Anyone who remembers the 1960's Batman TV show will recall Burt Ward (Robin) "Holy (insert word here) Batman" comments. Well I have now had the second of what I call "the Burt Ward moment" when it comes to my reloading.
The first happened a couple of years ago when I was shooting my .38 S&W Victory model. The load was a 148 gn jacketed HBWC over 2.4 gn Mulwex AP50N in practice for a 48 round Classic Pistol match fired at 10 and 25 yards.
The first 3 or 4 rounds in a string fired as usual. The next had a louder than usual sound, harder than normal recoil and the whole pistol locked up. My first thought was that somehow I had placed double charge in the case. After carefully tapping the cylinder open with a mallet I keep in my range tool box I found I could not extract the fired cartridge. I had to tap that free too. That was when I discovered the jacket was still attached to the case but the bullet core was gone. There was no damage to the case or the pistol.
I posted some photos and the consensus was that rather than a double charge it was more likely a bullet failure between the jacket and the core. My pride remained intact.
My Springfield Armoury 1911 has a favourite load, a 200 gn plated flat point bullet over Tightgroup, loaded to a 178/180 PF. I have tried to find a load as accurate as this one using 230 gn LRN bullets but cannot. The closest is a load of W231 that will give a 50% larger group at 15 meters with usually one flyer in every 5 rounds, everything else being equal between the two loads.
Last week I loaded up 50 rounds of the 230 gn bullets using a load recommended on another thread of just under a max loading of Tightgroup. I also cast up some 200 gn LSWC bullets and loaded them into cases with a slightly reduced charge from the 200 gn JFP load. On Friday I called in at the range during my lunch break to try these loads out.
First up, the 230 gn/Tightgroup loads. These shot worse for me in my pistol than the W231 loads do. Clearly this pistol prefers the lighter projectiles and the 230 gn LRN prefers W231 powder. So it was on to the home cast 200 gn loads.
Now I am admitting here that loading these rounds was not without issue. Firstly the nose of these bullets is narrower than both the plated and LRN ones, so they were not seated as far into the case at first. After adjusting the seating die to crimp on the front band I had several stick in either the seating or crimping die, which required me to remove each die, pull it apart and put it back together again.
Then I found that loaded to crimp on the first band the OAL was too great to seat in my magazines, so had to reseat and recrimp them just forward of the front band. This whole process had taken much longer than it should have!
I loaded two magazines with five rounds each. The first five I fired one shot at a time. The second mag I fired in one string. Recoil impulse and the sound of each shot were about the same as for the plated 200 gn rounds but the shots were all over the place on the target so I patched out and prepared to shoot again.
The first four rounds slow fire went off as they normally do. The fifth round was loud, recoil felt stout, I felt hot gasses and several small, sharp, stinging impacts on my cheek and nose (thankfully i was wearing shooting glasses). The pistol was in one piece but locked up solid. I couldn't even drop the magazine from the gun. My first thought was "Holy (insert your word here) I must have loaded a double charge". Then I felt blood running down my right cheek.
I had to use the mallet to tap the magazine release which freed the mag. At this point the slide started to move around 1/8" (2-3 mm) from battery but no further. I packed everything up and spent the rest of the day thinking three things:
1, How was I going to get the pistol open,
2. Would I be lucky enough to get away with just a new barrel, or
3. Was my whole pistol wrecked.
On my way home I called into the hardware store and bought a 4" long threaded brass water pipe join plus an end cap. At home I attached the end cap to the threaded join, placed the open end over the barrel muzzle and started to lightly tap the closed end with a ball pen hammer. After about half a dozen taps the slide started to move.
It took a few more taps to get fully open and I could not lock it back with he slide release. The case was jammed tight against the rear of the slide and I had to pry the case out. That was when I found the primer and half of the case head missing. The rest of the case was undamaged but the strongest part had been torn in half.
Looking at the chamber, barrel and the frame of the pistol there is no obvious damage. Once reassembled the gun seems to function properly, slide locking back, hammer falling when the trigger is pulled and both safeties working as they should. So what actually happened here?
There were only four shots on the target so did the cast bullet come apart the way the jacketed .38 S&W round did but not retain anything of the projectile in the case this time?
Or did the case for some reason (overloading in the past or just too many reloads) fail at its strongest point? (All the new brass I buy are Starline, but over the years shooting in competitions I have lost some and picked up other mixed brand brass instead. The head stamp on this case is unreadable).
Or did I get very lucky with a double powder charge?
One thing is for certain, trying to find a lead practice round is over. From now on, providing my pistol checks out okay, I will be shooting the same PFP load in both practice and competition. The additional costs of shooting the plated bullets is more than offset by the issues around loading lead ones.
In the meantime I am contemplating going through every .45 ACP round I have loaded (currently over 500 of my competition loads, 250 of the LRN 230 gn bullets loaded to 125 PF for Service Match and about 300 of the LRN loaded to 155 PF for Wild Bunch shooting) and discarding any cases that do not have a Starline headstamp.
