ATI Titan bullet problems

[namvet68]

I received my ATI FX45 Titan last week. The First trip to the range did not go well at all. The first 20 rounds of round nose 200 gr. reloads fired without a FTF. When I ran out of those I switched to HSM 230gr. HP(Copper coated lead). These would not load at all. The slide would not go into battery. With the barrel out of the gun, when I would drop a cartridge into the barrel it would not go all the way in. I measured the bullet dimensions and found that it was within specs. I tried some factory 230 gr. Military ball ammo and it would drop right in with room to spare. I built some dummy rounds at different lengths(loa) from 1.220” to 1.275”(max length according to my Lyman book) The short ones would drop right in and the longer ones would not. I tapped on the back of one of the longer rounds to seat it and when I pulled it out found a ring around the bullet where it met the rifling groove (see attached picture of bullet and drawing of barrel). I have been shooting HSM bullets in my other .45’s and have never had a problem. The HSM bullets are fairly flat sided for a few hundreds of and inch above the case when seated above about 1.250 loa . The ball ammo and some other factory ammo I tried started to taper immediately above the case(see attached pic.) and would not hit the rifling shoulder. :banghead:

 

[rcmodel]

Nothing unusual at all.

The bullet shape is different then GI FMJ-RN, as you discovered.

The fix is to seat it deep enough to miss the rifling leade.
As you also discovered.

You will find the same thing to be true with many other TCFP and JHP bullet designs that don't start the ogive taper as far back as GI hardball.

rc

 

[LiveLife]

rc nailed it.

For my Sig 1911 barrel with very short start of rifling, I need to seat the HSM 230 gr HP bullet to 1.147" OAL while longer 1.255"-1.270" OAL factory and Berry's plated RN bullets chamber fine. Seat them deeper until they don't hit the rifling (should look like regular RN with the tip cut off ).

 

[namvet68]

My Lee data sheets show the Min. LOA to be 1.190" and on most loads it is 1.220". Are these mins. based on feeding issues or on pressure concerns. It made me nervous to be making the round so short.
While I am thinking about it, do you know where there is a listing of the abbreviations used to describe bullet types like TCFP, What does the TC stand for?

 

[LiveLife]

TCFP means "Truncated Cone, Flat Point" just like the HSM Hollow Point bullet. Here's a listing of abbreviations - http://www.handloads.com/misc/bulletacronyms.asp

The listed OAL in published load data are what they used to measure the chamber pressures in the test fixtures and not actual guns. Although you can use the same powder charge if you are loading longer than OAL, I will usually reduce the powder charge (say .2-.3 gr) if I am using OAL shorter than what was listed.

Since there are variations in different guns/barrels/chambers/ramps/magazines etc. we must individually determine the OAL that works in our pistol/barrel.

Walkalong has a nice thread for determining Max OAL - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=506678

After you determine the Max OAL, you'll want to determine the Ideal OAL next to see if it reliably feed/chamber from the magazine when you manually release the slide - http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?p=7717654#post7717654

 

[namvet68]

Thanks, bds verry helpful

 

[rcmodel]

My Lee data sheets show the Min. LOA to be 1.190"

What the Lee data fails to tell you is, what brand or shape of freek'n jacketed bullets they were even talking about!

In otherwords, the OAL shown by Lee is totally meaningless!

rc

 

[namvet68]

So NOW you tell me after staying up nights worrying about sh*% like that