Another powder coating junky has hope!

[donnrcp]

Went out and bought a Lee 200 gr SWC mold and went to work. Range report soon! 41 sized after PC, 21 not resized after PC. All were sized prior to PC. All loaded with 5.3 gr 231.
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Cast bullet design plus powder coating can have an effect on your head spacing. I bought my Lee 228 grain .452 1R years ago but shied away from casting those due to finding the right alloy. Now with powder coating, I decided to try casting them again. Without powder coating, I found out that design is too wide on a good day (radius wise)! Even with a COL of 1.2190 with the Lee 228 and powder coating, the head spacing is off. I have to find a nice 200 gr SWC.
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I went to Wal Mart and Harbor Freight today. 1 toaster oven, .25 gram air soft BBs, #5 plastic bowl with air tight lid, non stick foil, 1 lb red powder, and 2 needle nose pliers later with some non exhaustive research. I did my first batch of powder coating. I found the most information on Cast Boolits.
My goal is to be able to shoot any lead I can cast without leading up the barrel.
Reloading to follow.
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[BigBronco]

Outstanding! Welcome to a new level of the old addiction.

[p2toy]

Nice! You'll be looking for different colors soon. I did! lol!

[stilly]

Yeah, your first 80k rounds will go by fast and then you will need to buy more powder...

[thenodnarb]

The bullet is not affecting head spacing. 45 acp headspaces off the rim of the case. You probably already know this but the shape of the bullet is probably causing it to hit the lands before it chambers completely. I have this problem with .308 PC bullets. The long shape and the extra thickness of the PC causes the bullet to jam in the lands upon chambering. Headspace is fine, but removing a chambered and unfired round requires a mallet practically. They will shoot fine and it doesn't seem to increase pressure significantly due to the softness of the lead and PC vs jacketed bullets, but its something to be aware of. Typically for range fodder its fine since you usually empty a magazine every time. Not a good choice for EDC especially if you carry one chambered and unchamber it every night, but then PC bullets aren't usually used as self defense bullets anyway.

BTW I really like my lyman 452374 mold for .45acp. I don't have the problem you are having. But the 2 cavity mold is slightly slow. They have a 4 cavity mold but its even more expensive and probably a good bit heavier as well.

[ireload]

Have you resized the bullet after PC?

[donnrcp]

Have you resized the bullet after PC?

Almost all were sized before the PC and all were after. Had to do a 3rd coat on the first batch due to sizing too soon after the PC had cooled and the local temp of 90+F.

[CSACANNONEER]

The bullet is not affecting head spacing. 45 acp headspaces off the rim of the case. You probably already know this but the shape of the bullet is probably causing it to hit the lands before it chambers completely. I have this problem with .308 PC bullets. The long shape and the extra thickness of the PC causes the bullet to jam in the lands upon chambering. Headspace is fine, but removing a chambered and unfired round requires a mallet practically. They will shoot fine and it doesn't seem to increase pressure significantly due to the softness of the lead and PC vs jacketed bullets, but its something to be aware of. Typically for range fodder its fine since you usually empty a magazine every time. Not a good choice for EDC especially if you carry one chambered and unchamber it every night, but then PC bullets aren't usually used as self defense bullets anyway.

BTW I really like my lyman 452374 mold for .45acp. I don't have the problem you are having. But the 2 cavity mold is slightly slow. They have a 4 cavity mold but its even more expensive and probably a good bit heavier as well.

Headspace is determined differently in different cartridges. A rimmed cartridge uses the case rim. A bottleneck cartridge uses a the shoulder as a datum point and, a rimless straight walled cartridge like the OP's .45acp uses the case mouth as a datum point. I'm going to make a wild guess that the PC is too thick at the point the bullet is seated in the cartridge and this is the cause of his headspace problem. I doubt the seating depth has anything to do with it.

[thenodnarb]

Headspace is determined differently in different cartridges. A rimmed cartridge uses the case rim. A bottleneck cartridge uses a the shoulder as a datum point and, a rimless straight walled cartridge like the OP's .45acp uses the case mouth as a datum point. I'm going to make a wild guess that the PC is too thick at the point the bullet is seated in the cartridge and this is the cause of his headspace problem. I doubt the seating depth has anything to do with it.

I meant to say case mouth. Thanks for correction.

[rsrocket1]

A few questions

1. Are you sure the outside of the case at the rim is not flared out?
2. Have you taper crimped the cartridge (very mild taper crimp, nowhere near approaching a roll crimp)
3. Have you tried taking an empty case and experimenting by seating the bullet deeper until it plunks properly?
4. If you have a Lee FCD, have you tried it? You only need to get the cartridge to go into about 1/4", not all the way down.
5. What is the O.D. of the bullet before you seat it? (Hopefully no more than 0.452")
6. Have you slugged your barrel? Can you use a 0.451" bullet?

[donnrcp]

1. Yes
2. Using the Lee FCD
3. Seated bullet in empty case to 1.219 with results shown in pic #3
4. In use
5. 15 bullets checked at the base: 1=0.452, 5=0.4525, 9=0.4530 after going through a 0.452 bullet sizer
6. My Springer loves 0.452 200 gr SWC extremes, I did pound one of the PC 228 gr through my barrel but melted it down today making a batch of Lee 200 gr SWC

[rsrocket1]

Yeah, looks like those RN bullets aren't going to go well with that particular barrel. I load the TL452-230-TC's unsized in my 1911 but I seat the cone to the edge of the rim so there is no vertical part of the bullet exposed. Never have any feeding problems with that setup and fortunately no leading either.


I also use TC bullets in 9 and 40, but the M&P barrels still lead up a little so I started PC-ing those bullets and get zero leading now.

[Bumslie]

Interesting. Using HF white and the lee TL 452 230 2r.

No headache issues here. 1.260 OAL. Colt 70 series barrel

[CGT80]

I had the same problem with my 30-30 today. I am using an NOE 175 FN PB 5 cav mold (based on Saeco #315 profile). They run great when lube sized, but the PC makes the shoulder area of the boolit too fat. The 315 profile is tapered from the base to the top, so it is really not a cylinder shape on the main part of the boolit. This allows one 30 cal profile to fit many chambers. The 0.311" sizing die only sizes the bottom one or two rings of lead. The boolit has great reviews for accuracy in many different 30 cal rifles. Of course, I loaded as long as the action would allow me. The PC adds more thickness than I have play at this length. I might be able to seat deeper and make them work, but the PC is a pain on the PB rifle boolits anyway, and my lubed boolits shoot better than me, and good enough for me to have won a lever action match, and come in in the top 5 most of the time.

I PC'd some 40 cal round nose boolits for my XD and found that I have to seat them pretty deep. They worked fine. The 45 cal boolits I PC'd were from an RCBS 45 225 RN plain base mold and they worked well in my Colt Combat Commander. The XD doesn't appear to have any taper to the rifling. I had my 9mm barrel tapper-ed by a gunsmith, but I prefer to use a boolit that fits if I can find one.