Hard Cast Bullet Issue

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TomJ

TomJ

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I've been reloading for a little while, and have exclusively been using jacketed bullets, whether RN, FN or HP. Other than a couple of loads that were a little light and did not cycle my guns, I've had no issues. I recently tried a couple of hard cast bullets and am running into issues with my guns not going into battery. It occurs with almost every round, and it's happened with 9mm and .45. They were hard cast bullets from RMR and the Missouri Bullet Company. The hard cast bullets are expanding the brass a little more than the jacketed bullets as their dimeters are slightly larger, but the difference when I measure them with a caliper is minimal. The outside diameter of the RMR 185 grain bullet is .45. Loaded, the OD of the brass is .47. The OD diameter of the 200 grain hard cast bullet is .452. When loaded, the OD of the brass is .472. It's occurring in my Glock 30s, Sig P220 and P227 and my XD 45, so it's not an issue with a gun. Could that slight difference in diameter cause this? If not, any ideas as to what the issue may be? I do have an ammo checker from Lyman, and the case diameters appear to be within spec.
 
Yes. I was about to edit my question. I just tried cycling some rounds through the P227, and they feed fine when hand racking it. It's when I shoot them the issue occurs.
 
The plunk test is done with the firearm disassembled. No cycling.

What I like to do is hold the barrel vertical, with the muzzle up. Then place a round in the chamber with my index fnger under it holding it in. Then lift my finger up and down several times. It should sound like, "plunk, plunk, plunk" with the round falling free each time.
 
It does pass the plunk test with both reloads. There is a little more play with the JHP, and the HC ammo is more snug in the barrel, but the HC round does drop down easily and completely.
 
Hmmm, I thought for sure that would be it... too long of an OAL causing the bullet to contact the lands.

Since that is not the case, I guess I would experiment with different OALs, while still passing the plunk test of course, to see if it has an effect on feeding. But that's just me. Maybe someone else will come along with a better idea.
 
It's the different profile of the cast bullets, not the hardness of the alloy. You may have to seat them a little deeper to shorten the Over All Length (OAL) so the bullet doesn't contact the leade (where the chamber tapers to the rifling). The ogive of the cast bullets (the transition between the bearing surface and the nose) may be a sharper profile, with less taper from the nose tip to the shank.

You can check this by chambering a round and then extracting it without firing, and see if the rifling engraved the bullet. If it does, then you'll need to seat them deeper, which also means working up your load again.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
Thanks for the information. I was thinking along the lines of the diameter being too large. It never occurred to me that the OAL may be the cause. I'll give that a try.
 
I cast my own and when using the .452 Lee RN mold I was having the same issue as you are. I finally determined it was the ogive design of the bullet that was hanging up the slide from going in to battery.

I then purchased a 4 cavity Lyman RN mold and the problem went away completely. Sometimes it's just the bullet profile.
 
Make sure that your crimp is not too little. I had the same issue with .45 ACP and my 1911. A combination of seating the bullet slightly deeper and an aggressive crimp resolved all feeding and going into battery problems. Now, it did not solve the "smoke" issue with lead over plated/coated. So, for me the difference in price was too small to continue down the lead path. I always shoot at indoor ranges which probably make the "smoke" problem worse.
 
I load .38 Special and .357 Magnum for cowboy action shooting. After encountering some lever action rifle jams during a match, I invested in a case gauge and now I test each reloaded round in a gauge before taking it to the range. It really does not take much time to check them. The ones that don't pass the gauge test (maybe 1 or 2%) go into a bag for use in my revolvers on the practice range...the failures never get to a match.

You said you are checking your cases, but if you are not already gauging your finished reloads, you might consider it. Dillon Precision and Unique Tek have them available and they are cheap insurance against an oversized round.
 
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If you're seating and crimping at the same time, you may want to try doing them in two separate operations.

Nothing you said specifically points to this, but I've often found that when people make the transition from loading jacketed to cast they tend to push lead in front of the case mouth as they seat/crimp the bullets.

You may want to try a slightly heavier crimp as well, .472" is at the upper end of where you want the loaded case mouth diameter to be. Try taking the crimp down to .470" or even .468" and see if that improves function.

Someone is going to mention using the Lee factory crimp die, but I suggest trying to actually solve your problem rather than a "band aid" fix. Sizing your bullets after they're loaded always seemed like a crutch to me and is liable to make them undersized.

People were loading accurate, reliable automatic pistol rounds with cast bullets for decades before the factory crimp die came along.

