Noob Q about bullets...

[Gothboy]

So Im beginning to buy my stuff for reloading and as I wait for one more paycheck to get my press, Im looking at picking up some of the cheaper items while I wait. The tumbler, some brass, my manuals (Im waiting on powders and primers untill I READ the manuals), etc. My question is this. On bullets is there a big difference between plated and jacketed in performance in .45 acp? Im hesitant on getting lead noses because of range policies around here. Is it all just price or...?

Oh and why the heck is there two primer sizes on this caliber? That cant be normal for very many calibers...

Any input welcome.

[Clownpuncher]

Jacketed are good if you're doing something other than punching paper, at least in my opinion. Since jacketed are more expensive I don't use them for paper/plinking. I prefer plated bullets for target shooting as they are cheaper and I get nearly the same performance out of them. You are limited on velocity to 1200 fps (I think) with plated but with 45ACP I don't load hot enough to hit that high of velocity.
As for small vs large pistol primers, some manufacturers are using small primers but the old standard is large. The majority of my brass is large primer but I have some small. I use the same load data and haven't had issues. I typically save up my small pistol brass until I have a couple hundred and then load them. I use them when I go to to an indoor range and then I just leave them there. I will say, if you are buying brass, you can usually get small primer brass cheaper or sometimes even free here in the marketplace since a lot of guys don't like having a mix. Where the real PITA comes in with the difference is when loading on a progressive, I'll accidentially have a small mixed in with large which locks things up so you have to keep them separated.

[kylix.rd]

re: Lg & Sm primers on 45ACP.

This is my best guess based on many discussions I've read on the issue. It comes down to economics, pure and simple.

It is my understanding that 45ACP, while highly popular, is one of the very few pistol calibers that traditionally used LPPs. 9mm, 40SW, 10mm, .38 & special, .32 all use SPPs. When an ammo manufacturer purchases thier materials, brass, primers, powder and bullets, volume matters. If they could use the same primer for *all* their pistol calibers, they can save $$$ by only buying SPPs and buy in a much larger quantity and reduce the per-primer costs. Even if they can reduce costs by a fraction of a cent per round, that can still quickly add up to significant cost savings when they're loading 100s of thousands of rounds. I imagine that buying SPP brass vs. LPP brass is a wash since they have to be manufactured with their unique headstamp anyway.

That's just my best guess.

[Colt562]

So Im beginning to buy my stuff for reloading and as I wait for one more paycheck to get my press, Im looking at picking up some of the cheaper items while I wait. The tumbler, some brass, my manuals (Im waiting on powders and primers untill I READ the manuals), etc. My question is this. On bullets is there a big difference between plated and jacketed in performance in .45 acp? Im hesitant on getting lead noses because of range policies around here. Is it all just price or...?

Oh and why the heck is there two primer sizes on this caliber? That cant be normal for very many calibers...

Any input welcome.

Well, what are you using the bullets for? I would use plated based solely on them being cheaper. The average you are pushing a 45ACP round is 800-900 fps. So you dont have to worry about going over 1200 fps.

Personally I dont know alot about why the two different sizes but I do know that most prefer the large pistol primers. Dont ask me why cause I dont know. Im sure there is some articles or youtube videos on the subject.

[XDRoX]

For reason that I do not know, LPP's have a toxic material in them that SPP don't. When companies started moving over to non-toxic ammo, like Winchester's Winclean, they moved over to SPP's.

Other companies also wanted to start making non-toxic ammo so they followed.

Personally I prefer SPP 45acp because I don;t have to change over the primer assembly on my press.

There are currently two types of SPP 45 being made. Large and small flash hole.

Large flash hole SPP 45 follows the same data as normal LPP 45. The difference in velocity for the same given load is minimal.

If you are using small flash hole SPP 45 and using data from a manual expect a decrease of about 50fps with your rounds.

I did the tests myself on my Oehler Chronograph, I didn't read any of this.

If you were so inclined it would be very easy to enlarge the flash holes on small flash hole SPP 45 so that your manual's data is more accurate.

Also small correction to an above post, 10mm takes LPP.

[Gothboy]

I see. That was very helpful guys, thank you. So it seems to me that for my purposes (range shooting) it won't matter whether I end up with large or small primer cases. That's great to hear because that opens up my ability to collect both types, just making sure they stay separated. And as far as plated vs jacketed is also good to know. I won't be pushing any specs anyway seeing as how I'm new to reloading in the first place. Just got me Lyman's 49th so ill have some good reading to do too. Thank you all very much!

[scrat]

INDOOR RANGE AMMO

Less toxic and more enviro friendly as well as good on vents. Thats when someone decided to switch over to small primers for Indoor Range Ammo.


Shoot i cast my own, reload and shoot black powder. Think i care about enviro friendly. Same time i hate to have to worry about which primers. So for me i stick with Large pistol Primers. Like other guys say though the bullets i would go with price first then quality. You cant get the cheapest mom and pop bullets and think you will hit everything you aim at. Sometimes you have to experiment on what works for you and your gun. I do not believe on having the most expensive BAD AZZZ bullets to shoot at a piece of paper though. I usually laugh my butt off at the range when i see someone shooting the most expensive ammo at a piece of paper.

[shooterbill]

Plated bullets work fine for anything except magnum loads. The SPP are more efficient. Look at the fired cases. SPP cases are still shiny inside. Alot of top level 45 shooters use the SPP cases.