.45 ACP reload glitch

[Sunray]

"...the Colt headspaced on the extractor..." The extractor has nothing to do with headspace. Never has and never will.
"...Target showed some key-holing..." That indicates the bullet is too small. The .45 ACP uses .452" cast bullets.

 

[72V]

""One-ah more thing. Hornady's seating die has that floating sleeve on it to help align the bullet before it gets all the way seated. Works really well, if you want to try one. Especially helps with taller bullets.""


I also use a Hornaday seating die, instead of the Lee one in my Lee 4 die set. It just works better.

 

[stork]

Walkalong's pic's

Great pictures on headspacing Walkalong, but if I could make a suggestion.

I would caution the usage of the third example from the left. I tried that option because of slightly better accuracy and found that over the course of a 2700 match the buildup of crud on the slide face and lead buildup in the chamber area, lead to failure to fully chamber the round. I changed my seating depth to look like the second example from the left and have had no failures in over 30,000 rounds. I am only giving up maybe a 1/2" at 50 yards and the confidence in my loads is worth it. My short line loads are seated even deeper as well as crimping to .465 instead of .468.

FWIW

Stork