.45 problem

[goste]

Hi all,
O.K., I cast 100 .45 lee 230TL, out of about 2/3 range scrap. and 1/3 wheel weight. Air cooled, if that matters. These bullets drop at +/- .453. I shot these in a 1911, 4.3gr I.M.R. 700x. I've used this load before, with commercial cast.

Lightly,(and I mean lightly), lubed with alox, cut with mineral spirits.

I got pretty fair leading, and for some reason, These keyholed rather badly. Shot to point of aim tho..Out of all my 1911's, this is the only one I have to use the LEE FCD with ,or the loaded rounds won't chamber. They work fine in everthing else.

I belive my problem is not enough lube, as after I lubed them, they hardly changed color. It seemed also, that after the first two mags, they didn't tumble as much . I've not slugged the barrel in this pistol, as I seldom shoot it. It's a 1918 military colt that was semi restored by the previous owner. The barrel is a fairly new replacement, And I think it may be a tad tight.

Anyways, if anyone had any thoughts, or advice, I would app. it

Thanks
Caspar

[markinalpine]

...from straight wheel weights and just swirl lube them with JPW. No sizing, 8.0 gr Accurate #5, no leading.

Mark

[454PB]

Sometimes the Lee FCD will actually size a cast boolit smaller, causing leading and accuracy problems. The only way to know is to pull a seated boolit and measure.

[DLCTEX]

I would suspect the .453 is just a tad too large for your chamber is the reason you have to run then through the FCD. Commercial cast are usually .451 for 45 ACP, my pistol takes .452 just fine and my FCD does not do any sizing unless the case gets bulged during crimping due to a too long case or die misadjustment. Try a heavier coat of alox. You are flaring the case mouth before seating the boolit are you not? Inadequate flare can result in shaving the "lands" of the TL boolit as they are relatively thin. This would cause the leading and keyholing.

[Shiloh]

How fast are these moving?? Are they being squirted out the barrel? Keyholing is indicative of poor fit also. My 1911 shoots boolits sized at .452 VERY accurately.

Shiloh

[shotman]

I go with dale Make sure case has enough flare. I had about 10 that I shaved the side and a buddy said he could here them hit the card board

[Cowboy5780]

IMO the new regular lee alox is junk its too thin and wont stay on the boolit i tried to lube some of my own 45's with it and you couldnt tell there was any alox on them. I had to relube them in the good stuff from our own Lar45's LsStuff leaves a nice coat on them. I dont know what lee done with theres but i sure havent had any luck with it. I've got some of the old stock that works ok. these are the same lee 230 tl boolits but i size them to 452 and the tl them it dont close the grooves up and gives me peace of mind none are too big. I shoot them over 4.8 or so bullseye and they do great......

[Bret4207]

I don't cut my Mule Snot. I haven't gotten any leading in anything I shot it in yet either. It sounds like you have a combination of issues to me- possibly not enough lube, possibly an oversized boolit or a barrel that detests that load or design, maybe some loading issues. Change one thing at a time till you find the answer.

[goste]

This forum is awesome...

I belive ya'll hit the nail on the head.. I did flare the case, but I still shaved, with most of the bullets. I didn't know that would cause leading, and keyholeing..

The lube I use, is the white label Alox, from Lar45's. at 4.3 gr. these are moving at about 780fps... I double lubed the remaining boolits, with another coat of thicker alox... I'll try again.....
Thank's again for the help..

Caspar

[Doble Troble]

Size 0.001" over what your bore slugs.

A lot of my 1911 problems went away when I went from sizing 0.452 to 0.451.

[StarMetal]

Size 0.001" over what your bore slugs.

A lot of my 1911 problems went away when I went from sizing 0.452 to 0.451.

No, size .001 over what your GROOVE measures, not the bore. The bore of a 45 acp barrel is in the .44? bracket, which you can see is too small to size a bullet too. Yeah I know what you meant, but get bore and groove right.

