Best reloading day yet.

[jr_roosa]

I was getting ready to send my new Springfield 1911 back to the factory because it just didn't want to feed my SWC handloads. I was getting pretty depressed that my new gun would only eat factory loads. Sort of makes it hard to shoot as much as I'd like.

The jams were weird too...no 3-points, but lots and lots of the slide failing to come all the way forward. Almost like the chamber was just a shade too tight.

I had a box of WWB and a box of handloads on the bench, and I pulled out one of each and looked at them really hard to try to figure out why one feeds and one doesn't. I assumed it was the bullet shape, but maybe there was something else...

Ah ha! The crimp!

I put the calipers on the WWB and the crimp was .469. I've been crimping to .474 (don't know where I found that number...somewhere on the internet). I looked around the internet and found that the crimp should be .469/.470 for jacketed/lead. Loaded up a batch with .470 crimp and even re-crimped the rest of a batch that was jamming every 3rd shot.

Shot 80 rounds today and only a 2-3 jams. Still not all the way there, but wow, what a difference .004 makes!

Loaded up another 100 tonight. Shooting is fun again!

-J.

 

[Borg]

You also have to watch out for the shoulder on the bullet,, make sure it doesn't bottom out on the end of the chamber.
Borg

 

[rfwobbly]

J -
As they say, the devil is in the details! Congrats on a good find. This "reloading stuff" is definitely a "thinking man's hobby".

 

[SASS#23149]

You also have to watch out for the shoulder on the bullet,, make sure it doesn't bottom out on the end of the chamber.
Borg

+1
My atempts at loading for my sons .45 auto drove me nuts unitl I learned to ignore the oal given in the book,and seat until the shoulder did not hang up on the chamber.I reduced the powder charge a bit and no signs of high pressure.,and YES,shooting was fun again.

 

[45ACPUSER]

You may want to set the shoulder of the the bullet so that it barely is abover the case mouth. You can take the bbl out of your 1911, and then use it as a case gauge to check rounds. I have always loaded my 45ACP at 1.25" COAL with most incarnations of 200gr LSWC.