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Nise
05-27-2006, 03:00 AM
Just wondering if anybody has found an acp load that will expand. I know wood can hold a hp together but even w/ wood the 9mm w a right load will open up. I can't seem to find a decent HP for the 45, I have it loaded up decent and have shot into different medias, (water, mud, wood, rotten wood, etc). Any ideas?

versifier
05-27-2006, 04:58 AM
Welcome to the forum Nise. While the .45ACP will generally punch a big enough hole through whatever it hits, there are good expanding loads. Sierra 185 & 230gr HP's will expand fairly well. Loads of UNQ up to the max of 9.4gr for the 185 and 7.7gr for the 230. I have a Lee mould, 228gr HP, that works well, but they only make the regular version now. Foster makes a good hollow pointing tool, or you can make your own fairly easily. Air cooled wheel weights or add 50-75% pure lead to soften the alloy and aid expansion.

Toney
05-27-2006, 05:05 AM
Hey Nise welcome to the guide!!! My cast bullets will shoot though 3 2x6s and not fatten out any. I've seen some hollow points that look like they should but have'nt shot any

d-o-k
05-29-2006, 12:53 PM
G'day Nise , welcome t the guide Mate It's a shame that Super vel went by way of the Dow-Dow as they used to expand quite well out of the 45 Acp ! I think (& this is just a personal opinion ) that the 45 puts rather large holes in anything it hits at moderate verlosities & that always has been one of it's strong points ! as the bullet tends to do a fair bit of trauma ! I don't know how the 1911 clones are these days ,but I remember suffering & hearing of others suffer from feeding problems with anything but a hard ball designed bullet SWC were right out of the question for feeding reliability & yet the wound cavity with a semi Wad Cutter or even a full wad cutter are impressive to say the least ! The British Man stopper was a prime example of this ! It was a WC by any other name but was used in the 577 tanter & latter 455 Webbly with great effect considering these were very under powered rounds


Dave

Baldy
06-01-2006, 10:23 PM
A 45 puts such a big hole in them about all they can do is bleed out if they can get up. I shoot 200gr bullets at the range but carry Hydra-Shock for street or home.:mrgreen:

krag35
06-01-2006, 10:53 PM
The Cor-Bon 165 gr HP's open up pretty good, but I have found penetration to suffer. Not to start up the old 45 VS 9mm thing, but a 9mm needs to expand just to make the hole the 45 starts with. I load my Sig with nothing but the BD45 cast out of WW and quenched.
krag35

Nise
07-22-2008, 08:06 AM
I've just had a heck of a time getting anything to open up, tried some MT Gold hp's with a liberal dose of unique and it was hit and miss on good expansion, which was better than most others. I don't like the idea of using a weight that is more akin to the 38 then the 45, like the 200+. Actually tried some speer 260gr .451" and they didn't seem too bad, not speed demons by any means but cycled fine, fed good, (no jams at all), and seemed to show decent signs of expansion.
I picked up a lee 230gr hardball shape, tumble lube mold. After cleaning the pistol I decided to retire the tumble lube and the mold until I recently read an interesting article in the last issue of Handloader magazine. The author, (?), said that most revolvers don't have the depth of riflings as do revolvers and due to more contact with the gun, magazine, ramp, chamber the hardness of the lead was critical. I believe he was shooting bhn22, (basically pure lino, or hardness thereto). Said leading was greatly reduced and accuracy greatly increased. I'm getting the lyman 450 set up for some recent extra hard casts I made and we'll see how she goes.
And thanks all for the welcome.

versifier
07-22-2008, 02:40 PM
Some auto pistols do prefer harder bullets for good feeding, but most do fine with softer alloys. The harder your alloy, the less it will expand. Linotype bullets do not expand much (if at all) even at rifle velocities, and they are much more brittle, so if they hit anything hard, they often disintegrate. For that reason, in a .45ACP, I would say that even hardball FMJ's would perform better than cast of pure lino. (These days, I keep my limited supply of lino strictly for target bullets in my rifles, and even with them I mix it with pure lead whenever possible.) I have found that the proper size of the bullet is always much more critical to both avoid leading and maintain accuracy than its hardness. Were I to run into a pistol that prefers hard bullets today, if careful polishing of interior surfaces didn't cure the problem, I would be more likely to simply sell or trade it and get a more cast friendly gun. With the low pressures and modest velocities of a .45ACP, one can shoot properly sized pure lead bullets all day without any lead buildup in the barrel. I've done it with Colts, Kimbers, Siggs, and Glocks. Accuracy wasn't quite as good at and beyond 25yds, though, so I usually mix wheel weights and pure lead 50/50 and can work out at 50 with no problems hitting the paper.

After casting, loading, and shooting well over 10,000 .45ACP rounds in a variety of alloys and weights out of a good assortment of different pistols in the last three years, my thought is that the author of that article is likely basing his opinion on very limited experience with one difficult pistol. He may well have many years of experience working with jacketed bullets, but the reality is that the rules are different with cast bullets and the issues of feeding, cycling, obturation, leading, and accuracy have to be looked at in a different light. There are so many more variables added to the equation with cast and the space allotted to a magazine article is not enough to even begin to explore them. Revolvers have a completely different set of issues in regard to cast, so it was pretty much an "apples and oranges" comparison that doesn't mean a whole lot.