New to reloading 45 acp

[BigK]

I bought a 4-die set of Lee carbide dies, some 185 gr HBRN Berry's plated bullets, and some used brass from a friend this week and got started reloading some 45 acps.

I've been using Bullseye for 9mm loads, but picked up some Win 231 a while back to try something different when I started loading Makarovs, so I used it. I loaded 15 with 5.3 gr, 15 with 5.6 gr, and 15 with 5.8 gr. I crimped them all to .470 and set the OAL to 1.24".

The lightest loads were clearly the least accurate, grouping within about 4.5" from 10 yds. The other 2 loads grouped practically the same at around 3.5" for the 5.8 gr loads and 3.75" for the 5.6 gr.

The quarter inch isn't much of a difference and with only 15 rounds of each to test, I decided to load 100 more rounds with 5.6 gr of powder and they shot well this weekend. I was using some really small 4" splat targets, so I was only shooting from 5 yards offhand. I know that's not very far, but I had one 5 shot group that was dead center all touching each other in a single ragged hole.

I'm pretty satisfied with the accuracy of this load, but the Win 231 is still pretty dirty. Anybody got a suggestion on a really clean powder in the $20-25 range that works well with 9mm and 45 acp?

Any other .45 acp secret/hints would be appreciated as well.

For instance, is .470" a decent crimp?

Is 1.24" OAL a fairly standard length?

I didn't have any trouble with the 185gr plated HBRn, but I'm thinking of getting 185gr SWC next time (230 gr RN are so darn expensive). Anyone have any luck with them?

Edited May 7, 2012 by BigK

[frankmako]

i use aa#5 for 45 acp, 9mm, 40 s&w, and 38/357. works well and drop good in my dillon. for the 45 acp i use a 230 gr round nose cast lead and drop 8.3 grs of aa#5. bullet seat is the same as military 203gr fmj. this load works well in my 1911's and glock's. i got some chrono data down in the man cave if you want to see it.

[Jonnin]

I also use #5 for a bunch of calibers.

Power pistol is the cleanest I have tried, but it requires by-weight loading rather than by-volume. If loaded by weight it produces good accuracy. I am not sure what it costs per pound.

Accurate #2 is clean, but its stout. You could get as many as 3 charges in a case, so be careful if you move to a hot powder like this.

At 10 yards shooting standing up, you will not really be able to tell much difference between loads unless you are an excellent shot. Its too close to blame the ammo, unless the ammo is just wildly unstable (assuming the powder charges are within a decent margin of error). I would strongly recommend at least bench resting the gun, if not locking it down somehow. Get the human error out of the equation, and you may be able to refine your loads faster/easier.

[Lumber_Jack]

I've been using Unique, and as David (dlm37015) says, its called unique for a reason. Hornady 230 gr FMJ, 5.2 gr Unique (min load, working up), 1.270 OAL, crimp .470

I would make the OAL as long as you can without exceeding max and that will still reliable feed in you gun. the closer to the Lands the bullet is the more accurate that round. now if you load to max OAL and it doesn't chamber you may be hitting the lands and need to shorten incrementally until it chambers. I haven't shot alot of these loads so I will let you know how "dirty" it is.

[Caster]

I love #5. Use the heck out if. It has never failed to give excellent results.

That said, I got 8lb jug of Titegroup from David a few weeks ago on his recommendation. I have been pleasantly surprised at well it does. It's very similar to Bullseye as far as load density and it meters excellent. I have about 1K 45's to size I need to get started on. I plan to load some with Titegroup and see how she goes.

[Caster]

I've been using Unique, and as David (dlm37015) says, its called unique for a reason. Hornady 230 gr FMJ, 5.2 gr Unique (min load, working up), 1.270 OAL, crimp .470

Darn right it is! Much to many folks surprise, I use it in my cast .308 loads.

My one complaint for Unique is that it does not meter as well as other powders.

[mikegideon]

I'm just getting started with .45 (and pistol) too. I arrived at my powder choice in a back assward fashion. Since I use a lot of Alliant powder on the rifle side, I jumped into Quickload and hunted thru the Alliant pile to find what was best for my 3 1/2" barrel. It wound up being a tossup between Bullseye and Unique. Then I went to the Interwebz and looked for a concensus. Most folks, in the places I landed are using Bullseye for .45. Since I will be using an automated powder drop, I didn't need any funky metering characteristics either. So, I got a bottle of Bullseye, and will start out with that.

When it comes to die setup (I also have the Lee 4 die set), I dropped 20 bucks on one of these. Money well spent...

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/744135/egw-4-hole-chamber-checker-max-cartridge-cage-9mm-luger-38-super-40-s-and-w-45-acp?cm_vc=S014

[Caster]

Any of the tried and true calibers [45 acp in this instance] mated with Bullseye; It's darn near impossible to go wrong. Bullseye meters well. You'll do well Mike.

