with a much smaller front band.
Before I got educated I sized them .451 and got horrible leading in the first 1 1/2 " of the barrel. As soon as I started sizing to .453 all the leading disappeared, all of it. Now it is a very accurate bullet seated to 1.265 and 4 grains of Bulls Eye. I have since adjusted my alloy a little and lapped the mold a little, now I get a little sizing on the front band.
I get no leading with Tite group, long shot, and the B/E.
Almost any decent lube will work with a 45 ACP --so fit is the winner.
I understand all the changes you are trying, but fit is the answer IMHO.

Sam

[Jack Stanley]

I thought about sending it to him to fix what Lyman should have done right in the first place . But then I thought , " I'll just adjust this little thing " and before ya knew it I had adjusted the pins three or four times and lapped both cavities twice .

Currently my largest die for pistols is .452" that is for the Star machine . What I'm finding out with this is that either a softer alloy or size even larger and maybe both might work . Todays test was with an alloy of ten brinell sized .452" pushed by five point five grains SMP 231 with an overall cartridge length of 1.290" . Twenty-seven rounds was all I fired and inspection of the barrel showed one or two little spots that was pretty easy to remove . I'll try forty rounds tomorrow and see if it does the same . Since I don't have a larger size die , I'll try softening the alloy if it still leads .

Perhaps if I get to an impasse with this mold I'll send it to Eric and have him move the front band a little forward which should help with the fit . Might only cost about twenty-five bucks plus shipping both ways . I was really hoping to be able to save some cash and have him do some work on a twenty-two mold I have . Now that project is likely to cost what two new molds would [smilie=l:

Jack