45 ACP brass question

[ir3e971]

I was prepping 45 ACP brass for reloading last night for a newly purchased pistol. I am making general purpose rounds for target practice, not competition.

Some of this brass is Magtech that from commercial loads I bought, and some is a mixed bag of range brass.

While cleaning the primer pockets I noticed two things:

1. A few of the brass had small primer pockets (Speer I think). I pitched those and am sticking to Large Pistol Primers for simplicities sake, and for consisitency.

2. Not all of the flash holes are the same size on the brass left over. Some of the flash holes are larger than others.

I have not seen this situation with the 9mm, 44, 38, and 357 that I have been loading prior to purchase of this 1911.

Is the different flash hole sizes an issue for reloading? Will I get inconsistent results if the brass with mixed size flash holes are mixed together?

Your thoughts are welcome.

Bob

 

[Jim Watson]

Small primer pocket .45s are from the lead free loadings. I have seen Winchester and Federal brass with small primers headstamped NT but not Speer... yet, but it is probably coming, since Speer and Federal are both now owned by ATK.
They can be reloaded but the company disapproves, you are not smart enough to handle the difference. You would have to have a lot to make it worth the trouble to set up.

The differences in flash hole sizes do not matter for loading bulk .45s in mixed brass. If you are shooting 50 yd NRA slowfire or testing guns and loads out of a Ransom Rest you would do better to sort your brass.

 

[ir3e971]

Thanks for the info, it is a big help.

Medula Oblangota, what do you mean by "Bullseye vs Practice" Loads.

Do you mean that you are using Bullseye powder for comeptition and something different for practice?

I am planning loading up Bullseye for this batch of ammo, though I just bought a pound of Unique last Saturday.

Bob

 

[TonyT]

I segregated and loaded some of the large flash hole cases with the same brand standard fklash hole cases. Chronographing showed no real difference in velocity or SD. If anything the large flash hole cases showed a slightly lower SD.

 

[jmorris]

Did the same as tonyt, and same results bigger is better. I use the NT brass for my revolver loads, the small primer allows a lighter trigger pull.

 

[Steve C]

I ran some segregated loads using Winchester "Win Clean" brass with the large flash hole and another set using PMC small flash hole brass over the chrono. Both case types where loaded with 6.1grs Unique behind a 230gr Reminigton FMJ with WLP primers and loaded alternately on a progressive press to minimize variation.

Average velocities came out the same for each, 851 fps for the Win Clean and 852 fps for the PMC however the larger flash hole Win Clean produced a significantly smaller STDev of 7.26 while the PMC's STDev was 28.17.

From this relatively small test sample you could conclude that the larger flash hole leads to more consistant ammo and there may be some real benifit to uniforming the flash hole.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Steve C...It seems that your findings are the same as mine. Have you done any test runs using the .45 ACP NT brass by Winchester and Federal with the small pistol primer pockets?

 

[Steve C]

Have you done any test runs using the .45 ACP NT brass by Winchester and Federal with the small pistol primer pockets?

I've only run across a few of the NT small primer brass at the range and did take one home to see if I could reload it. It reloaded just fine but haven't made an effort to get more NT brass or shoot some of them over a chrono. Mostly I just toss it into the brass bucket when I pick one up.

 

[The Bushmaster]

I have a full set of Winchester and Federal. Guess I'll have to load some and pass them over my chronograph. Loaded it before and noticed no difference in felt recoil and all hit pretty much where I expected them to. I'll load some and wait for a nice day...

 

[The Bushmaster]

O K...I loaded 50 rounds of .45 in FC 62 Match cases (well used) and 50 rounds in once fired Winchester NT (Smal Pistol Primer Pockets). Waiting for a better day to run the test. Maybe tomorrow...

I used WSP primers in the NT's and WLP in the FC's and 5.7 grains of W-231 under a 185 grain JHP (Remington).