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Posted: 2/19/2018 5:12:02 PM EDT
Been trying to get my 1911 behave with my home cast bullets, and it's resisting
I am using some ebay alloy that is quite soft. I don't have a hardness tester, but I can scratch the bullets with my thumbnail if I put some force on it. I'd guess they're harder than pure lead, but not much. My guesstimate is around 8 BHN, maybe 9 or 10 at the most. I'm loading the starting charge of Titegroup at 4.8gr. I'm tumble lubing with the 45 45 10 formulation. The bullets themselves are sized to .453". My 1911's groove diameter slugs at .4515". I know for sure that lube has been an issue. The first 50 rounds I shot leaded, well, horribly. I was told that 'less is more' when it comes to tumble lubing, but this is quite clearly not the case. I put a second coat of 45 45 10 on bullets and loaded another 50. These still leaded, but considerably less, so the situation was improved with a heavier application of lube. I'm just looking for opinions here. Would I reduce leading if I used harder alloy? 45 ACP is often loaded with pure lead, so I just don't see why this would be the issue, but I'm open to the idea. With two coats of tumble lube, the bullets are obviously taking on a brownish color, some is even collecting in the lube groove. What else could be wrong here? Seems like this ought to be enough lube, and more than is usually recommended. Before anyone says powder coat, yes, I probably will switch to that at some point, but for me this is like learning to shoot iron sights. I might use optics 90+% of the time, but anyone who considers himself competent with a rifle should be able to adequately use iron sights, and I feel the same way about making cast bullets and using conventional lube to get them to work for you. |
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[#1]
Never had any luck with tumble lube , especially with soft lead alloys. Go to wheel weights, get a mold that throws bullets with a nice deep lube groove and invest in a lube sizer. The Lyman sizers work ok for low volume stuff or look at a Star sizer if you want to speed things up 4-5x.
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[#2]
A couple things, first make sure your sizer is sizing to 453. It has been my experience the lee sizers sometimes run a little small. They can be easily opened up with some elbow grease and sandpaper.
Second, are you using the lee lube straight? Thin it a little and you will have better results. Follow this guy's instructions for a much better tumble lube. cheap and easy. Make sure you are not shaving the bullet when seating, try using more expansion on the case. Be very careful with the lee factory crimp die if you are using it. Sparingly it can have good results, too much crimping and it effectively sizes down your projectile and can cause problems with cast, especially soft cast. Tumble lube works great in 45 acp. Your alloy does sound soft but it should be okay. |
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[#3]
I cast with wheelweight, and because I am resistant to change I still use alox as lube. I have no leading issues in various .45 cartridges, 38 cartridges and 9mm
I find that harder is better except for BP guns |
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[#4]
Your bullet size to groove diameter ratio is fine.
Couple of thoughts; Not knowing if your sizing them or buying them sized check with a known accurate micrometer. Also if using a Lee factory crimp die it may in fact be post sizing your oversized bullets with its carbide ring. I shoot so really soft lead cast bullets in 45ACP with Titegroup in my 1911 without issue. As mentioned above, if you are sizing with a Lee sizer it's quite common for the stamped diameter on the die to produce smaller diameter bullets. |
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[#5]
Size is king so like suggested above make sure your sizing die is really .453. I've never used a tumble lube mold but I've cast lots of boolits for .45 using 8-9 bhn lead with no leading issues using a good lube like White Labels 50/50 or BAC. I started out pan lubing before I picked up a lube sizer but now I pretty much powder coat all my cast (Shake N Bake).
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[#6]
Eastwood is having a sale on powder coating powder right now. Be a good time to grab some small quantities and give PCing the bullets a try.
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[#7]
Quoted:
A couple things, first make sure your sizer is sizing to 453. It has been my experience the lee sizers sometimes run a little small. They can be easily opened up with some elbow grease and sandpaper. Second, are you using the lee lube straight? Thin it a little and you will have better results. Follow this guy's instructions for a much better tumble lube. cheap and easy. Make sure you are not shaving the bullet when seating, try using more expansion on the case. Be very careful with the lee factory crimp die if you are using it. Sparingly it can have good results, too much crimping and it effectively sizes down your projectile and can cause problems with cast, especially soft cast. Tumble lube works great in 45 acp. Your alloy does sound soft but it should be okay. View Quote I'm not using Lee alox. I'm using 45 45 10. Not using FCD. Not shaving lead. I'm using an expander designed to avoid the issue. I also made dummies and pulled them to confirm my bases weren't being swaged down (they weren't). |
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[#8]
Quoted:
Size is king so like suggested above make sure your sizing die is really .453. I've never used a tumble lube mold but I've cast lots of boolits for .45 using 8-9 bhn lead with no leading issues using a good lube like White Labels 50/50 or BAC. I started out pan lubing before I picked up a lube sizer but now I pretty much powder coat all my cast (Shake N Bake). View Quote |
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[#9]
I never had any luck with the Lee lube, always got leading.
