Hey John BH,
I have been reloading 45 ACP for about 2 years. My reloading records confirm about 45oo rounds loaded and fired over the last 2 years. I'll try to stick to useful information you can perhaps use.
A. I use Berry's preferred plated bullets, both the 200J HP's and the 230 grain RN's. for general purpose shooting. I will jump to better grade Hornady bullets if I am shooting for performance or friendly competitions.
B. RN's appear to be more accurate than the HP's, but of course cost more.
C. Berry's bullets bought in bulk (1000 or more) directly from Berry's are cheaper than Cabela's, etc....as Berry's pays for shipping.
D. I've used all the popular primers out there. I recommend them all EXCEPT Wolf's. My Wolf's no-fire to often for me at an approximate 8-12% failure rate pretty consistently. Yes, it could be my handgun (Springfield XD, long barrel, tactical model) but I never have problems with any other primer. I recently have found a lot of Winchester primers (brass) tend to stick out a bit (about 0.000 to 0.003 inches) from the brass when loaded. Yea, pockets all cleaned and measured to size...hum.....but no mis-fires or jams though.
E. I use Winchester 231 and WSF and do not see a lot of difference between them in terms of performance. Here's the reloading data I use for 200 grain HP's Berry's bullets and the powders:
200 grain,HP, WSF=6.6 grains,860 feet/sec
200 grain, HP, 231 =6.1 grains, 850 feet/sec.
COAL: 1.220 inches
F: I have had 3 shells discarded over the last 2 years for cracks at the bullet end. Otherwise, the 45 ACP brass seems to last forever. I even measure the length.
G Jams- Also, I had some jams in the early days when I was just starting. I found that I was not running the shells far enough into the RCBS brand die after the mouth had been expanded. Thus, the bullet end of the brass was a bit oversized. I discovered this by measuring the OD...so I re-set my die settings and, very, very few problems after that.
Hope this time I took helps out another re-loader.
