45 ACP Leading (Pictures)

[panzerr]

That crimp looks fine... do you have a picture of the flare with the bullet seated before it is crimped? I found that it was better to seat the bullet first and then crimp it in a different operation (like on the Dillon 550 or 650.. If you did it all at once sometimes that also causes an issue.

I, or we rather, are using a Dillon 650, which is set up at my reloading buddy's house. I'll get over there to get some pictures of the bell in case there are other people here that are having the same trouble.

[sargenv]

If you have a kinetic bullet puller, I'd pull a couple just to make sure the moly is still intact. I have apicture of a pulled 170 located in the thread http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=44640. Post #21 in that thread shows the bullet and it's intact moly coat. That one was made by Bear creek.

[panzerr]

Here are a few bullets I pulled:



The bell on my cases:



The size of my boolit at the top of the brass where it is crimped

[Dale53]

panzerr;
One thing I neglected to discuss. Your powder of choice is Red Dot. There is not a thing wrong with Red Dot in the .45 ACP. Just consider it a fraternal twin to Bullseye. It has many of the same characteristics (fast burning and relatively small bulk) and it works WELL in the .45 ACP. I have run quite a lot of that through my various .45 handguns.

In short, your powder choice is NOT your problem. I would lay money on it that it's your bullets...

Dale53

[HeavyMetal]

Photo of boolits in post 23 show way to much crimp!

That would be boolits 1,2,4,5 reading left to right. The center boolit number 3 is perfect and I don't belive it was seated in a case from the look of it.

Will suggest two things first "mic" the expander plug, I think it's to small in diameter and allowing the case to size your boolits when seated, figure you may find it measures about .449 to .450 needs to be .451 if your seating .452 boolits. Then just enough crimp to straighten out the flare in the case mouth.

By the way case flare is good don't change it!

Second use the "Lip" area at the end of the caliper jaws to do your fine measuring! They way you hsve it in the pic is fine for a "course" measurement of case or boolit diameter, but in this case you want to measure the last .063 of the case right at the mouth.

Bottom line if you can see where you taper crimp, and I can see that in the pic, than you have way to much crimp!

[Rico1950]

Bullets also look to be bevel based. Try some flat based bullets if you can, everything else being the same.

[Echo]

Bullets also look to be bevel based. Try some flat based bullets if you can, everything else being the same.

He has 5,000 of the things to shoot up before he goes to another style...

It's my understanding that Billy Bullets uses a moly filled epoxy to coat his boolits. At one gun show he showed me a boolit he had hit with a torch - the alloy melted out, but not the epoxy (or whatever) that ended up looking like a badly slumped jacket. I have shot some, and I believe my results are the same as most folks re commercial cast boolits.

[use enough gun]

I had terrible leadig and accuracy problems with my BFR in 45/70 until I got the right size bullet mold. I was shooting .457-.458 dia. cast bullets and would have 2 out of 5 shots keyhole at 50ft. It would smear the bore to the muzzle in 5-10 rounds. Got a Ranchdog mold .460dia. and made my own alox lube. Problem solved, also accuracy is outstanding now. Dave

[panzerr]

Could a barrel that is not quite broken in cause significant leading?

[Char-Gar]

As a 50 plus year shooter of cast bullets in the 1911 autopistol in 45 ACP, I have the following observations on your situation.

1. I have never found a commercial cast bullet that would hold a candle to my home cast in terms of accuracy and shooting clean without leading. Often the bevel base is the problem others times the lube and so on and so on. I have tried a score of different makers and have never been happy with their products.

2. My one experience with moly coated bullets mirrors your..awful crap!

3. If you don't want to get into bullet casting, at least buy your bullets "raw" from the makers. These are unsized and unlubed. Use a plain base design and buy a lube sizer. Good a good quality lube and you will be a much happier man. YOu will also save a little money, once the cost of the machine has been delt with.

4. Please feel free to disregard my advise... most do!

[HeavyMetal]

No such thing as "breaking in" a barrel!

However I will tell you that many will disagree with me on that.

[targetshootr]

I'm not familair with moly coating but from the pics it looks like it replaces standard lube? or did you remove the lube from the groove?

[Blammer]

yep in pic #23 the pulled bullets show WAY to much crimp. You say you are using a dillon right?

Here is my experienc with Dillon dies and will relate in a minute.

I have a 41 mag set of dillon dies, when I go to seat the boolit it sizes the boolit in the seating die!

I used a .413 dia boolit and after I seated it an then pulled the boolit it was 'sized' to .411.

I suspect that you may want to look at your seating die as a culprit for "sizing" the boolits while in the case.

Dillon's are great for jacketed bullets, not so good for lead boolits where the diameter may need to be "fatter".

If anyone has a different brand seater to try in the place of the Dillon Seater, that may take care of the problem.