Used a Lyman lube sizer for years with my cast 200 gr SWC's. Worked well. Switched to Powder coating 2 years ago, and will never go back to the messy, smoky bullet lube. Sold my lube sizer and lube. As a side benefit, with a properly powder coated bullet, there is no leading and you can use soft lead. Where I learned to powder coat, http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?184-Coatings-and-Alternatives Read the tacked threads at the top of the forum. Good luck |
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[#10]
Quoted:
I never had any luck with the Lee lube, always got leading. Used a Lyman lube sizer for years with my cast 200 gr SWC's. Worked well. Switched to Powder coating 2 years ago, and will never go back to the messy, smoky bullet lube. Sold my lube sizer and lube. As a side benefit, with a properly powder coated bullet, there is no leading and you can use soft lead. Where I learned to powder coat, http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?184-Coatings-and-Alternatives Read the tacked threads at the top of the forum. Good luck View Quote Once I do I'll get a cast off toaster oven from goodwill, some non stick aluminum foil, Eastwood Ford Light Blue, and start PCing. Thinking about mounting my single stage press upside down to make sizing with the Lee sizer faster. |
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[#11]
I think I read the replies closely enough so forgive me if this has been mentioned:
Have you actually pulled one of your seated bullets and measured the diameter? It's very possible that the neck tension alone is swedging them down when you seat them. 10 to 12 BHN is all you should need. My 1911's barrel is very worn. I recently had it re-blued by my gunsmith and he was laughing because it's nearly a smooth bore. Yet it shoots my cast bullets great without accumulating lead fouling and did so with Lee A-Lox tumble lube. The 45acp is probably the easiest semiautomatic pistol cartridge to load cast bullets for. To be completely honest when I read your post it took me completely by surprise. You either have a diameter issue or your alloy is a lot softer than you think. I think your bullets are being reduced in diameter by neck tension. Probably because they are softer than you think they are. One other possibility is over crimping. You should only be crimping enough to remove the mouth flare. Nothing more. For every thousandth of an inch that your case mouth is smaller than where the bullet is seated the bullet within the case has been swedged at least .002" smaller. But since it's on a taper it doesn't go back very far but it's still having a negative impact. And if you are over crimping doesn't take very much with soft cast bullets to destroy half of the neck tension and reduce the bullet diameter at the same time. Motor |
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[#12]
Lets really break this down in to a few parts.
Starting with Ebay lead, bank that its either range scrap or wheel weight lead, both of such will be too soft and needs to be tinned to increase the hardness of the lead. note, if you are buying scrap lead, be dam sure of what you are buying. Hence some scrappers will use weight weights with the heat too high during smelting, and this ends up with Zinc wheel weights melting in with the lead wheel weight; pretty much distorying the lead for casting purposes. Now with the soft lead, there is a couple of ways to attack the problem, but the easy way it to add about 1lb of lead free solder 95/5 to about 20lbs of the lead you have to bring it up to close to Lyman #2 lead. Walmart used to have 1lb reels of such for $10, but since the price has increased to $20, then just pick up tin by the lb from rotor metals isntead. https://www.rotometals.com/tin-metal/ Next, really need to slug the bore, but in regards to 45 cast bullets for 45 acp, you want them to be .4525~.453" after they have been sized. If you are powder coating, then the coating will build up a standard cast bullet to over .453" so it will size back down .453. If you are using alox, then may have to polish the mold out a touch, so you end up with a bullet in the .454" range that can be sized back down to .453" in the end. To be blunt, in most production barrels and a cast bullet since the bores are slightly oversized to be begin with, the barrel is going to shoot tighter with a .453" bullet than .452" bullet at any type of speeds. Now lets talk about sizers. Myself, will buy a lee sizer that is .452", then do a bit of internal polishing of it to bring it up to final dimension to size a bullet .4525" for match barrels. If all you have is looser production bores, then internal polish the size up to .453" instead. Hence if you are getting leading with an alox lubed bullet, it not due to the bullet not being alox lubed, but the bullet