.45 ACP Semi Wadcutter Problem

[Gnarkill]

Alright. I bought 2K rainer bullets for .45acp off of midwayusa w/ free freight... Which is good. I can't get them to consistantly chamber, which is bad. These are 200 grain Rainer plated semi-wadcutter bullets. They are completely enclosed. This is with a "loaded" springfield-armory 1911.
I have a few ?'s I need help with:
-I read somewhere that for plated bullets you should use the loads for lead cast bullets, this is not really a big deal from a powder standpoint, but the cast says to goto 1.200, while the semi-wad jacketed is about 1.245.

I'd like to use the right data, please let me know what I should do about this.
-I have tried various lengths with various brass in my 1911 (which usually feeds beautifully with EVERYTHING.) and it gets hung up at an angle where it's leaving the magazine and entereing the barrel. This is my main problem. All my rounds fall into the barrel properly, so this isn't the problem.

I want to narrow down the right length.
-I think it may just be inherent to my gun/these bullets, but I want to try and fix this if possible. I have gone from 1.200 to 12.50 and no specific length has been perfect feed-wise. I tried lightly lubing the brass, which reduced the fail-to-feed by about half, but I am still getting 10-30% fail to feed. I have tried amounts of crimp with no clear advantage.

I would like to know if a large amount of taper crimp will help or what.

I have been fiddling with these rounds for 2 hours tonight to no avail. I just want my dummies to work so I can crank 50 out and try these damn things. Help me please.

 

[Steve C]

Semi wad cutter bullets can be problematic in feeding due to the blunt nose of the bullet that must slide up the feed ramp. The best thing is to make sure your feed ramp is mirror polished and free from tooling marks or roughness. A throated barrel also helps in feeding but most of the better 1911's being produced now usually come with generous throating right from the factory.

Will the rounds load if you hand operate your slide, IE the first one from the mag works but subsequent ones hang up? If this is the case your recoil spring may be too heavy for the lighter wad cutter load causing the slide to not operate fully. In this case you can either get a lighter spring or try a heavier load.

Seat wad cutters and flat point bullets like shown below and ignore OAL information unless its very bullet specific.

 

[cdrt]

There's an excellent thread on here somewhere, where one of the guys took the time to test various magazines in his 1911 and he gives an excellent explanation of why the magazine is designed the way it is for SWC bullets. You might want to track it down and see what he has to say...it might shed some light on the problem you're having.
Also, I taper crimp my .45 ACP rounds to between .470 and .472 and have no problems feeding SWC bullets though my stock Colt Series 70 1911A1, both the blunt nose and longer nose variety.

Navy Vet & SWIFT Boat OIC

 

[Walkalong]

I have shot a BUNCH of Raniers 200 Gr. SWC at an O.A.L. of 1.260 with great success.

5.7 Grs. AA# 2, 8.7 Grs. AA# 5, 6.6 Grs. Universal Clays, 10.0 Grs. Blue Dot, 5.6 Grs. N320, 5.7 Grs. W231, 5.2 Grs. WST all work pretty well. I am partial to the AA# 2 and the WST for medium loads and the AA# 5 for full power.

These loads were safe in my guns with my load technique. Check data and reduce at least 10% to start.

 

[Jim Watson]

Steve C is right, that is the way you should load SWCs.

Walkalong is lucky, I never could get the Rainier SWCs to work worth a hoot in two of my guns which were set up specifically for the H&G No 68 copy cast bullets, no matter what the seating or crimping settings.

 

[Walkalong]

Does this mean I should go play the Lotto?..

I started off seating them to look like Steve C's pic, but found out, for my guns, they would feed seated long, ( 1.260 ) or very short, too short to be feasable.

Some guns flat out will choke to death on them.

 

[Gnarkill]

Steve, I tried seating the bullet again last night @ about 1.200 where the shoulder was no longer exposed. I noticed it was just barely exposed in your post. They seemed to feed w/ almost no (or no) shoulder at all showing. I adjusted the crimp to be just a tad short of "smushing" the plating and they seemed to feed alot better.
Is it dangerous to have almost no shoulder exposed?
Thanks for the help.

 

[Ritchie]

I had a box of plated bullets that looked like the large picture above, they would stem on the base of the feed ramp frequently. The same gun has been very happily digesting Lyman #452460 cast swc slugs for years. I believe the difference in the length of the nose section. The 452460 nose is noticably shorter.

 

[JoeHatley]

I use an OAL of 1.257" with Rainier 200 grain SWC. Works well in all my 1911's.

Joe

 

[Gnarkill]

Right overall length

For my full-size 5" barrel springfield 1911 I found the sweet spot. Since my brass is untrimmed and mixed, I have a small varience in my lengths. I found w/ the 200 SWC plated Rainers the key was crimp. I setup my crimp to much higher amounts than I did for my usual 230 grain RN winchester bullets.
Here's my answer to those who have similar problems:

-I crimped a little short of mashing the plating on the bullet, this was necessary to prevent snagging.
-I oiled the brass very lightly for all these rounds.
-I adjusted to maximum COL to 1.248-1.251. These chamber 99% of the time, the 1% is mostly just a bad piece of brass.

Thanks alot to everyone who helped. My problem was using shorter lengths according to my hornady manual. I needed longer bullets (similar to factory lengths) and a hell of alot of crimp. Now I just have to pull about 100 dummy rounds.... oh well. Thanks again guys.

 

[joneb]

Is it dangerous to have almost no shoulder exposed?

They look to deep to me, I doubt the crimp is holding the bullet. I've been trying Accura 200gr plated swc with a C.O.L. of 1.240" feeding is reliable with only some of my mags. I tried increasing the C.O.L. but the bullets were getting forced into the throat making manual extraction difficult.

