Commercially reloaded .45 ACP 230gr plated @1200fps!

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tcoz

tcoz

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My friend and I were chronographing some loads and commercial ammo the other day using his Caldwell G2. He had some 45 ACP 230gr ball that he had purchased from a commercial reloader about a year ago at a gun show that he wanted to check while I was doing something else. When I looked at the results, every round out of two mags (fired in a Remington R1 1911) was just over 1200 fps, using a plated bullet much less. I was stunned to say the least and told him not to shoot any more of it and we'll pull all of them. When I pulled a few of the rounds, they contained 4.7gr of a very fine spherical powder and the bullets were pretty tightly crimped.

I’m not an expert on this by any means but I checked load data on 10-12 common pistol powders and didn’t see any that would give this kind of velocity from a 4.7gr charge. The company that he bought them from is pretty well known in this area and they’re a pretty small mom and pop operation so I’m sure they would have been using a commercially available powder.

Does anybody have any thoughts on this? I've never used Quickload but does it have the capability of telling you what powder has the capability to give this kind of velocity in this round? Off the top of my head I was thinking that they must have loaded the ammo with the wrong powder.
 
If you ran a more than a dozen through the chronograph, I'm thinking it's not a chronograph error. But I'd pull and weigh a few of those projectiles, I'm thinking they may me mislabeled 185gr bullets. Even then, that's fast with less than 5 grains of any powder. Sure they're not lightweight frangible or those polycase bullets? Those should get to 1200fps out of a 5" 1911
Or maybe they loaded them up with these;
https://www.tactical-life.com/gear/federal-efmj-ammo/
 
I’d pull one and weigh the bullet . They might be 185’s or even 165’s . Weighing the powder isn’t going to say much . I have 45acp loads in the 4gr to almost 8gr area depending on the bullet and powder .
 
They're definitely 45ACP rounds and I weighed ten random bullets which were all 230gr. I asked him about the recoil and he said that the seemed a little hot, but unbeknownst to me he's already shot a couple hundred of them so he doesn't really have anything to compare them with. I first thought it had to be a chronograph error but we ran my 9mm and .308 rounds and his .223 rounds through it and all of them were exactly where they should have been. In addition, one of his 7 round mags yielded an ES of only 9 fps.

I'm really puzzled about this. He's going to contact the company that he bought them from but I'll be surprised if that leads anywhere.
 
Yeah....if those are indeed 230 grainers hitting 1200fps, I'd set those rounds aside and count your blessings. Best case scenario, that beat the gun all up, worst case...parts go missing. Both the gun's and the shooter's.

Edit: don't just set those aside, go ahead and break them down. Don't want those finding their way into the chamber of a weaker gun
 
tcoz said:
I'm really puzzled about this. He's going to contact the company that he bought them from but I'll be surprised if that leads anywhere.
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I'm going to guess they used 4.7grn W296, instead of W231... or AA#7 instead of AA#2 or 5... some mixup like that. That's all I can think of that would produce that kind of velocity...

6.5grn Unique, a max load, gives me 850fps out of a 5" 1911... I don't know what 1200fps... almost 50% additional velocity... would look and feel like, but I don't really want to know... you know?
 
I'm going with chronograph error. I can't imagine 4.7 grains of any powder producing that kind of velocity with a 230 grain bullet, and I've looked over the fast powders Competition and Nitro 100 of Western Powders and N310 for Vihtavuori, all of which use very small charge weights.

The recoil produced by a 230 grain bullet that fast in a 1911 would be very obvious that something is very wrong. If he didn't notice that something was horribly wrong, not just 'a little hot', when he fired the first shot, then the chronograph error is the most likely explanation.
 
Charlie98 said:
I'm going to guess they used 4.7grn W296, instead of W231... or AA#7 instead of AA#2 or 5... some mixup like that. That's all I can think of that would produce that kind of velocity...
Click to expand...

4.7 grains of 296 would be lucky to get the bullet out of the barrel at all. Low charge weights and slow powders produce very low speeds, not high speeds.

It takes 8.6 grains of Accurate #7 to produce 800 fps with a 230 grain berry's bullet, according to Western Powder's data.
 
I can’t completely shake the “chronograph error” theory but again, how could rounds chrono'd before and after these be accurate (I’m sure that they are) and these be that far off?