Interesting to note, the 45 acp is arguably THE best caliber to learn reloading on. Lots of bang for the buck, difficult to get wrong. Not impossible, but you've gotta be a real moron to get it catastrophically wrong. Good results come easily. Excellent results come with a very little work. If you actually put in some hard work [especially with cast] results are very impressive. Not many calibers come so easy.

[mikegideon]

It's a walk in the park compared to rifle, at least the rifle stuff I load. I'll probably wind up loading .40 as well.

[BigK]

I've gotten several recommendataion to try AA#2 and AA#5 and many of you seem to agree. It sounds like AA#2 would be similar to Bullseye (a little goes a long way and meters well). If I'm not going to see much difference in how well it burns, it seems I'd be better off sticking with the powders I'm used to.

Would you say I would be able to tell much difference in how clean AA#2 burns compared to Bullseye? Win 231?

How about #5?

Edited May 7, 2012 by BigK

[Jonnin]

5 and 231 are so close you can almost interchange the load data. Both are excellent and both will do for almost all calibers from 380 up, though it is suboptimal for magnums, and not quite what you want for say .25 acp.

#2, I feel it is cleaner than most. I suspect it has to do with the lower volume. Less material to burn = less residue, and burning hotter, it burns cleaner. Combine all that.... 5 and 231 and maybe twice as dirty (?) or so, very noticable. And, your $20 pound goes nearly twice as far. Its a fine powder. The reason I do not use it is accuracy. The less you use of a powder, the more impact a little variation has on your accuracy. If you use 3 grains of #2, and your scale is +- .25 grains, that is nearly a 10% variation in loads!!!!!! If you used 6 grains of #5, that is only 5% variation, see? 5 is a good balance between cost and performance for a .45 --- a little dirtier, a little more expensive, and a little more consistent (with my equipment and methods).

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Have never loaded .45. Have read comments that some of the powders burn cleanest when you get on the hotter side of the allowable range, getting not far below the max load. Some powders are said to be real dirty in light loads but most of the dirt burns up in hotter loads.

I don't have time to google it today, but W231 may be one of the powders that is reputed to "clean up" with fairly hot loads. Can't recall. You just don't wanna make it "too hot" of course.

You can google powder burn rate comparison charts. Perhaps there are other powder variables so important that the burn rate doesn't mean much but I will think about the burn rate in trying to make sense of people's reports of certain powders' performance. Which may be a foolish exercise. Dunno much and I just try to make sense of it.

W231 is a fairly fast powder. Bullseye is faster than AA#2. AA#2 is faster than W231. AA#5 is slower than W231. Unique is slower than AA#5. Power pistol is in the same ballpark as Unique but slightly slower. I've been lately using a powder slightly slower than Unique and Bullseye for 9mm and if I ever load .45 might try it there as well. Maybe I'll try Unique sometime and maybe its better than what I'm currently using.

There are surely numerous exceptions, but it seems that people like the faster powders for light target loads and slower powders for full-tilt-boogie loads.

Many of the fast powders use a very small amount of powder which saves money on practice loads but it is easy to get 2 or more max charges of the fast powders in a case if you make a mistake.

The slower powders seem to usually use a heavier load of powder which would cost a little more per round, assuming that all the powders cost the same per pound, which I dunno if that is true. The slower powders tend to be able to make a higher-velocity load than fast powders can manage without hurting the pistol.

In situations where a slower powder recipe uses a heavier weight of powder, the slower powder would also fill more of the case, assuming that the density of a fast powder and slow powder are both about the same. So it might be a little less likely that you could accidentally overcharge a round quite so drastically with some of the slower powders.

[BigK]

5 and 231 are so close you can almost interchange the load data. Both are excellent and both will do for almost all calibers from 380 up, though it is suboptimal for magnums, and not quite what you want for say .25 acp.

#2, I feel it is cleaner than most. I suspect it has to do with the lower volume. Less material to burn = less residue, and burning hotter, it burns cleaner. Combine all that.... 5 and 231 and maybe twice as dirty (?) or so, very noticable. And, your $20 pound goes nearly twice as far. Its a fine powder. The reason I do not use it is accuracy. The less you use of a powder, the more impact a little variation has on your accuracy. If you use 3 grains of #2, and your scale is +- .25 grains, that is nearly a 10% variation in loads!!!!!! If you used 6 grains of #5, that is only 5% variation, see? 5 is a good balance between cost and performance for a .45 --- a little dirtier, a little more expensive, and a little more consistent (with my equipment and methods).

Thanks Jonnin. I see what you mean about the low charges and margins for error. The .45 cases seem awfully big for such a low volume of powder too. Sounds like sticking with Win 231 or trying #5 would be the better way to go.

