45 acp reloads

[jake1945]

I have an older Model S&W M&P. I had reloaded about 100 rounds using 230 grain lead bullets over 5.0 grains Bullseye. Every once in awhile the slide failed to go into full battery. I would nudge the slide with my hand and it would go bang. Sometimes the slide could not be pulled back. So, I got home and started looking/measuring my reloads and comparing dimensions with a reloading manual. Everything was within specs! Looking closer at the reloads, I noticed lead built up at the case mouth. This lead built up kept the bullet from chambering thus the slide was out of battery. So I meticulously removed the lead ring off and now they all chamber like they are supposed to do. During seating, the case, the brass would shave off some lead. Looking at the seating die, I found it was full of lead shavings. Bullets were .453 diameter. I use Lee dies.
Any comments?

 

[kraynky]

Sounds about right. I typically use .451 bullets in 45acp loads & .452 in 45 colt. I have on occasion loaded a few .452s in a 45 acp case, and got a light lead ring on the brass.

Using Dillon dies here. I've never bought any .453 sized bullets. Cleaning the lead ring from each loaded bullet and breaking down the seating die is a pain in the butt. Might ought'a clean your pistol's chamber real good too.

 

[Ignatz]

I fought trouble with a 1911 that has a Kart match barrel and eventually found all my 230 gr bullets were around .453". I ran them thru a Lee .451" sizer and all was good.

 

[jeeps]

I use Mastercast bullets out of P.A.

 

[cmj8591]

Try using a bit more flare in your case mouths then taper crimp after seating. The lead bullet should just enter the case mouth when you set it on top of the case prior to seating. It works the brass a bit more but it will solve your problem. Some M&P's don't play well with lead bullets.

 

[stansdds]

First, 0.453" diameter is actually a little large for 45 ACP. Most commercially cast bullets are going to run 0.452" and that's plenty big enough for the 45 ACP barrel. Second, the rings of lead occur when the case mouth is not sufficiently flared and the edges will shave lead from the bullet.

 

[gwpercle]

The answer to seating Lead (larger and softer than jacketed) is a thing called a Lyman M-Die ,
It is made to expand the neck to cast bullet dimensions and puts a two diameter case expansion / case flare that is perfectly made for seating those pesky cast bullets without shaving rings of lead .

It is always best practice when seating soft lead bullets ro seat them in one step and crimp them in a second seperate step. If you don't as the ,lead bullet is pused down and the crimp closes on the bullet ...lead ring is shaved off .

Remember lead bullets are sofyer and Larger than jacketed and regular dies are usually made for jacketed bullets .
Cowboy Action dies being the exception ... they are set up for lead bullets because the Cowboy Rules state only lead bullets can be used in that competition .
Gary

 

[Fishinfool]

Use slightly more flair to the case mouth, and chamfer the case mouths before seating. Apply your taper crimp in a separate step. Shaving lead can result in reliability issues, as you have found, and can decrease accuracy. Usually .452 cast does well in my 1911's.

Larry.

 

[flintsghost]

Never use bullets larger than .452. The second thing is they must be hard cast. Some bullet makers harden their bullets coming out of the mold and some do it after they have set for a while. Also the composition of the lead can make them somewhat harder. The harder they are the better the will shoot. Taper crimp in 45ACP is virtually mandatory. Dies are made to taper crimp or roll crimp. Roll crimp works fine for some weapons but in semi auto pistols in order to assure perfect feeding, the rounds must be taper crimped.

 

[STORMINORMAN]

Solution #1: Lyman Ammo Checker

Solution #2: Plink! Test (or, Plunk! Test, if you prefer)

Cheers!

P.S. These, BTW, only insure that your rounds should chamber... As far as the correct reloading techniques, cleaning of dies and barrels, etc., refer to the many suggestions given above.

 

[mikld]

Sounds like more flare is needed and using the plunk test. I often tell newer reloaders to use as much flare as necessary to cleanly seat cast bullets. The excess flare will be removed in the next step with a deflaring die (aka; taper crimp die)...

 

[Greenjoytj]

If the cast lead bullet has any antimony in the alloy the diameter will continue to swell larger for a month after the bullet was cast.
The bullet may have been sized to .452" at the casting factory but continued to swell till it stopped naturally after a month.

Any over diameter bullets could be resized before being loaded into cartridges.

Adding a little more case mouth flare during the neck sizing operation would be a work around to the slightly over size bullet diameter.