And I will count myself extremely lucky for getting away with just a small cut to my cheek.
The first happened a couple of years ago when I was shooting my .38 S&W Victory model. The load was a 148 gn jacketed HBWC over 2.4 gn Mulwex AP50N in practice for a 48 round Classic Pistol match fired at 10 and 25 yards.
The first 3 or 4 rounds in a string fired as usual. The next had a louder than usual sound, harder than normal recoil and the whole pistol locked up. My first thought was that somehow I had placed double charge in the case. After carefully tapping the cylinder open with a mallet I keep in my range tool box I found I could not extract the fired cartridge. I had to tap that free too. That was when I discovered the jacket was still attached to the case but the bullet core was gone. There was no damage to the case or the pistol.
I posted some photos and the consensus was that rather than a double charge it was more likely a bullet failure between the jacket and the core. My pride remained intact.
My Springfield Armoury 1911 has a favourite load, a 200 gn plated flat point bullet over Tightgroup, loaded to a 178/180 PF. I have tried to find a load as accurate as this one using 230 gn LRN bullets but cannot. The closest is a load of W231 that will give a 50% larger group at 15 meters with usually one flyer in every 5 rounds, everything else being equal between the two loads.
Last week I loaded up 50 rounds of the 230 gn bullets using a load recommended on another thread of just under a max loading of Tightgroup. I also cast up some 200 gn LSWC bullets and loaded them into cases with a slightly reduced charge from the 200 gn JFP load. On Friday I called in at the range during my lunch break to try these loads out.
First up, the 230 gn/Tightgroup loads. These shot worse for me in my pistol than the W231 loads do. Clearly this pistol prefers the lighter projectiles and the 230 gn LRN prefers W231 powder. So it was on to the home cast 200 gn loads.
Now I am admitting here that loading these rounds was not without issue. Firstly the nose of these bullets is narrower than both the plated and LRN ones, so they were not seated as far into the case at first. After adjusting the seating die to crimp on the front band I had several stick in either the seating or crimping die, which required me to remove each die, pull it apart and put it back together again.
Then I found that loaded to crimp on the first band the OAL was too great to seat in my magazines, so had to reseat and recrimp them just forward of the front band. This whole process had taken much longer than it should have!
I loaded two magazines with five rounds each. The first five I fired one shot at a time. The second mag I fired in one string. Recoil impulse and the sound of each shot were about the same as for the plated 200 gn rounds but the shots were all over the place on the target so I patched out and prepared to shoot again.
The first four rounds slow fire went off as they normally do. The fifth round was loud, recoil felt stout, I felt hot gasses and several small, sharp, stinging impacts on my cheek and nose (thankfully i was wearing shooting glasses). The pistol was in one piece but locked up solid. I couldn't even drop the magazine from the gun. My first thought was "Holy (insert your word here) I must have loaded a double charge". Then I felt blood running down my right cheek.
I had to use the mallet to tap the magazine release which freed the mag. At this point the slide started to move around 1/8" (2-3 mm) from battery but no further. I packed everything up and spent the rest of the day thinking three things:
1, How was I going to get the pistol open,
2. Would I be lucky enough to get away with just a new barrel, or
3. Was my whole pistol wrecked.
On my way home I called into the hardware store and bought a 4" long threaded brass water pipe join plus an end cap. At home I attached the end cap to the threaded join, placed the open end over the barrel muzzle and started to lightly tap the closed end with a ball pen hammer. After about half a dozen taps the slide started to move.
It took a few more taps to get fully open and I could not lock it back with he slide release. The case was jammed tight against the rear of the slide and I had to pry the case out. That was when I found the primer and half of the case head missing. The rest of the case was undamaged but the strongest part had been torn in half.
Looking at the chamber, barrel and the frame of the pistol there is no obvious damage. Once reassembled the gun seems to function properly, slide locking back, hammer falling when the trigger is pulled and both safeties working as they should. So what actually happened here?
There were only four shots on the target so did the cast bullet come apart the way the jacketed .38 S&W round did but not retain anything of the projectile in the case this time?
Or did the case for some reason (overloading in the past or just too many reloads) fail at its strongest point? (All the new brass I buy are Starline, but over the years shooting in competitions I have lost some and picked up other mixed brand brass instead. The head stamp on this case is unreadable).
Or did I get very lucky with a double powder charge?
One thing is for certain, trying to find a lead practice round is over. From now on, providing my pistol checks out okay, I will be shooting the same PFP load in both practice and competition. The additional costs of shooting the plated bullets is more than offset by the issues around loading lead ones.
In the meantime I am contemplating going through every .45 ACP round I have loaded (currently over 500 of my competition loads, 250 of the LRN 230 gn bullets loaded to 125 PF for Service Match and about 300 of the LRN loaded to 155 PF for Wild Bunch shooting) and discarding any cases that do not have a Starline headstamp.
And I will count myself extremely lucky for getting away with just a small cut to my cheek.
