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.45 acp load question

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colbyjack

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what does your load book say min is for using clays with a 200 gr Lead Round Nose Flat Point?

ive been shooting some with 3.5 grains of clays with the 200 LRNFP. however i checked my sierria 5th addition book and it says 5.6 gr is the min load. with clays, can this be right? are those shells that light? i went on the powder site and it said one could start out at 3.6 grains of clays. what does your book show is the min powder charge for clays with a 200 gr lead round nose flat point? thanks for the info. im new to reloading and dont want to be at max or to far below the min. any input would be great. thanks -chris
 
Clays and Clays :)

Caveat: I am still warming up for my actual handloading experience :)

However, one thing I've found in researching powders for .45 (the first cal I'll be reloading) is that there are 3 kinds of powders from Hodgdon's with the word "Clay" in the name:

Off the top of my head (I sense a correction will arrive quickly if the top of my head is too bumpy) There's Hodgdon Clays, Hodgdon International Clays, and Hodgdon Universal Clays. They all have different load data; make sure that you're looking at numbers for the right kind.

timothy
 
was not aware of that, thanks for pointing that out.

heres what i got looks like just clays

mypowder002.jpg

and yes my book has unv. clays at 5.6 nothing on clays.... hmmm
-chris
 
i looked at another reloading book no listing, i seen where it says 3.6 to start on that website. the shells ive been running are 3.5 gr wonder if im too light? -chris
 
i looked at another reloading book no listing, i seen where it says 3.6 to start on that website. the shells ive been running are 3.5 gr wonder if im too light?
Click to expand...


If the cases are not all sooty, the pistol feeds and ejects OK, accuracy is up to your idea of what it should be, I would not worry.

You are only 0.10 gr under the starting load in the book and your powder measure likely varies more then that. We tend to want to be at the max or see how low we can go, when what we should be looking for are safe, accurate, trouble free loads. The data books are simply guidelines and not cut in stone. We need them to find the range of powder wgt the lab found as safe, but other then that the load developement they did has little to do with our desires or needs.
Hodgdon list 4.8 gr of Titegroup as a starting load with a 200 gr LSWC on their web site. I`ve went down to 4.2 gr and quit only because the loads were too sooty IMO. There were no failures of any kind and accuracy was fine @ 10 yd. I now load 4,8 grs and am happy, no soot and everything works.
 
First, compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges.

There ARE three different "Clays"; Universal, International, and just plain "Clays".

Secondly, the bullet that Sierra is using is a Jacketed bullet, significantly different than the lead bullet mentioned.

Indeed, the minimum charge for "UNIVERSAL" CLAYS, would likely be about 5.4-5.6gr with a JACKETED bullet. I find that 5.4gr with a 200gr LSWC is about the minimum that will give a good clean burn and is very accurate, but a little faster and more recoil than I want for a plinking/target load.

However, with a lead bullet and "CLAYS", you will indeed see a good load at about 3.5-3.6gr. However, I've seen best accuracy and function at 4.0gr. This is a very good target load for the .45acp. It is very close to 4.0gr of 700X and RedDot, and Bullseye but perhaps more accurate than these others. At least in the .45's I've owned and/or shot. A friend of mine shoots a lot of sporting clays with 12ga shotguns and buys his "CLAYS" in 8lb kegs. He also uses it in his .45acp loads and is amazed at how much further it goes in the handgun.
 
Congratulations for reading the instructions, Timothy.

Hodgdon gets a lot of flak for three different powders with "Clays" in their names. Wonder why nobody gets confused over all the "Dots" from Alliant? (I have known people to get confused over all those apparently random four-digit numbers from IMR.)
 
45 acp

target loads have been 3.5 gr bulleye with 200 or 180gr swc lead.they function in my amts and my longslide amt with standard springs.but I use 700x with 3.2 and 3.5 with 200gr and could keep it in 10ring at 50 ft.and used at 25 and 50yrds.3.5 because one gun is tight.all my pistol loads are 700X= 25 to 45 cal.:):)
 
I know 3.3 of clays will operate the slide on all of my 1911's with 16lb wolff springs.
 
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