New .45 ACP loads shooting low - Help

[Mac Attack]

I am a long time reloader but have never loaded .45 and decided no time is better than the present. So I geared up to load .45 ACP - I bought some Lee carbide dies, Bullseye powder, Primers, 200 gr swc bullets and cleaned and polished about 1,000 cases I picked up at the range.

I installed the Lee dies per instructions on my RCBS Piggyback II loader, looked up a good starting load (200 gr swc over 4.1 gr bullseye) and went at it. My loads group well for me at 21 feet but they are grouping about an inch low and to the right. I wasn't sure if it was me or the load, so I switched to my trusty .38 Super and everything seemed fine. Anyways, Is it me or is it possible that there is something wrong with my load?

BTW, I am shooting a 5" 1911 with fixed Novak sites and have never had a problem with factory or range ammo not hitting POA.

 

[chbrow10]

What is your COAL?

Try shortening the COAL(unless you are already at the min), and therefore increasing the pressures. that worked for me.

 

[Mac Attack]

OAL - good point which I forgot to mention.

According to my Speer reloading manual, the max OAL for a .45 ACP is 1.275". So I adjusted my bullet seating die to be just a tad shorter than 1.275". Since this is a new load for me I decided to used my barrel as a as a 'go-no-go' gauge. I noticed that the rim of case was sticking out beyond the hood so I seated the bullet deep enough to make the case flush with the hood.

Could this be the reason? Do I need to back out the bullet more? I will get a OAL of my loads and post it later.

 

[Walkalong]

Not enough recoil. Point of Impact low. Increase charge.

 

[rcmodel]

+1

No two loads or bullet weights can be expected to shoot to exactly the same POI with the same sight setting.

Light bullet and/or low power loads generally shoot lower.

Heavy bullet and/or higher power loads generally shoot higher.
Thats why they make adjustable sights.

Most fixed sight .45's are factory sighted for 230 grain FMJ @ 830 FPS.

Your 4.1 Bullseye/200 gr. load is barely breaking 700 FPS.

Light bullet + low velocity = gun is not kicking enough to bring POI up to the sight setting.

rcmodel

 

[Mac Attack]

Okay, I'll give it a try. In my overzealousness I already loaded 200 hundred more rounds. The last thing I want to do is pull 200 bullets. I'll just shoot these off and then start over again. Thanks for the advice.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Ya probably, like me, need the practice anyway...I have a Colt 1911 with Novak fixed sights and POI is the same as POA with moderate to warm 185 grain JHP or 185 grain Plated HP...So you might want to speed them up a bit as Walkalong and rcmodel stated...

Walkalong...I was impressed with the results of the Rainier 185 grain HP's and Power Pistol. Now on to W-231 and later to WSF...

 

[chbrow10]

don't increase the charge, decrease the OAL. You're at the max OAL. You don't have to be.

In my humble opinion, if you don't change the power type or the bullet weight/type, then there are two variables to work with;

1. Amount of powder charge
2. OAL, which is really bullet seating depth.

If your gun feeds the max OAL fine, and you don't want to change that, than you've got to increase the charge. But you can also seat the bullet deeper. From reading your posts, it sound like there is room to do that...

 

[rcmodel]

Well, there are 200 SWC's, and then there are 200 grain SWC's.

If he has a long nose design like the old H&G #68, seating depth will be different then it will be with a shorter design, like the Lyman #452460.

The OP didn't say what design he was loading.
So, it's kind of hard for us to tell him how deep to seat it!

The proper seating depth for a .45 ACP SWC (of any design) is with the front edge of the front driving band just showing in front of the case mouth.

That is the seating depth the bullet was designed to use.

rcmodel

 

[BAT1]

OAL needs to be increased for more pressure. Stay within 10 % of max charge. At a point the gun won't like your dummy round. Increase from there. It's a mixture of your gun's chamber length, your load, and your AOL for fine tune. If it shoots low already please void.

 

[rcmodel]

OAL needs to be increased for more pressure.

Say what?

rcmodel

 

[Walkalong]

A teenie tiny tad, but not nearly enough to matter in the .45 ACP.


I shoot the 200 Gr. SWC's I use, the Ranier 200 Gr SWC and the Hornady 200 Gr FMJ-CT, at 1.260 O.A.L.

Same thing for the lead SWC's I used to shoot, as well as the Precision 200 Gr SWC's I tried.

 

[rcmodel]

But, increasing the OAL results in less pressure, not more!

rcmodel

 

[ftierson]

Keep in mind that in many handgun cartridges fired in handguns, lower bullet strike equates with higher velocity and more pressure...

That may well not be the 'problem' here, but just keep it in mind...

Forrest

 

[Walkalong]

But, increasing the OAL results in less pressure, not more!

Silly me. Read it wrong.

 

[Mac Attack]

My OAL is 1.240 and the edge of the bullet before it starts into a cone is just on the edge of the case. There isn't any room to seat it any deeper. I originally seated the bullet so the OAL was the max but I noticed the rounds did not fit well in my barrel.

I was reading my Speer manual and it says a starting load of 4.2 gr of
BE. I read through a bunch of posts on THR and saw that several people were using 4.1 gr of BE so I figured I would start there.

I wish I had posted my question before I loaded up 200 rounds with the original load. The thought of havintg to pull all 200 bullets just doesn't sound fun to me but then again I hate to waste 200 bullets on a bad load.

 

[Steve C]

I already loaded 200 hundred more rounds.

Your OAL sound right and I wouldn't worry about it.

One of the reasons you need to do some load development before loading up a bunch is that different guns will like different loads.

With Bullseye, Speer lists 4.2grs to 4.6grs with their 200gr SWC. Lyman lists 3.5grs to 5.0grs with theirs.

Make yourself up some test loads, I use 10 rounds each and would start at 3.9 grs and increase by .1 gr increments to up to 4.6 grs. (You already have the 4.1gr load). Take them to the range and try them out on paper. Make sure you shoot them all the same way. One of these should prove the best for your pistol.