 

[Jim Watson]

I tried seating the bullet again last night @ about 1.200 where the shoulder was no longer exposed.

That looks kind of odd, but there was a magazine writer a few years ago who got an article out of SWCs seated that way. There is no danger as long as you were not crowding the maximum powder charge at a longer OAL and as long as the bullets are firm in the brass and do not get deep(er) seated against the feed ramp. Otherwise, if they work, they work.

 

[Walkalong]

The nose of SWC's seated that short will often not hit the ramp at all going into the chamber, which is why very short O.A.L.'s can work with the WC type mags prevalent today, but they are just to short to be feasable to me and I prefer to seat them to 1.260 which works in many guns.

 

[saltydog452]

What the mfgr recommeds isn't written in stone. Your mag lips, springs, ramp, and throat may require a different setting.

Set your seating die for ball and taper crimp the SWCs. The seating die on my long un-used Star Universal prgressive is set for GI Ball. It seats (or did the last time I used it) Hensley and Gibbs #s 130, 78, and 68 to different OAL, but they all did function. Granted, that was in a couple of Jim Clark pistols.

If you use a lot of crimp, remember that there is such a thing as 'spring back' on the brass and bullet. Too much crimp results in little or no crimp due to brass and bullet returning toward original OD after excessive compression.

That said, if Mr. Watson was unable to get satisfactory performance you really ought to listen to the man.

salty.

 

[Jim Watson]

Don't take me as the final authority, just don't buy a zillion plated SWCs until you have found that you can make them work in YOUR gun. They sure won't in MINE.

 

[JoeHatley]

I oiled the brass very lightly for all these rounds.

?!?

Wouldn't that cause excessive thrust when the case doesn't "grab" the chamber wall?

Joe

 

[Steve C]

I noticed it was just barely exposed in your post. They seemed to feed w/ almost no (or no) shoulder at all showing. I adjusted the crimp to be just a tad short of "smushing" the plating and they seemed to feed alot better.
Is it dangerous to have almost no shoulder exposed?

You can't argue with success. It is perfectly safe to not have the shoulder exposed. I've found with lead bullets that the shoulder has a bit of a bevel on the leading edge so it doesn't hinder feeding. I've also found that if seated much further out it engages the rifling and I'll get the bullet not allowing the cartridge to fully chamber.

 

[flemball]

Hi guys. When I reloaded .45apc with swc lead I had the same problem and ended up going with round nose lead. The problem is with the feed ramp. It likes round nose lead and RNFMJ. The only other time I had misfeeds was with some HPs. I speculate that the problem may have been the same.

 

[m715kaiser]

my buddy and I shoot a colt I bought mine bout 6 months before him. I found a good load that my gun liked.When he tried the loads in his new gun it did not like them.It took me weeks of playing with the depth and powder to find a load that both guns liked.So I guess they are all somewhat picky when it comes to swc.I may not have helped ya much but just wanted to let you know that sometimes patients and persistance is the winner.

 

[Gnarkill]

I've very lightly oiled rounds before w/ no trouble. A little lube never hurt anyone. I will be testing the rounds tomorow, but the feeding problem is fixed for sure. Just took experimenting, 100 dummy rounds, and a broken bullet puller. Also, the lube is done on a lubing pad mostly on the top end (non-primer) of the case, the rim is basically dry.

 

[CZ57]

Gnarkill: sounds like you have a feedramp issue. Something between 1.200 and 1.250" should be working for you. I would do one of two things here. First, call Springfield. They may want the barrel to do some additional polishing on the feed ramp. Sending a gun back to the manufacturer is a PItA, but it shouldn't be necessary in this case. If you have a very competent 1911 pistolsmith nearby, take it to him. When I say competent, I mean someone that will get it right the first time. Another option if you feel you can handle it, get an AGI pistolsmithing video on the 1911. These issues are covered as well as how to correct them.

 

[Jim Watson]

I have heard of oiling .22s but for a centerfire autopistol?
Eww.
If your gun requires that to function, something is wrong and oil is a tiny bandaid. If it does not require oiled brass to function, why do it?

 

[Walkalong]

I oiled the brass very lightly for all these rounds.

I've very lightly oiled rounds before w/ no trouble. A little lube never hurt anyone

My advise here is like Buford T. Justice told the buys by the car in Smokey and the Bandit. "You can think about it, but don't do it."

 

[Gnarkill]

Yeah, I know it's, at the very least, not the best of plans. I've got 24 of the "lightly lubed" cases and I'm gonna try to goto the range today. I don't plan on lubing them all the time, just the ones in the begining to try and get an idea of where my "sweet spot" is.
I know all the manuals for wadcutters say 1.200-1.250, but it seems that my 1911 likes to eat up factory sized ammo.
Making the wadcutters 1.250-1.255 makes it happy. This is outside my load manuals' reccomended OAL, but inside the max COL, so I didn't worry.

I also go a little overboard w/ lube, period. I lube the inside of the magazine lightly with a teflon lubricant to keep things sliding very smoothly.

 

[Gnarkill]

Double post.

Got 2 failure to feeds out of 25. Not too bad, better than like 50% where it was. I'm thinking about increasing powder to 5.0 grains rather than 4.8. I'm also thinking of tinkering w/ a second load w/ a slightly longer bullet, maybe 1.260.

My rounds didn't catch on fire cause of my lube though, like I said it was very light and mostly gone.

Regardless, I am still up to thoughts/ideas in order to fix my problem. I want 0% fail-to-feed rate if possible.