I love the FCD for bottleneck rifle rounds, especially with tubular magazines, but crushing all of your straight wall pistol rounds down to the same cookie cutter dimensions regardless of case wall thickness, seems like a bad idea.
 
The Pistol FCD is adjustable of course. Some people like it some people hate it, I don't think there is a middle ground. I can run .45s thru it and every now and then I will run into some cases with thicker walls. I can feel these in the FCD so the bullets in these few are probably getting squeezed a bit.
I could run all the ammo thru a case guage and reject those but for me it's just easier to use the FCD to deal with the few "problem children"
Do you need it? NO. You can load perfectly good ammo with out it. Sometimes I use it sometimes I don't. I wouldn't call it a band-aid or a crutch.
I use a lot of mixed range brass and I don't sort by head stamp so it comes in handy.
 
I agree the OAL might be too long and possibly you are not removing all the bell in the brass with your crimp die. It sounds like it's a small problem, I'm sure you will find it.
 
when you drop the bullet into the barrel can you easily turn/spin the bullet? it should spin pretty freely and then when barrel is turned over fall right out.
 
I checked the OAL, and it's 1.22. I'm going to bring it down to 1.2. I don't know if that'll make a difference, but it's worth a try. I'll try the other suggestions as well. Thanks again.
 
Take a fired case that will allow the bullet to fit snugly, but not tight. Place the bullet you're going to load in the mouth of the case longer than you would normally seat the bullet. Now put that combination into the barrel, preferably with the barrel removed from the frame so you can better handle it. When you push the case in until it's at the normal chambering position, the leade of the barrel will contact the bullet and move it back into the case. Remove the case and bullet carefully, so the bullet doesn't get stuck in the leade and doesn't move from that position. Measure the OAL of this combination and that will tell you the maximum length the chamber will allow with that combination, but you'll want to back the OAL down about .0010", or a little more, to allow for proper chambering and functioning.

You'll also want to check to make sure the OAL you settle on will fit and feed from the magazines, but I doubt that's going to be an issue in this case.

Without knowing what the chamber will allow with the chosen bullet, you're just frustrating yourself trying different things. Get that measurement and your frustration level will go way down.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
If it passes the plunk test, the problem is likely the shape of the bullet's nose.
 
ReloaderFred said:
Take a fired case that will allow the bullet to fit snugly, but not tight. Place the bullet you're going to load in the mouth of the case longer than you would normally seat the bullet. Now put that combination into the barrel, preferably with the barrel removed from the frame so you can better handle it. When you push the case in until it's at the normal chambering position, the leade of the barrel will contact the bullet and move it back into the case. Remove the case and bullet carefully, so the bullet doesn't get stuck in the leade and doesn't move from that position. Measure the OAL of this combination and that will tell you the maximum length the chamber will allow with that combination, but you'll want to back the OAL down about .0010", or a little more, to allow for proper chambering and functioning.

You'll also want to check to make sure the OAL you settle on will fit and feed from the magazines, but I doubt that's going to be an issue in this case.

Without knowing what the chamber will allow with the chosen bullet, you're just frustrating yourself trying different things. Get that measurement and your frustration level will go way down.

Hope this helps.

Fred
Click to expand...

I'll have time to try that tonight. Thank you.
 
I would mark the bullet and case mouth with a Magic Marker and chamber it. Eject the round and see where the cartridge hits first (marker rubbed off) first. Dealing with the bullet shape; it's where the full diameter is and if it hits the end of the chamber/rifling. (For a peg [cartridge]to enter a hole, the peg must be smaller than the hole [chamber]. You need to find out where the peg [cartridge] is too big)




45SeatingPossibilities_zpsea6ec64c.gif .
 
Attached are pictures of HC bullet in question as well as one of Buffalo Bore's rounds, which have never given me a problem. Both seat to the same depth, and I can turn both with equal ease. The only difference I noted was that the Buffalo Bore round seated to that depth immediately, where some of the reloads were slightly higher, maybe .02 of an inch, but when I touched the top, I won't even say it was enough pressure to say I pressed on it, it dropped to the depth in the picture. In regards to Reloader Fred's suggestion, I did that and everything is coming back to an OAL of 1.2. At this point I'm officially stumped. I'll be able to get to the range either next weekend or the following weekend. I'll try seating them a little deeper, from the 1.22 they're at now to 1.2 and I'll see if that helps.



fullsizeoutput_b85.jpeg FullSizeRender.jpg
 
Seems to me that the suggestions for a shorter COL were on the mark, in lieu of the cartridges passing plunk test.
 
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