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verti89 · June 20, 2009, 08:08 PM

My dad and I jusgt finished testing our reloads. We loaded .45 and .40, the .40s went flawlessly. However our .45s had us scratching our heads. Since we are noobs I wanted to bring our issue to the pros.

a couple weeks ago we finished our very first reloads. 4.7gr of Red Dot behind some 200 gr. hornady XTP HPs. Those shot flawlessly and had us riding high.

today we loaded up some wadcutters, and came crashing back to earth. We used 4.0 gr of the same red dot behind our 200gr jacketed swc's. Our OAL was between 1.265 and 1.27 which according to our books was under the max oal of 1.275 for the .45. We went to fire them through our 3 guns (2 identical XDs and 1 Springfield 1911) and had issues. First in the XDs they would fire fine but were having trouble ejecting and/or loading the next cartridge. Sometimes the fired shot would not eject at all, sometimes it would eject fine but the next cartridge wouldn't chamber fully. It was almost every single shot that was having issues when fired through each of the Xds. The 1911 was a bit more forgiving but probably 3 total times per mag there were issues which is still way too high for any sort of dependability. On a side not the cases we did fire had a black streak on them that I think was due to them being light loads and not completely sealing off.

Our first thought was that the cartridges were too long so we went back to the table to set them down a bit further. We got them down to about 1.228 OAL which was almost identical to the factory rounds. These still had problems every time thru the Xds but were much better in the 1911 with it only failing once in 3 mags.

We decided to test a bit more. We loaded them with the previously loaded HPs that were firing fine. The result was that if the HP was fird before the new wadcutters it would have the same issues ejecting and/or chambering the next round. If the Hps were loaded after the wadcutters again they would not chamber correctly. But if we loaded a magazine with only the HPs it worked flawlessly. So basically we are baffled because it seems that any combination of ammo involving the new wadcutters had serious issues.

The two things that we thought it might be ended up not being realistic. The length thing was accounted for and made to match the factory ammo in OAL. If it were a pressure issue due to the light load it seems that they would still chamber fine following one of the HPs.

On a side note the brass was an assortment and the primers used were CCI.

Please offer any advice you might have or if you need any more info I will do my best to answer it thanks.

June 20, 2009, 08:08 PM	#1
verti89 Senior Member Join Date: November 10, 2008 Posts: 157	Mixed Results after todays reloads My dad and I jusgt finished testing our reloads. We loaded .45 and .40, the .40s went flawlessly. However our .45s had us scratching our heads. Since we are noobs I wanted to bring our issue to the pros. a couple weeks ago we finished our very first reloads. 4.7gr of Red Dot behind some 200 gr. hornady XTP HPs. Those shot flawlessly and had us riding high. today we loaded up some wadcutters, and came crashing back to earth. We used 4.0 gr of the same red dot behind our 200gr jacketed swc's. Our OAL was between 1.265 and 1.27 which according to our books was under the max oal of 1.275 for the .45. We went to fire them through our 3 guns (2 identical XDs and 1 Springfield 1911) and had issues. First in the XDs they would fire fine but were having trouble ejecting and/or loading the next cartridge. Sometimes the fired shot would not eject at all, sometimes it would eject fine but the next cartridge wouldn't chamber fully. It was almost every single shot that was having issues when fired through each of the Xds. The 1911 was a bit more forgiving but probably 3 total times per mag there were issues which is still way too high for any sort of dependability. On a side not the cases we did fire had a black streak on them that I think was due to them being light loads and not completely sealing off. Our first thought was that the cartridges were too long so we went back to the table to set them down a bit further. We got them down to about 1.228 OAL which was almost identical to the factory rounds. These still had problems every time thru the Xds but were much better in the 1911 with it only failing once in 3 mags. We decided to test a bit more. We loaded them with the previously loaded HPs that were firing fine. The result was that if the HP was fird before the new wadcutters it would have the same issues ejecting and/or chambering the next round. If the Hps were loaded after the wadcutters again they would not chamber correctly. But if we loaded a magazine with only the HPs it worked flawlessly. So basically we are baffled because it seems that any combination of ammo involving the new wadcutters had serious issues. The two things that we thought it might be ended up not being realistic. The length thing was accounted for and made to match the factory ammo in OAL. If it were a pressure issue due to the light load it seems that they would still chamber fine following one of the HPs. On a side note the brass was an assortment and the primers used were CCI. Please offer any advice you might have or if you need any more info I will do my best to answer it thanks.