45 ACP 185 SWC adventure

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Paul Toms

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Gentlemen,
My wife has a couple 1911s and enjoys shooting them, however she has a preference for lighter projectiles. She likes the 185s more than the standard 230s. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to feed her 185 grain flat nosed bullets from Berrys Bullets (https://www.berrysmfg.com/product/bp-45-452-185gr-fp) They struggle to feed in both her pistols.


I have seen advertised on many sites the SWC projectile. Can you help me out with a primer in reloading these? They seem to be very
 
The 185 Gr button nose swc from Berrys fed better for me. I loaded them at 1.200 +/- OAL.
 
I shoot lots of coated, cast 200 grain SWCs, mostly at low power loads (4.5 grains of bullseye, by comparison a full throated accurate load for me with this bullet is 7 grains of Unique). I would pick up a few different lighter weight coated bullets from Missouri Bullet and try them out at modest powder charges. My pistol is an XDM which tend to have short throats. I have to be careful about seating depths and usually this means that only a teensy bit (technical term) of the cylindrical part of the bullet protrudes from the case mouth. Will soon be trying out some 170 grain cast SWCs in this gun and I imagine I will have to be similarly careful with seating. Make sure the rounds plunk and you should be good.
 
I have shot 200gr LSW loaded with 4.5gr of Bullseye for years in 1911 pistols (currently an ATI Commander) with great success---could probably reduce the
charge lower---check loading manuals to be sure of loads.
 
I shoot a lot of 185gr LSWC in my 1911 BE gun. I've used the ones with the bullet lube but my next order is going to be Hytec coated. Not near as messy. I'm using 4.1 gr WST which produce a velocity of around 675 fps out of my 5" Kart barrel. I load with just a thumbnail of the shoulder exposed which puts the OAL at 1.250" . These are very soft shooting and the WST is very clean burning at these low pressures. My gun is cleaner after a 100 rounds than a 1 magazine shot with BE powder. You may need to change to a lighert recoil spring with this load. My will work fine with the std 16 lb spring. But I run a 14 lb since I have a slide mounted Cmore dot sight.

Not all guns feed SWC reliably, so I would recommend buying a small quantity to test before buying 1000's... I use MBC for most of my LSWC bullets.
 
SAECO REDDING has a 185 grain mold which I believe is a #65. It has worked in several of my pistols. I cast and powder coat them. Years ago I bought a used 1911 that was set up for 185 grain SWC using 3.5-3.6 Bullseye. Which still works for me.
You might ask the bullet maker if they use this mold. I believe MAGMA brand commercial molds use this bullet.
 
Berry's 185 SWC is the way to go for plated bullets.
Loaded some this morning at 1.160". Shot great in my USP and Gov't model.
 
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Here is my experience with SWC bullets in the M1911.

Over the years, I've periodically tried 185 and 200 grain SWC bullets in my round nose shooting M1911's and I could never get the feed reliably. I'll admit that I resisted fiddling with the feed ramp and I never really tried real hard with various springs and bullet seating depth.

I recently got a Gold Cup NM and it has fed SWC bullets without issue. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two versions of the M1911.

Someday, I may discover the magic set-up. I hope the already mentioned suggestions help.
 
I shoot a lot of 185gr LSWC in my 1911 BE gun. I've used the ones with the bullet lube but my next order is going to be Hytec coated. Not near as messy. I'm using 4.1 gr WST which produce a velocity of around 675 fps out of my 5" Kart barrel. I load with just a thumbnail of the shoulder exposed which puts the OAL at 1.250" . These are very soft shooting and the WST is very clean burning at these low pressures. My gun is cleaner after a 100 rounds than a 1 magazine shot with BE powder. You may need to change to a lighert recoil spring with this load. My will work fine with the std 16 lb spring. But I run a 14 lb since I have a slide mounted Cmore dot sight.

Not all guns feed SWC reliably, so I would recommend buying a small quantity to test before buying 1000's... I use MBC for most of my LSWC bullets.

I load them the same way.

I’ve used Dardas, MBC and Summers lubed and just ordered some Brazos hi tech to try.
As long as I load them to just a thumb nail above the case they have worked in all of my 1911’s.