I’m not very experienced with optical chronographs (I had a MagnetoSpeed) and I know that lighting can play tricks on them but the G2 is supposed to be much less sensitive to it. It was a cloudless day about 70 degrees which I believe is the type of conditions that can play havoc with typical right side up chronos but shouldn’t with this one.
 
tcoz said:
. . .45 ACP 230gr ball . . . in a Remington R1 1911) was just over 1200 fps. . .
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fxvr5 said:
I'm going with chronograph error.
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I'm here too. How experienced is your friend shooting a 1911?

If you're used to shooting WalMart .45ACP/230gr, then the GI spec at ~850fps is spicey. Shooting 230gr at 1200 would make you stop and think.

Is it possible the chrony picked up muzzle gas?
 
tcoz said:
I can’t completely shake the “chronograph error” theory but again, how could rounds chrono'd before and after these be accurate (I’m sure that they are) and these be that far off?

I’m not very experienced with optical chronographs (I had a MagnetoSpeed) and I know that lighting can play tricks on them but the G2 is supposed to be much less sensitive to it. It was a cloudless day about 70 degrees which I believe is the type of conditions that can play havoc with typical right side up chronos but shouldn’t with this one.
Click to expand...

Chronographs have been know to do weird things. I've had days when everything was reading correctly until i started shooting loads with 3N37. for reasons unknown, those loads were off the chart. but that was a chronograph issue and not because 3N37 is a magical gunpowder.

We have to be realistic. 4.7 grains of powder won't get any 230 grain bullet to 1200 fps. well, maybe pure nitroglycerin. maybe. but i suspect the gun would be in pieces at the first shot. just imagine the kind of pressure required for that kind of speed with 4.7 grain of any practical, known, gunpowder. in fact those speeds are at the upper limit of what 45 Super and 450 SMC can do, and they run at 28,000 and 32,000 psi, respectively, and they're running larger charge weights of slower powder.

check out this article that looked at high speed loads in the 45 auto:
https://www.shootingtimes.com/editorial/fast-loads-for-the-45-acp/99214

no powders that can push those bullets that fast are going to be anywhere near 4.7 grains. Now, if you meant to type 14.7 grains, then there are some that will do that, and some that might do it at lesser weights, but not at 4.7. But if someone has a magic gunpowder, i'm all ears.
 
tcoz said:
They're definitely 45ACP rounds and I weighed ten random bullets which were all 230gr. I asked him about the recoil and he said that the seemed a little hot, but unbeknownst to me he's already shot a couple hundred of them so he doesn't really have anything to compare them with. I first thought it had to be a chronograph error but we ran my 9mm and .308 rounds and his .223 rounds through it and all of them were exactly where they should have been. In addition, one of his 7 round mags yielded an ES of only 9 fps.

I'm really puzzled about this. He's going to contact the company that he bought them from but I'll be surprised if that leads anywhere.
Click to expand...
I’d also vote chrono error, especially if he’s shot a lot of them and all pieces are in place. If you’re feeling lucky, try the sharpie trick on the bullets or if you can get a different chrono to cross check the numbers.
 
color the bullet black with a sharpie so the chrono can pick it up more accurately. Sometimes shiny bullets aren't read by the optical sensors very well.

How far away from the chronograph were you shooting?
 
fxvr5 said:
4.7 grains of 296 would be lucky to get the bullet out of the barrel at all. Low charge weights and slow powders produce very low speeds, not high speeds.

It takes 8.6 grains of Accurate #7 to produce 800 fps with a 230 grain berry's bullet, according to Western Powder's data.
Click to expand...

Oddly enough, you are right! I had a buddy run that through his QL program... he said it estimated about 350fps! He also said it takes 7.5grn AA#5 to get over 900fps.

I'm going to have to go back to chrono error. Kinetic energy being what it is, pushing a 230grn .45 bullet at 1200fps out of a 5" pistol must translate to savage recoil.
 
I can't think of a single available powder where 4.8 gr is going to give those velocities. Max charge for TiteBoom is 4.8 gr at 855 fps. You would need something faster and hotter than TiteBoom to obtain velocities like that. Slower powders are going to deliver slower velocities, especially at that small of a charge weight.

A quick glance AT any data chart will show that slower powders require larger charges.
 
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