I also noted as HeavyMetal did, that the pulled boolits show signs of "sizing" or too much crimping!

[wiljen]

take the 5 bullets in the first pic in post 23 - measure the base of them. I'd be willing to bet the only one that has the same diameter as a bullet that has not been seated is # 3.

All the others show a distinct step in the front driving band and the diameter below that step is less than above it. This would mean the only portion of the bullet that made solid contact was the lead edge of the front driving band. This is a case of too much taper crimp so you have effectively reduced the shank to a size that is allowing gas blow by and thus contributing to your leading. If you take the picture with the micrometer and do a little math you'll see this quite readily.


The typical .45 acp case mouth measures .473 so .473 -.452 = .021 (case wall thickness)

working backward .471 - .021 = .450 (bullet diameter)

Either your case walls are thinner than standard, or you are sizing your bullet down while seating it.

[Boomer Mikey]

1. What is the groove diameter of your barrel?
2. Is the barrel throated and is there a lead into the rifling?
3. What is the diameter of the pulled bullets?
4. How hard is the bullet alloy?

I use 5 grains of Red Dot in all 5 of my 45's with moly coated Bear Creek Bullets which are BHN 8-10 with no leading.

If your barrel has a groove diameter of 0.451" or less, and the throat is OK, and your pulled bullets measure 0.451" or more, and the bullets are BHN 12 or less try lubing the bullets and see if they lead the bore. Molly is no substitute for bullet lube. Bear Creek Bullets are molly coated and coated with a dry wax lube. It may be possible that your lot of bullets didn't get lubed or they may be too hard to obturate or there is something in the barrel stripping the coating (rough bore finish/no throat).

I would also pull the barrel and drive one of the bullets through the barrel to see what happens to the coating and to see if it fits the bore well. Do this with a new bullet and one of your pulled bullets with your heavy crimp. You should be able to "feel" a uniform resistance while pushing the bullet from the breech to the muzzle. It's also possible that the barrel has a reverse choke or taper... looser at the muzzle that at the chamber due to a constriction at the chamber end.

wiljen is on the same page... your factory crimp die may be sizing your cases so much that the bullet diameter is sized smaller than bore diameter. Try using just enough crimp to tuck only the inside edge of the case into the bullet... just enough to prevent the bullet from being pushed deeper into the case.

Boomer

[Legion489]

While not a master caster/shooter like most here, my experience is that I was getting more leading then I wanted with several commercial cast bullets and lubed them with Lee Liquid Alox. This helped to an amazing degree. Some people don't like LLA, but I have had good luck with it as far as cutting down leading. I don't know what Lee Liquid Alox would do with a "bare" bullet lubed with it, but lubing over the lube on the bullet has worked for me. You might also try loading a jacketed bullet at the bottom of the mag, so every seven-eight round is a jacketed bullet to help keep leading down.

Hope this helps.

[panzerr]

While not a master caster/shooter like most here, my experience is that I was getting more leading then I wanted with several commercial cast bullets and lubed them with Lee Liquid Alox. This helped to an amazing degree. Some people don't like LLA, but I have had good luck with it as far as cutting down leading. I don't know what Lee Liquid Alox would do with a "bare" bullet lubed with it, but lubing over the lube on the bullet has worked for me. You might also try loading a jacketed bullet at the bottom of the mag, so every seven-eight round is a jacketed bullet to help keep leading down.

Hope this helps.

I'm considering lubing with alox as you and a few others suggested, but from what I understand mixing jacketed and lead bullets leads to more leading because lead adheres to the copper residue left in the barrel.

[HeavyMetal]

If you feed your pistol a steady diet of Jacketed bullets and then switch to lead, without cleaning, yes you can "agravate" the leading problem.

Shooting a clean barrel with lead and firing the occasional jacketed bullet is not nearly as bad.

This is an old trick that really isn't needed if the alloy, lube and boolit diameter of your cast lead boolits are all correct and working as a "team".

Panzerr you can use LLA to aid your moly coated boolits in preventing leading but if you don't change your loading tecnique, figure out what is causing the boolit deformation, your leading problem is not going to go away.

[462]

I experienced a seating die that was down-sizing the boolit. I enlarged the die and the leading stopped. That die is now boolit specific.

[sargenv]

I concur with the overcrimping in that set of 5. #3 looked good. It's strange that you are experiencing leading, but I would vote with the other gent that it might be too much crimp. Also you may want to slug your barrel and see if you may need a larger size bullet to full obturate it into the rifling. Even with 5k bullets, likely you could sell them to someone and get the ones you need or you may even want to contact the people at Billy bullets and tell them the trouble you've been having. A lot of people use them with good results, so it could be a bad batch that they know about and may make up to you. The worst thing they can say is "nope, no problem on our end".