I normally will use Bullseye, WST or Clays
 
Im running 7.8gr of CFE Pistol under 185gr Acme HiTek coated SWCs. Its a pretty hot load, but is laser accurate.

The big thing you have to watch with SWCs I have found, if you keep just a hair of the driving band above the rim of the case. I go with about 1/32" of an inch. This way the case mouth isnt catching on the feed ramp. See pic below.

d5JJd6d.jpg
 
Had good results with MBC 185gr in Gold Cup. Went down to 3.6gr Bullseye and groups started to open up. Shot best st 4.0gr with standard 16# spring. You may need a bit of speed for best accuracy.
 
Thanks everybody. I'm not looking for recipes so much, but ideas on COAL & how much "shoulder" exposed from the case, feed ramp hurdles etc. An excellent idea to buy a hundred (ish!) before buying thousands.

Thanks again everybody.
 
I'll chime in again with "it's probably the magazine".

I run 8rd Checkmate "wadcutter" magazines with various manufacturer stamps (some are branded Kimber, some Springfield, some Checkmate, all made by CMI) in all my 1911's. They all feed SWC's (and everything else) juuuust fine.
 
I'll chime in again with "it's probably the magazine".

I run 8rd Checkmate "wadcutter" magazines with various manufacturer stamps (some are branded Kimber, some Springfield, some Checkmate, all made by CMI) in all my 1911's. They all feed SWC's (and everything else) juuuust fine.

Thank you gotboostvr. I had no idea that there were specific magazines intended to feed the wadcutter profile.
 
Thank you gotboostvr. I had no idea that there were specific magazines intended to feed the wadcutter profile.

The CMI's are pretty cheap compared to others too. Unless you buy the Kimber stamped ones.

I'll also add, use whichever barrel is tightest as a chamber gauge. I had to seat them practically flush to get them to chamber in all my guns. I run then with juuuust enough bullseye to cycle my slide, work up higher pressure loads with caution as you may not have much case capacity available depending on necessary seating depth.
 
For seating depth, do the plunk test, that's the best way to determine OAL for your gun. With my Springfield and SWC's I could have about a thumbnail thickness of the shoulder exposed. On my Ruger SR1911 the shoulder has to be almost flush with the case mouth, you can just barely see the shoulder peeking out. Since my SWC's are homecast from an RCBS mould my OAL may not be relevant to your loads.
 
The difference is probably the mag feed lip style. My National Match came with at least one wadcutter mag.

Yes, a "wadcutter" magazine is something I have not tried. I has been 25-30 years since I fooled with Semi-wadcutters in my standard M1911's and the Cold Cup is a recent purchase.
 
I had no idea that there were specific magazines intended to feed the wadcutter profile.
Below is a picture showing each of the feed lip configurations used by Checkmate. These images were taken directly from their website. The red lines show the angle and length of the feed lips. The GI feed lips work best with 230gr FMJ.

FWIW, I run Checkmate mags with hybrid feed lips exclusively. After extensive testing I've found them to be the smoothest feeding across the widest variety of 1911s with the widest variety of factory and reloaded ammo of any magazine currently manufactured. That includes Tripp, McCormick, Wilson, Mec Gar, Metalform, and others. My understanding is that Colt actually came up with the hybrid feed lip design. I've put about 20,000 rounds loaded into CMI hybrid feed lip mags through a dozen 1911s of various configurations with no magazine related malfunctions.

There's no such thing as a free lunch and occasionally I'll encounter a CMI mag that needs a little one-time tweaking to make it run 100%. This is due to manufacturing QC failures not the design. This is particularly true with the Ed Brown branded CMI mags.

From left to right:

GI style, Wadcutter style, Hybrid style

dxvuLiB.jpg
 
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Looks like Hybrid in the middle and WC style on the right.
I'm pretty sure wadcutter feed lips are parallel while the hybrid feed lips start out as the flared GI style but have an earlier release than the GI style. I just pulled a Checkmate hybrid feed lip and a Tripp wadcutter feed lip magazine out of my shooting bag to verify the pictures and yup, the pictures are correctly labeled.
 
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