Anyone loading 200g lswc 45 acp?

[Sambo]

Just ordered a cw45 from buds for 370 shipped and found a local shop that only charges the 5 dollar background check. 375 total... couldn't pass it up. Well I've been reloading .38/.357 cast bullets for a while now for my s&w revolvers and just ordered all the goodies to do 45 acp. I love the clean holes semi wadcutters make in paper, so I order 2000 from missouri bullet. Have any of you tried these out? I've never loaded semi auto cartridges. Just wondering what kind loads feed reliably in the cw45. I'm guessing OAL is going to be the biggest issue with feeding. I have clays, titegroup, and bullseye and have load data for all, but i've seen on the 1911 forums that people are all over the place with OAL. Just hoping someone can get me started in the right direction to save a little time. Thanks

[Tilos]

Sambo:
Good score on the cw45 and welcome.
I would suggest you break in your new gun with factory ammo before trying any reloads.
I have never tried wad cutters in an auto but know that 1911 type guns are used to shoot wadcutters in bullseye competition.
Being small, Kahrs have steep feed ramps and semi-wadcutters may not be the best bullet design for reliable function.
Tilos

[Sambo]

I was going to order plain 230g LRN bullets but love SWC's. While reading about the CW I came across the review of the CW and P45 at gunblast.com and noticed he used a 200 LSWC Handload when comparing the pistols. The LSWC was about a 2" group at 25 yards, and he said all loads functioned flawlessly and these were new pistols. I always heard it has dangerous to load lead in polygonal barrels, like the P45. I just emailed the author of the review and will post the specs here if he tells me.

[Sambo]

Got a reply from Jeff at gunblast.com and he said he uses 5.5g of titegroup. He said to start at 1/16" back from the shoulder. CW45 hasn't arrived in the mail yet but will post my results as soon as it gets here.

[Catshooter]

Sambo,

I have loaded lead semi wadcutters in the .45 auto for forty or so years.

One key is to not let hardly any of the shoulder (top of the side of the bullet) protrude outside of the case. A 32nd of an inch, or even less. The shoulder will strike the edge of the inside of the chamber, called the throat. In most cartridges, this throat is a tapered area cut into the chamber to help center the bullet. But the .45 rarely has anything but a tiny or non-exsistant throat.

Here's how I do it with a new pistol. Pull the barrel from the peice. Size a case, then bell it. No primer, no powder. Then seat a bullet to what looks resonable to your eye, but leave a good amount of shoulder out of the mouth of the case.

Gently put this round into the chamber. As you know, the base of the case should seat flush with the hood of the barrel. With much shoulder sticking out, it won't if it's anything like my PM 45.

Then just keep seating the bullet deeper with your press, little by little until the bullet sits flush. I would then seat it just a little more, say the width of this: l, the letter L.

Now re-install the barrel, load the dummy round into the mag and chamber it, either with the slide lock or sling shot, but do it hard. Now can you open the slide? If so, then the bullet is deep enough and isn't touching the throat. If the slide won't want to move, the shoulder is actually striking the begining of the rifling and wants to stay there. Seat with the press until no more stickage occurs.

Now you should be good to start your loading.

My PM 45 feed my semi-wadcutters from 200 to 260 grains without flaw.

Now about polygonal rifling and lead. The key here is fit. My PM's barrel measures .4518 and you need to know what yours is. The only way to tell what your's is is to measure it. You must use a micrometer, not a set of calipers, esp plastic ones.

So I load .453 diameter bullets, at a minimum. Since I cast my own, it 's easy for me to control the size. I tried some .452 bullets and they leaded badlly. This leading can build up fast in poly barrels, making the inside of the barrel smaller. Smaller bore means more pressure. Pretty soon pressures can build to the breaking point.

So just load so you don't get any leading. Using lead isn't the brain dead activity that using jacketed is. It's more involved, and you have to pay attention to the details.

Hope this helps a bit.


Cat

[ultratec1]

From what I understand the CW45 does not have polygonal rifling but conventional rifling.

[Sambo]

Wish I would have checked this thread earlier catshooter. It took me three batches of bullets before I figured out what you posted. I was seating the bullets too long and the gun wouldn't go into full battery. I had to bump the slide with my palm about every other round. I started out at the max OAL of 1.275. On the second batch I seated them shorter, about 1.26. They were still occasionally failing to go into full batter. I talked to one of the old vets at the range, and he described using the barrel as a gauge just like you did. I went home and progressively seated the bullet until flush and ended up with an OAL of 1.245. It's about a thumbnail width from the shoulder. functioned flawlessly. I have 150 rounds through so far and will put another 200 through before I make my complete reliability assessment. I need to run some self defense ammo through too, but I'm confident that if SWC run fine HP's will too. Just in case anyone wants to try SWC's out, I used 4.6 grains of bullseye with a missouri bullet LSWC with a BHN of 12 seated at 1.245.(obviously reduce and work your way up) This load was found on the alliant website. I experienced zero leading at this velocity. Alliant says 807 fps from a 4.4 inch barrel, so im guessing mid 700's. I'll give a report when I shoot factory ammo but this load feels pretty stout to me. It's my first .45 though, and this gun is light!