About the cleaner burn of less powder...Bulleseye is about as low volume and hot as anything I've heard of, yet it's dirty as hell to shoot. Do you suspect that's due to it being such an old formula or what?

[Jonnin]

Thanks Jonnin. I see what you mean about the low charges and margins for error. The .45 cases seem awfully big for such a low volume of powder too. Sounds like sticking with Win 231 or trying #5 would be the better way to go.

About the cleaner burn of less powder...Bulleseye is about as low volume and hot as anything I've heard of, yet it's dirty as hell to shoot. Do you suspect that's due to it being such an old formula or what?

I do not know, have not tried bullseye. I would think they tweak the formulas some... actually pretty sure of it as people warned me when I started about using old powder with new load data or vice versa. I know very little of the chemistry involved, if I had the formula I could tell you what it makes when it burns and how much of it, but methinks the formulae for these (the exact formula that is) are secrets.... (?). If its public info, point me at it, and I will take a look. However that still assumes it burns completely.... which it may not do in some guns and some loads etc.

For sure, though, the more you burn of whatever, the more stuff it will produce. 10 grains of bullseye is going to be twice as dirty as 5. Compared to #2? I cannot begin to say.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Jonnin

[lshel]

I have used 3 different powders with 45 ACP in a Berry's plated 185g bullet: 231, Accurate #5,and Titegroup.

As you said 231 is dirty, but usually accurate. A#5 and Titegroup are accurate and cleaner burning.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I started with Accurate #5 and never tried any other. For 9mm and .45ACP.

[mikegideon]

I've been using Unique, and as David (dlm37015) says, its called unique for a reason. Hornady 230 gr FMJ, 5.2 gr Unique (min load, working up), 1.270 OAL, crimp .470

I'm up and running with this OAL and crimp. Loaded 10 and dropped them into my trusty EGW chamber gauge. Good to go.

[Raoul]

I'm using a 225gr LRN with 5.0 gr of Unique. It's working well.

[mikegideon]

I'm using 230 GR Berry's plated, and 230gr Hornady XTP's. I plan to push both with 5 to 5.4 grains of Bullseye.

[BigK]

I appreciate all the input, guys, thanks. I think the next time I need powder I'll give #5 a shot. I sure have heard a lot of good things here and on other forums.

In the meantime, I'm pretty excited about the sample pack of bullets (BHN 17) that should be here tomorrow. I'm getting 4 types in all, 25 of each: 185 gr LSWC, 200 gr LSWC, 200 gr LRN, and 230 gr LRN. I haven't loaded any lead since last summer when I was loading HBWC for a revolver I used to have. I've never loaded/shot any lead bullets in any semi auto. Should be fun.

I'm especially anxious to see how the SWC feed, because I liked that bullet type in revolvers. I'm most curious about this because if you load it to a mm or so below the shoulder like with revolver rounds, you have no control over the OAL/feeding. I guess that's putting the cart before the horse, they wouldn't make them if they didn't feed well in 1911s, huh?

Anyway, can't wait to see how they shoot. Do you think I should proactively pick up some liquid alox and start using it from the start or see how they work first?

Edited May 10, 2012 by BigK

[mikegideon]

I loaded some test rounds myself. The EGW chamber gauge really came in handy. Had to change my crimp when I changed bullets, and it let me dial it right in. Best money I've spent on this project.

Edited May 10, 2012 by mikegideon

[BigK]

I loaded some test rounds myself. The EGW chamber gauge really came in handy. Had to change my crimp when I changed bullets, and it let me dial it right in. Best money I've spent on this project.

I looked up the EGW chamber gauge. If I understand it's use you drop a round in to check to see if it'd chamber in your gun, right? Please forgive my ignorance, does it do something calipers won't do or is it just that it's faster/easier? Again, I have no clue...only been reloading for a year now.

[mikegideon]

I looked up the EGW chamber gauge. If I understand it's use you drop a round in to check to see if it'd chamber in your gun, right? Please forgive my ignorance, does it do something calipers won't do or is it just that it's faster/easier? Again, I have no clue...only been reloading for a year now.

I think so. It's a real chamber. So, on a .45, it will identify a headspace problem if you overcrimp. The main deal is that you can check every round, not that I will. I'll certainly check 10 after I change a die setting. It also includes .40 and 9mm chambers, which I'll probably reload as well at some point.

Faster and easier... sure. You can make ammo with a Lee Loader. I did it when I was real young and broke. These days, I buy things to keep the process from pissing me off.

[Jonnin]

It looks an awful lot like what you have if you take the barrel out of your gun (?).

[mikegideon]

It looks an awful lot like what you have if you take the barrel out of your gun (?).

So you can use it as a chamber gauge? I'm guessing the gauge is minimum spec. I have three .45's. Which barrel should I use? Did I mention it's 20 bucks? I've spent more on a cigar.