not sealing off the bore, the flame is able to get past the sides of the bullet as it moving down the bore, and this is where the lead is coming from isntead. Granted that Powder coating bullets will end up with a lot less smoke, but if you want to keep on alox tumbling lubing bullets, there is a better mix to use. Hence Alox, Johnson paste wax, and some mineral spirits at a mix of 45% alox, 45% Johnson paste wax, and 10% mineral spirits. This will end up with just as good of a coat of lube on the bullet, but they will not be so sticky instead. Touching on loading data, make sure you are using loading data for cast bullets, not jacked bullets. Casted bullets will seal off to the chamber much faster, so it requires less powder to reach speeds. If you are using jacket bullet data for cast bullets, you will be over pressure on every load you reloading, even starting with the min start load!!!! Now, with a bullet sized to .453", do try to use a lee FCD carbine die with the bullet. What will happen will be the sizer ring in the dies is going to end up resizing the bullet through the case walls back down to .452", putting you back to a leading problem since the bullet is not fully sealing off to the bore. Moving on, when loading with a cast lead bullet, you do not want a ton of jump to rifling on ignition. So with the barrel in hand you are reloading, long load a bullet, and via slowly shorting the COAL in steps, get the COAL that once you have inserted the round into the chamber to touch the rifling off the bore, it's rim is just a touch shorter than the hood of the barrel. And don't over do it with the bullet crimp. If you are loading for a few 45 acps, then break out all the barrels, find the one with the tightest leade, and use it to determine the needed COAL for the loads instead. Follow the above advice, and you will have loads that will tack drive if you do your part with finding the correct needed amount of powder to make the barrel sing. |
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[#13]
1. throw the Lee alox in the trash and never look back.
2.get some wheel weight lead, it's perfect for 45ACP 3.start powder coating, it's really easy, and much cleaner. 4. win and be happy |
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[#14]
Quoted:
I think I read the replies closely enough so forgive me if this has been mentioned: Have you actually pulled one of your seated bullets and measured the diameter? It's very possible that the neck tension alone is swedging them down when you seat them. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
I think I read the replies closely enough so forgive me if this has been mentioned: Have you actually pulled one of your seated bullets and measured the diameter? It's very possible that the neck tension alone is swedging them down when you seat them. Quoted:
10 to 12 BHN is all you should need. My 1911's barrel is very worn. I recently had it re-blued by my gunsmith and he was laughing because it's nearly a smooth bore. Yet it shoots my cast bullets great without accumulating lead fouling and did so with Lee A-Lox tumble lube. Quoted:
The 45acp is probably the easiest semiautomatic pistol cartridge to load cast bullets for. To be completely honest when I read your post it took me completely by surprise. Quoted:
I think your bullets are being reduced in diameter by neck tension. Probably because they are softer than you think they are. Quoted:
One other possibility is over crimping. You should only be crimping enough to remove the mouth flare. Nothing more. For every thousandth of an inch that your case mouth is smaller than where the bullet is seated the bullet within the case has been swedged at least .002" smaller. But since it's on a taper it doesn't go back very far but it's still having a negative impact. Quoted:
And if you are over crimping doesn't take very much with soft cast bullets to destroy half of the neck tension and reduce the bullet diameter at the same time. I would add that I added another heavy coat of tumble lube to my remaining bullets and shot 50 more. Still had leading but considerably less, so moar loob definitely helped . I've done another heavy coat on my remaining bullets (that'd make three coats on this batch) and plan to shoot them later to see what happens. At the very least, this gun either doesn't like tumble lube or demands you have a lot of it. I probably just need to powder coat them and be done with it...or get a proper lube sizer and use better lube. PC is cheaper, so that's my likely course of action. |
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[#15]
I ran Alox for decades ,then 45/45/10 for years, and besides the ammo smoking more (limited to outdoors shooting since you would end up with black lunge if your try to run it indoors), never ran into problems with leading or accuircy.