[Catshooter]

Sambo,

You made me laugh, glad I could at least belatedly help.

No leading! Good for you. Allways would scare me to buy lead bullets, you never know what size they are. Wonderful they work.

Welcome the the wonderful world of Kahrs & the .45!


Cat

[Sliebl]

I have loaded lead semi wadcutters in the .45 auto for forty or so years...

Great post, Cat. I recently ordered a SA Range Officer, and it's yet to arrive, although all of my reloading dies are setup and materials standing by at the ready!

I've tagged this post in case I need a reference when I make my first 45 ACP reloads.
http://www.lieblweb.com/Emoticons/cheers.gif
-Steve

[MW surveyor]

Thanks to this post. Will be getting a 1911 within the next few days and also plan on loading up 200 gr LSWCs after break in with 230 FMJ factory ammo.
Talk about timing!

[skychief12]

You may want to try some 185 gr LSWC in that Springfield. My likes it with 4.1 bullseye. That consistently prints the tightest groups for me.

[MW surveyor]

Just loaded up some test rounds using the 200 grain LSWCs that came in the other day. Seems like the OAL is the same at 1.245" as the LRN 230s that I loaded yesterday. You can barely see the shoulder on either bullet and plops in and out easily, plus the case is even with the breach lock (looks the same as the factory FMJs). Also did the heavy push test and that worked out OK too.

Used 4.6 and 4.3 grains of Bullseye for the 200 grain. The RNL 230s got various weights of powder from Hodgens and Alliant.

Long as the creeks don't rise, I'll shoot them off tomorrow afternoon. :)

[Sambo]

mw surveyor, how'd the 4.6g of bullseye work out for you? Have you shot any factory 45 out of your 1911 to compare the recoil. This is my first 45, and I have shot nothing but a couple hundred of these 200 lswc 4.6 bullseye loads. The recoil feels pretty stout to me. I got a lyman cast loading book, and the closest 200 lswc has a start of 4.9 and a max of 6.0 for bullseye. I can't even imagine what 6 grains would be like. Guess i'll just have to suck it up and buy some factory loads as a comparison.

[Cap'n]

I've had great success over the years with LaserCast 200-gn LSWC in my Taurus PT1911. 5.4 grains of W231 is comfortable and most accurate load for me.

If I want to increase the PF for competition, 6.0 gn of W231 does the trick with very little loss of accuracy, perhaps and additional 1/4" to a 2-1/2", 5-round group at 25 yards (benchrest).

[MW surveyor]

Sambo - Sorry about not getting back to this sooner. The IP address where I was staying had been banned so no KharTalk for the last 18 days.

The 4.6 bullseye worked pretty well with the 200 grain lswc. Shot those after shooting another 50 rounds of factory 230 FMJ. Recoil was close to the same but then I'm not real recoil sensitive as I also like shooting my 357 magnum. Going to be loading some 230 grain RNLs tomorrow morning with 5 grains of HP38. They were pretty darn accurate on the test rounds. I may up the charge on the 200 grain LSWC or change to HP38 instead of the Bullseye.

[Sambo]

It's not that I am recoil sensitive. My other two pistols are a .357 revolvers...3" ruger sp101 and 4" smith 686. I just feel like it might beat up the "plastic" gun. The recoil spring feels so light that if I increase the load further, it will exceed what the spring tension can handle. Maybe I am just paranoid. This is my first semi-auto. Thanks

[MW surveyor]

Sambo

I think that I have read somewhere that a lot of people are using 4.2 grains of Bullseye with the 200 grain LSWCs in their 1911s. The 4.3 grain that I used was definitely lighter in recoil than the 4.6. Not a whole lot but noticeable. Going to run out to the shed and take a look at the target to see about accuracy.

The 4.3's were good and tight with a spread of 3" (in a line not all over the place), mostly due to the fact that these were the last rounds fired that day. I'm sure that if they were the first, the spread would have been a lot tighter.

I'm still getting used to the gun as of now there are only about 210 rounds through it.

[CJB]

We used to load 200g LSWC's at the range, and ran them with a decent amount of shoulder exposed. I've got a few here someplace, I can take a snap later and post it. They fed in most everything. The Kahr is forgiving of short rounds more than a 1911, and equally unforgiving of longish rounds, as the magazine is just a hair different from the 1911s at the front end (shorter maybe...?). Rounds that fit in my 1911's would not fit Kahr mags. Rounds that nose dived badly in the 1911's fed like crazy in the Kahr.