Joe

[runfiverun]

i see joe's making friends again

[StarMetal]

i see joe's making friends again

Yeah...but it is good to know what bore, groove, land, throat, freebore, head space, leade, and rifling are....don't ya think? If you give someone technical advice shouldn't the nomenclature be correct?

Joe

[mpmarty]

Prezactly! There is a difference between a hole and a whole.

[fredj338]

I agree, not flaring the case mouth can really screw w/ lead bullet accuracy & I'm not sold on the LFCD for lead & palted either. FWIW, all my 45acp bullets get sized to .452" for use in several 1911s & my XD. Accuracy is far better than I can shoot out to 25yds. On good days, the XD & my best 1911 will break 2".

[michiganflyer]

I had a leading problem in my kimber sizing to .451. When I changed to a sizing die of .452, the leading reduced. My accuracy, is very good, and I am happy with the load. I use 200 grain swc from a lee mold with 4.7 g red dot. Works for me.
Also, when I was getting more leading I used a copper choreboy wrapped on a wire brush. It didn't take much and the lead is all out of the barrel.

[geargnasher]

Goste, Here's my two bucks worth plus some general pointers. Been there, done that, got great input on fixes from the good folks here.

First, slug your bore and very carefully measure the groove diameter ("lands" on the slug). I bet it will be between .4505" and .4513". If you have to in order to get the loaded rounds to chamber, buy a cheapo Lee push-through sizer in .452" or possibly .451" (as has been said at least .001" over groove diam.). Lube, size, lube, load, be happy.

Second, PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND THROW YOUR .45 ACP LEE FCD OUT THE WINDOW AND THEN CHUNK ROCKS AFTER IT SO IT NEVER RETURNS. I'm not kidding. This die causes nothing but trouble for rounds that tend to headspace on the case mouth for a number of reasons, and the truth is that you should have enough case tension (unless you have a jumbo-sized expander or are loading at or really near max pressure with fast powder) to securely hold a boolit under recoil in a .45 ACP without any crimp whatsoever.

I load tons of .45 for my 1911s and just put enough english on the case mouth with the taper crimp die to take out the bellmouth and make the case straight, and I load one gun at .453" and another likes .452" boolits. I have NEVER had a boolit back out of the case and zero feeding/chambering issues (I do a case-to-chamber fit with each lot of brass with dummy rounds to verify amount of "crimp", oal, etc. since the .453" boolits can make for a tight fit in the chamber with thick-walled brass). Eliminating the heavy crimp also allows to seat and "crimp" in one operation.

I have recently experimented with a 253 grain round-nose in the .45 ACP and ended up working them up kinda hot with a 22 lb slide spring, kicked like a mule but even these heavy boolits stayed put in the cases (I stripped the mags and checked after every round for the first box, then reassembled in order) with NO crimp, just straightwalled the cases and checked them with a mic to be sure all the bellmouth was ironed out.

Somebody here shared the JPW, Mineral spirits, LLA trick with me a while back and I strongly second that it works great on Lee TL boolits. The proportions vary depending on climate and season.

One more thing, even if your barrel is "a tad tight" odds are your leading isn't caused by boolits being too big. That can cause excessive pressure in extreme cases, but does not commonly result in leading. I would only size below your as-cast .453" if they won't chamber.

Hope this helps,

Gear

[goste]

Well, I think I narrowed it down to to little lube, and maybe a bit big, for that particular pistol.. I took the rest of the loaded rounds (43) to the range after work, and ran them thru a pair of witness .45's.. No keyhole's, and very, very little leading..

Thanks for all that replied..

Oh and geargnasher, I think I'll not use the FCD, anymore, I only tried it because that particular loaded round would not chamber in that certain pistol. It sure removed the slight bulge I had on some of the rounds.. Would flaring the case more, not result in the bulge?

Thanks
Caspar

[armyrat1970]

Yeah...but it is good to know what bore, groove, land, throat, freebore, head space, leade, and rifling are....don't ya think? If you give someone technical advice shouldn't the nomenclature be correct?

Joe

For sure! Lands and gooves seems to be one thing that many get crossed up with. It's kind of looking in a mirror. If you get my meaning.