45 colt in my STI spartan .45

[Whitetail1]

I am loading up a 200gr LRNFP for my STI .45. The middle of the crimp ring on the bullet falls right where my case end is located. Should i set the bullet deeper to cover the crimp ring or just set the depth to where the case rim falls just below the hood of my barrel?
Has anyone been using this round in their .45
PS...I'm loading them over 4.4gr of WST. ( very soft shooting) If I cover the crimp ring i would be at 1.185 COL. (The crimp ring is .065 wide.)

 

[brickeyee]

Lead .45 Colt bullets are well over .45 ACP diameter.

Your rounds may not even chamber.

Since the .45 ACP headspaces on the case mouth, only enough taper crimp to remove case mouth belling should be used.

Using the correct bullets (0.452) for lead .45 ACP bullets would be a better idea.

 

[quickstop]

.452 45 colt bullets are OK

45 colt lead bullets work fine in 45acp cases, you just need to make sure they are .452 and not .454. I use them exclusively and they work fine.
.452 is the most popular of the two choices, but you need to make sure, any bullet supplier should have both.......Quickstop

 

[Whitetail1]

Do you seat the bullet at or past the crimp ring?

 

[Cherokee]

Seat the bullet so it chambers freely in your barrel, then taper crimp just enough to remove the bell. I would not worry about the crimp groove as long at the loaded round chambers freely and headspaces correctly.

 

[ReloaderFred]

I use 200 gr. RNFP .452" bullets for both .45 acp and .45 Colt, depending on my needs. I also use other bullets, but those work in both calibers.

Use the advice Cherokee gave you and you'll be just fine.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[Lost Sheep]

It's not the front of the bullet that counts

Seat the bullet so the base of the bullet is in the same place that a bullet (of the same weight) without any crimping groove at all would be.

The point is to have the interior volume where the combusion will be taking place to be equal to what the loading manual authors had in their ballistics lab when they determined the pressure of that recipe. If you seat deeper, you will experience higher pressures.

Of course, the front of the bullet counts when you are ensuring that it will feed through your magazine and action, but for pressure, it's the base.

All the other advice you got is right on, too.

If your bullet's base winds up sitting deeper than the comparable non-crimp-grooved bullet for any reason, reduce the powder charge by the percentage of volume decrease you have (remembering that it is the interior space only, you must take into account the web of the cartridge, too, so you will be measureing-and calculating- based on dimensions you cannot see in the finished cartridge.)

Then, (conventional advice) work up a few rounds and test fire them, looking for cycling problems or pressure problems, too high OR too low.

Lost Sheep