[MW surveyor]

CJB

I was loading for a 1911 and Sambo is/was also. Tried different lengths using my barrel as a gauge and the 1.245" was what ultimately worked without burying the shoulder of the LSWC or sticking the lead in the rife-ling. Probably no more than a finger nail of shoulder sticking out.

[CJB]

Here's that snap -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v214/bandersnatchreverb/IMG_5348.jpg

The seating depth looks irregular yes? That's because its all "range brass", absolutely no rhyme or reason to the brass. We swept it up, reloaded it. The seating depth in relation to the case tops, varies due to two factors - the squish at the top of our cast bullets, and the length of the cases, which varied considerably.

The lead is range lead, with the occasional wheel weights or tin/antimony stick thrown in to get the hardness ok. We cast up about 100lbs at a time in the furnace, drossing off the jackets and such that floated up (and sand... a long story). That was cast into 25lb pigs. This was done every Monday, and we'd get 4 to 6 pigs a week.

During the week, we'd remelt the pigs, cast up some bullets on an automated casting machine that held eight blocks, all going round and round. They'd pour at 10 o'clock, sprue cut at 4 o'clock, dump at 6 o'clock, then move up to get poured into again. That was pretty much automatic, and the operator only had to use a stick to clear lead from the mechanism. Testing them for hardness. We hardly ever had to put hardeners in the lead, as we were recovering mostly our own. Cheap shooters (what?) would rather shoot reloads than factory.

Bullets crated, then later put on a vibratory ramp and they fell into an automated sizer. The operator only had to keep the pressure of the Rooster Red up, and clear the occasional jam, or miscast bullet. Sized bullets went into a crate.

Brass was sorted through a coarse grate (of my design) but some had to be further hand sorted - 9's and 38 super, 38sp and 357, 44mag 44sp and 45lc all got hand checked. They got tumbled in walnut media that as far as I knew, never got changed, but got an ounce or so of abrasive added every month or six weeks. The grate ran on pneumatic hammers as the vibratory source.

Loaded on Ammocrafter, Dillon and Star machines. Each machine was set for one cartridge. Most bullets were autofed through a ferris wheel device on a vibratory ramp (my design too), and the primers were tubed in a similar manner (just ramp, no wheel). The 44special, 45lc and 38super were hand fed on the Dillon machines. We didn't load 32's or smaller - no money in it.

That was about it... there is a whole other plateau of issues when dealing with mixed brass, reloading it so it will fire in most everything reasonably well. Dealt with a lot of that too. The 9mm was worst, by far, for issues. The rest was pussycats.

[MW surveyor]

CJB - Thanks for the pic.

That's some serious reloading (or should I say, serious re-manufacturing) that you guys did.

[CJB]

Yah... for me, just hourly wages, and a means to get creative in the machine shop, and feed my gun habbit cheap!

[TonyT]

Just ordered a cw45 from buds for 370 shipped and found a local shop that only charges the 5 dollar background check. 375 total... couldn't pass it up. Well I've been reloading .38/.357 cast bullets for a while now for my s&w revolvers and just ordered all the goodies to do 45 acp. I love the clean holes semi wadcutters make in paper, so I order 2000 from missouri bullet. Have any of you tried these out? I've never loaded semi auto cartridges. Just wondering what kind loads feed reliably in the cw45. I'm guessing OAL is going to be the biggest issue with feeding. I have clays, titegroup, and bullseye and have load data for all, but i've seen on the 1911 forums that people are all over the place with OAL. Just hoping someone can get me started in the right direction to save a little time. Thanks
My bullseye pistol 45 ACP load was 3.6 gr. Clays & WLP behind trhe 200 gr. Speer LSWC. It chronographed at ca 720 fps. About as clean burning as one could expect from a lead bullet load.

[MichSteve]

I load 200 SWC over 5.0 grains of W-231 oal 1.250 seems to work fine in my Springfield 1911A1 Loaded. I am going to load some load with Titegroup powder.

You will find this site helpful link (http://www.handloads.com/loaddata/default.asp?Caliber=45%20ACP&Weight=200&type=Handgun&Order=Powder&Source=Guest)

[Sambo]

I've had great results with bullseye and clays since i first posted this. I believe I'm doing 4.6 bullseye and 4.1 clays, both at 1.24 OAL. Feels close to factory fmj recoil. I don't care to practice with mouse fart target loads, however accurate they may be, in my ccw.

[TonyT]

I do not have a CW-45 and do not know how well a 200 gr LSWC will feed in that platform. I have used the Speer 200 gr. LSWC with 3.6 gr. Clays for ca. 725 fps - a nice accurate bullseye pistol load in 1911 types. I have found that with the LSWC the more critical dimension is base of case to shoulder of bullet at ca.0.937" - alot may depend on the individual gun. Personally I avoid Titegrouip with lead bullets - it burns too hot for my taste.