TargetTalk

[BAMO]

I've been reloading for about 8 months now and have only reloaded for my .308 and .30-06 service rifles and buy .308 dia. bullets for my reloading.

I want to start handloading .45 cal. LSWC bullets for my Springfiled 1911-A1 and for my Kimber Gold Match II (both of which are less than a year old if that makes any difference) so I can shoot lead wadcutters in my gun club's weekly Bullseye matches instead of using jacketed round nose bullets. I was going to buy the .452" diameter 200 gr. LSWC since that's what the SAAMI mechanical drawing shows for the .45 auto cartridge in both my Hornady and Speer reloading manuals. HOWEVER, I just noticed that the 200 gr. LSWC bullets sold by Dardas comes not only in .452", but also comes in .453" and .454" diameter, so I figure this isn't going to be as simple as reloading .308 bullets into .308 Win and 30-06 Spg cartridges.

I've heard about slugging barrels but don't really know how you go about it or how you meausure the results or figure out what size bullet you should get. THEREFORE, my question to you all is how important (or unimportant) is it going to be for me to slug the barrels of these two M1911 45 auto's, and if it is important how do you slug the barrel, and how do you meausre the slug and figure out what size bullet you need?

Thanks for your help!

[Rover]

Since the bore is nominally .451 and the bullet is (nominally) .452, and you like lead bullets to be one or two thousandth oversize you're good to go.

Fuhgeddaboudit!

[oldcaster]

I bought some Dardas some time ago when they still had .451's in their choice box and I accidently ordered 100 .451 bullets for my Les Baer wadcutter gun. After I realized what I did, I didn't expect good results but shot them anyway whiile I was doing extensive testing of other bullets on a Ransom Rest (all .452). I was surprised when they were one of the best of the bunch. I quickly ordered 100 each of .452 and .453 to test along side the .451 bullets I had left. I wound up firing all 300 testing with different loads to make sure I knew what I was doing and the .451 consistantly came in the best. While I got about 2 inches for 10 shots with the .451, about 3 inches with the .452 and about 4 1/2 with the .453 none of these groups are that bad however between the .451 and .453 the difference is more than double. When you get down to these differences it is necessary to shoot a lot of rounds before you have a definitive answer. Every gun is an entity to itself but I think the odds are that you will get more accuracy out of the .451's than any of the others. There have been other doubters in my group but not any more because I have talked them into sizing at .451 also and they have had improvement.
-- Bill --

[BAMO]

Are there not variations between bore diameters made by different manufacturers? Seems like what I read about slugging a barrel was talking about old M1873 Winchester lever guns and M1873 Colt SAA's and that it was saying that the bore diameters on these guns vary so you have to slug your barrels.

If all the new 1911's have a .451" bore, would it not be a safety issue to load and shoot .454 lead bullets through it? Maybe I'm being paranoid because I know from my rifle reloading that you'd be asking for a lot of trouble if you tried to shoot .311 dia. jacketed bullets through an M1 Garand's bore since it's chambered for .308. I don't know if the same thing holds true for the M1 if the bullets are lead instead of jacketed.

[David M]

Slugging to know your barrel diameter is a must for accuracy when shooting soft lead. The .45 is not as bad as some other rounds, the .32 is the worst.
Ideally the lead projectile need to be 1 to 1 1/2 thou larger than the bore.
Push a soft lead projectile through the barrel and measure the diameter, if you need to bulge the projectile a little larger, a soft hit with a hammer will do the job. Drive it from the chamber end, down the barrel. Use a copper, brass or hardwood dowel. Do not use a steel rod.
Also after a round is loaded in the case, bullet pull the projectile and re-measure, make sure that the loading/crimping dies are not swagging down the projectile diameter smaller than slugged.

[oldcaster]

If you use lead in the neighborhood of 7-8 BHN in your .45, more than likely the brass will swage the bullet down to .451. If you tried to shoot a .454 bullet in a .45 and it was hard (18 or so BHN and up) it likely won't even chamber because it will stretch the brass out larger than chamber size. I doubt firing them would be a problem because many fire .314 bullets in .32 long barrels that have been changed to .308. 9 mm is especially problematic in this area as 9mm brass will swage a soft bullet way below barrel diameter and a hard bullet will in some guns cause a chambering issue because of swelling brass. The older military guns have chambers and barrel diameters that range all over the place and this is where a lot of size chasing started. The most important part of this is knowing the diameter of your bullet before it goes down the barrel because brass sizes bullets down more than people think ( if they are soft) and unless your .45 is something really old or unusual in other ways, it won't even be worth slugging your barrel. You could buy a 100 each of .451 and .452 Dardas and test if you have a way of ensuring that there are no aiming errors but I think it would probably be a waste of time and would just choose either of these two sizes and go. -- Bill --

[GunRunner]

Dont bother slugging it, load and shoot, its the on ly way to find out what has the best accuracy

[BAMO]

Re: the swaging down of the bullet during seating...I was advised by Dardas to use only the Lyman M die for expanding and belling the case mouth for bullet seating. I've gone ahead and ordered it to replace the expander die in my RCBS set. Was also told that the M die will prevent distortion of the bullet that ordinarily would occur when using any other die maker's standard expansion die. I read up on this M die in the Lyman cast bullets handbook and it all seems to make sense, though I don't know whether or not the M die info in this handbook was placed there more for product marketing purposes or as scientific fact.

Am wondering if anyone has done any accuracy testing between using a standard expander die compared with the M die for expanding and belling the case mouth?

[BEA]

If you are shooting a 45 auto, use the .451 diameter. The larger diameter bullets are intended for use in 45 revolvers where it is important to have a bullet sized to the diameter of the cylinder throat. The throat diameter can vary a fair amount between revolvers. It is important to have a bullet that is large enough to fill the throat in order to seal the powder gases behind the bullet as it is passing through the throat. If hot gases escape around the bullet, they will cut into the lead and leave deposits on the end of the cylinder and in the forcing cone.

[oldcaster]

I don't use an M die for 45 but just use the expander that Dillon makes for the powder measure. I don't think it does much except put a flare on the front of the brass because it doesn't take much effort to run it in and out. I never experimented with an M die but make my own custom Dillon powder expanders for my 32 long. With my 45 I can get less than 2 inches 10 shot at 50 yards so I wouldn't expect an M die to be any better because that is about as good as it gets. With the Dardas bullets, you won't be swaging their bullets down with the brass no matter what you do because their bullets have a BHN of about 18. I think you would be fine with your 45 just using cheap Lee dies but finding a taper crimp die for crimping the brass to your bullet. They should be crimped probably at .470. My Baer will catch the edge of brass once in a while if I don't go down to .469 but I hear people everywhere getting away with .470 and you probably could too. If I use a roll crimp, I have all kinds of problems and I wouldn't use a FCD die because that thing squashes the bullet and would even swage down a hard bullet. -- Bill --

[Matt]

The Brinell Hardness of our alloy is 16 - not 18 as stated in the post. We have the pertinent data on our home page.

[Rover]

Just because I like to confuse things further:

I miked some bullets and then loaded them and pulled them and miked them again. They were the same diameter.

Since lead bullets are easily swaged to bore diameter on firing (no pressure problems), don't concern yourself about oversize bullets.

There is only ONE thing to concern yourself with; are they accurate?

[JamesH]

If you don't know even roughly what dia your barrel is - I wasn't sure where in the range of .308-0.315 my .32 was - then go ahead and slug it.

If you're tossing up between 0.451 and 0.452 then I'd do it by testing bullets of varying sizes, styles and hardness.