Where PC comes in handy, is the reduces smoke, the added speed you gain from the coating, but the best part is with hard cast bullets, you can bring on the speeds to over 2K, without needing a gas check. Now back to the lead you are using (which either more lube or PC coating is not going to solve the problem), Short of WC ammo with a hollow base skirt that is going to flair out to hold the rifling when produced from pure lead/ not pushed that fast to begin with, would bank that that your biggest problem is just that the lead you have, is close to pure lead as well, and why you are having problems with it cast into standard bullets pushed to normal ball ammo speeds. Hence again, would tin 20lbs of it with 1lb of tin, should bring the hardness up to at least 14 or better, and use this lead to cast rounds to verify if the soft lead is causing the leading and accuracy problems. As for the extra coats of alox, all your doing is producing more smoke. So in regards to alox lubing on the bullets, all you want is a light bronze coat on the bullets, and that more than enough Alox. Hence the way I did it with either straight Alox, or 45/45/10 (which is better and does not leave that sticky surface) is to first tumble the bullets, run them through the sizer still wet, give them a small extra shot of the Alox again, give them another tumble , then set them out to dry. Hell, if you are not pushing speeds, then just straight Johnson paste wax with a hint of mineral spirits works fine to tumble lube the bullets instead. |
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[#16]
Quoted:
I ran Alox for decades ,then 45/45/10 for years, and besides the ammo smoking more (limited to outdoors shooting since you would end up with black lunge if your try to run it indoors), never ran into problems with leading or accuircy. Where PC comes in handy, is the reduces smoke, the added speed you gain from the coating, but the best part is with hard cast bullets, you can bring on the speeds to over 2K, without needing a gas check. Now back to the lead you are using (which either more lube or PC coating is not going to solve the problem), Short of WC ammo with a hollow base skirt that is going to flair out to hold the rifling when produced from pure lead/ not pushed that fast to begin with, would bank that that your biggest problem is just that the lead you have, is close to pure lead as well, and why you are having problems with it cast into standard bullets pushed to normal ball ammo speeds. Hence again, would tin 20lbs of it with 1lb of tin, should bring the hardness up to at least 14 or better, and use this lead to cast rounds to verify if the soft lead is causing the leading and accuracy problems. As for the extra coats of alox, all your doing is producing more smoke. So in regards to alox lubing on the bullets, all you want is a light bronze coat on the bullets, and that more than enough Alox. Hence the way I did it with either straight Alox, or 45/45/10 (which is better and does not leave that sticky surface) is to first tumble the bullets, run them through the sizer still wet, give them a small extra shot of the Alox again, give them another tumble , then set them out to dry. Hell, if you are not pushing speeds, then just straight Johnson paste wax with a hint of mineral spirits works fine to tumble lube the bullets instead. View Quote |
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[#17]
Quoted: I'll try it, but it doesn't make sense. How can your lead be too soft if it is common practice to use soft waged lead bullets in this caliber? That's as soft as it gets. View Quote Drop your load down to around 3.4 grains of bullseye, and pure lead/soft cast bullets will have not problems holding onto the rifling isntead. |
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[#18]
Quoted: Because your loading to ball ammo speeds, and not reduce pure lead target bullet load speeds. Drop your load down to around 3.4 grains of bullseye, and pure lead/soft cast bullets will have not problems holding onto the rifling isntead. View Quote |
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[#19]
I'm a little bit surprised you are having clambering issues with a 1911. Are they some kind of super match guns? I don't even own a bullet sizer for 45acp I powder coat and load them as cast and never had any problems in various pistols. And before anyone asks, no I don't use a FCD on my cast loads. And I do seat and crimp in one step as I do all of my pistol ammo regardless of the type.
OP: Sounds like you have a good plan. I think if you were to harden up your alloy a little, switch to powder coating and size .001" over groove diameter your loads will shoot as clean as jacketed loads. Motor |
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[#20]
Sounds like other common issues have been addressed so I'd place a $5 bet that you have a sharpe leade (not lead, but leade). The leade is the transitional cone from the chamber ledge to the bore and rifling. There should be a visible smooth transitional ramp. Many modern mass produced .45's have almost no leade from what I've found. There is no way I've found to shoot cast without leading if you have a sharp leade. The fix is to get a chamber reamer or send the barrel to a gunsmith that knows what they're doing.
Oddly enough, 9mm is considered hard to reload for but all of my modern 9mm handguns came with much better leades than my .45's. |
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[#21]
Quoted:
Sounds like other common issues have been addressed so I'd place a $5 bet that you have a sharpe leade (not lead, but leade). The leade is the transitional cone from the chamber ledge to the bore and rifling. There should be a visible smooth transitional ramp. Many modern mass produced .45's have almost no leade from what I've found. There is no way I've found to shoot cast without leading if you have a sharp leade. The fix is to get a chamber reamer or send the barrel to a gunsmith that knows what they're doing. Oddly enough, 9mm is considered hard to reload for but all of my modern 9mm handguns came with much better leades than my .45's. View Quote |
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[#22]
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[#23]
I was having leading issues too with softer lead. Two coats of 45/45/10 and slowing down my speed to 800-850 fps did the trick. Also seating & crimping at same time didn't work for me, the Lee FCD made things work better.
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