Bullet seat, the seating die flattens the case mouth flare parallel.
Plunk test in the intended firearm chamber (barrel out of course) if the cartridges won't pass the plunk test get out the taper crimp die and apply a little crimp then re-do the plunk test. If the plunk test still fails dial in more crimp till the cartridges pass the test.

Of course if the COL is too long they could be jamming into the rifling bullet profile could also cause jamming into the rifling and no amount of crimp will correct that problem.

 

[jake1945]

Thanks to all who answered. The Lyman plunk test gixmo is what I need plus a little more neck expansion.

 

[243winxb]

The seating die is removing the flare to soon. Open the dies ID. Dont remove the crimp section.
Happened with my .452" bullets.

Or seat & crimp in 2 steps.
The sear die stem needs to be turned all the way down, to seat the bullets.
Then move the seated bullet rounds to the taper crimp die.

I use RCBS dies from the 70s. New dies may have an "M" type expander .

 

[Tu_S]

Had the same thing happen in my M&P 2.0 45, but the bullet got jammed in tight enough that it got pulled from the case when I wacked the thing hard enough to get the slide back.

My initial thought was that the rounds were loaded to and admittedly long but still in spec 1.25COL, that works fine in the 1911's, and that was what was causing the problem, with the chamber in the M&P just being tighter.

I figured things out when I slowly lower the slide on one of the 1911's and saw that it was not fully in battery, but could give it a bump to fix the problem. I'm guessing the springs in them have enough power to force it closed when just dropping the slide.

Guess I don't have the patience to trim each bullet, so I've pulled 137 so far, the M&P made it through 12 rounds before the hard jam, and reloaded the cases with 230gn FMJ. Have another 100 to take care of, and now need to figure out what to do with the projectiles, where 45LC seems like a solution, except I rarely shoot the one revolver I have that uses it.

FWIW, you can see the ring on the bullets where the lead got pushed. Other odd thing is the Lyman and Dillon go-no-go gauges both passed the rounds, but the new Hornady one I got doesn't.

 

[Cdog]

.452 cast bullets and match chambers can be an issue. Tighter tolerances can reduce reliability when loading .452" in many .45 ACP match chambers.

After many years of simply taper crimping I tried and found the Lee Factory Crimp die does help alleviate the issue. An extra step, but if you enjoy shooting 200gr .452" cast as I do it's worth it. As others have stated I seat the bullet only to desired depth and use the Lee FCD to crimp/post size.

I now use the Lee FCD with .356" in my 9mm too. Oh, I also have one of those Lyman gizmo's. I thought it was expensive when I bought it, but I've had great results using it. I feel much better about the gizmo's cost than I did when I was buying it.

 

[jjrr]

If all else fails just use jacketed bullets. I really liked what "mikld" said about the deflaring die, the word crimp gets a lot of reloaders off on the wrong track. To call it a deflaring die would solve a lot of the problem with the straight wall cases used in auto loaders. Also I have always deflared in a separate step but I have decided that to deflare while the bullet is still moving it's last few thousands does no harm.

 

[venomballistics]

Ran into this issue plenty.
The crimp arrests movement of the bullet ... That you're still trying to seat to depth.
These things can and do fight and produce this kind of problem in some guns.
To fix it, you back off the die body so it cannot crimp, seat all your bullets then you back off the seating punch, run the die body down to set crimp.
This will separate the seating and crimping into two independent operations.
If it clears up your problem, consider adding a die to let you set and forget

 

[jjrr]

I use a Redding dual carbide die on my 45ACP and Redding taper crimp die and this setup makes some great looking reloads. I have started to think about the taper crimp as closing the mouth of a funnel to make the case mouth straight which should not affect the movement of the bullet unless you are going past straight with the deflaring. Just my thoughts and I will continue to seat and deflare in two steps for my 45ACP but I'm coming around to seating and deflaring in one step on 9mm and it seems to be working good. What I do may not work at all for others.

 

[GypsmJim]

Slightly more flare and what everyone else said.

I use Lee liquid alox and sometimes a buildup of wax will cause a similar problem.

I have an old sized 45 case that I cut some grooves into the open end of the case. As such it acts as a "shaver".

My last step in the reloading process is to turn this case over the newly loaded bullet. It will shave off any excess lead or lube. Have not had a chambering problem since I initiated this procedure.

As an aside, no matter what caliber, when I finish a day's loading I always take the seating / crimping die apart and clean it with a brass brush.