Questions on reloading 45 ACP

[WESHOOT2]

I seat primers on my XL650 press, or with RCBS hand-prime units; I NEVER seat primers with my single-stage presses.

Hmmmm.....ay?

[serf 'rett]

Welcome to the forum Andrew

For pistol brass, I punch out the primers with a nail mounted in my shop drill press. Tumble with stainless steel pins gets everything clean. Sort by headstamp, size, slightly expand, load, taper crimp pistol rounds, Ziploc bag 'em and tag 'em.

[thump_rrr]

Just a couple of comments.
As for your friend chamfering the inside of his pistol cartridge cases.
Was he loading with lead bullets by any chance?
I had a friend show me that method when I was given a box of 200 rounds of lead boolits.
That method actually worked very well requiring no belling of the cases.

I prefer to use jacketed bullets since they can be run in my bullet feeder.
I bell the cartridges just enough to allow the bullet to go in easily.

As far as depriming before tumbling is concerned.
On one end of the spectrum you have those who do not tumble at all and on the other end of the spectrum you have those like myself who deprime first, wet tumble, dry, then polish their brass with Flitz or Nufinish to prolong the beautiful sheen.

There is no right or wrong way just a personal preference.

[oldNewbie]

What exactly happens if you reload .45 ACP brass with case lengths over the .898 maximum?

I measured some once-fired .45 ACP cases (PMC brand) from one particular box of factory ammo that I bought at the range and shot (and miraculously, was able to recover all 50 cases). I came up with lengths up to .903. I don't have the required trimmer yet.

If reloaded, would such rounds cause failures to feed, or if they did feed, battering of the bolt face or other problems with the pistol? How critical is the case length in most .45s? To trim, or not to trim, that is the question.

[Real Gun]

"Deburring" is not the same as "chamfering". Deburring simply cleans up a blunt edge after grinding. Chamfering imposes a taper to the edge and does remove base material.

[mmb713]

What exactly happens if you reload .45 ACP brass with case lengths over the .898 maximum?

I measured some once-fired .45 ACP cases (PMC brand) from one particular box of factory ammo that I bought at the range and shot (and miraculously, was able to recover all 50 cases). I came up with lengths up to .903. I don't have the required trimmer yet.

If reloaded, would such rounds cause failures to feed, or if they did feed, battering of the bolt face or other problems with the pistol? How critical is the case length in most .45s? To trim, or not to trim, that is the question.

45 Auto, like most auto pistol cartridges, headspaces on the case mouth. If the case is too long you will have improper headspace and the case head will protrude out of the chamber too far. If it is long enough the pistol will not go into battery. .005 inch too long may or may not cause problems in your gun. If I were you I would save those cases until you get a trimmer and load other cases of the correct length. Then again, those case have obviously already functioned fine in your pistol. 45 Auto cases don't grow, if anything they will get shorter over time. You could always load a dummy round and see if headspace is ok in your gun.

[oldNewbie]

mmb713, I did reload a few and loaded a magazine with them. Inserted in my SR1911 and racked the slide several times, and they seemed to cycle just fine. Thank you! Haven't tried them in the Colt Mark IV yet.

I picked up a .45 ACP case trimmer today and may have learned something while playing around with it earlier. If the cases are already deprimed and resized, it's almost impossible to get the trimmer pilot all the way into the case. The shoulder on the pilot (Lee brand) measures .451 on my caliper and that seems to create an interference fit in the case.

Fortunately, from previous recommendations here, I also picked up a universal decapping die today, and found that the trimmer pilot would go into cases that were decapped but not resized, just fine. Looks like if I'm going to trim cases, it's going to have to be before resizing.

Anybody else have a similar experience?

[mikld]

Fortunately, from previous recommendations here, I also picked up a universal decapping die today, and found that the trimmer pilot would go into cases that were decapped but not resized, just fine. Looks like if I'm going to trim cases, it's going to have to be before resizing.

Sizing the case will change the size/shape/length od the case, not a lot with a 45 ACP (very little if any though). So, trimming then sizing and the case may not be in spec. I have a Lee trimmer for 45 ACP (bought waaaay back when I didn't know 45 ACP doesn't need trimming) and it was difficult to insert, so I chucked it in a drill and polished the OD with emery cloth and oil. OD came down .001"-.002" and worked well, but very few cases actually were cut/trimmed...

With a properly sized case the case mouth (neck) is smaller than the bullet base (unless it's a bevel base or boat tail), so to insert the bullet into the case, a taper must be installed in the case mouth. By far, more reloaders will simply flare the case mouth to slightly larger than the bullet, so it can be started into the case. Some will chamfer the case mouth, but as noted above, removing metal from the case mouth will become problematic after a few reloadings.

So, for me and my 45 ACP pistols, I toss the cases into the tumbler (for a short time just to get the dirt off, not polish), size/deprime, flare case mouth/prime, charge, seat bullet, deflare case mouth, shoot. Don't bother trimming, primer pocket cleaning, sorting, and I can still get 2"-2 1/2" groups @ 20 yards with my stock 1911 and a bit smaller groups with my P90. But when working up a load/experimenting, I'll sort brass by headstamp and after load is "finished" I go to mixed brass...

[Wreck-n-Crew]

The second has to do with cleaning the brass. Should this be done before resizing and depriming? This same friend of mine suggested I resize and deprime first, so that the primer pockets get somewhat cleaned as well. Again, I see his point but it seems like running dirty brass through my resizing die can't be good for it.

I de-prime first and usually get them clean enough in the tumbler to just re-prime.

I re-size after first Chamfer.

I only reuse brass 5 times and toss it. Not the popular way necessarily but trimming is not my forte and would prefer to revamp with once fired brass. Although I know people who reload 20 times before tossing it! Guess to each his own.

I Stopped using media and wash with Joy and Mean Green and my small tumbler will do about 100 45 ACP comfortably. Don't care about a little tarnish, just clean is good for me. I have used No-Finish to prevent brass from tarnishing.

I don't like the case to be so small that the lead peels, it gets in the barrel or causes me to remove it by hand adding to loading time.

I don't separate my brass by head stamp, but on the 45's I do throw the ones that contain the small pistol primers to the side. Maybe use them if they ever add up to a batch.

[oldNewbie]

Somehow I duplicated this post. See below.

[oldNewbie]

Sizing the case will change the size/shape/length of the case, not a lot with a 45 ACP (very little if any though). So, trimming then sizing and the case may not be in spec.

Indeed. So, any trimming definitely needs to be done after resizing. Thanks for the sanity check...

A new wrinkle in my little .45 ACP reloading saga: I took the trimmer to a few cases that measured .901 to .903 on my dial caliper, and nothing was trimmed except for a shallow scrape on about half the circumference of one case mouth. I'm really scratching my head now.

The trimmer was fully inserted into the cases. I measured a few bullets as a benchmark for the caliper, and they measured about .4505 so I don't think the caliper is off. I wouldn't think that the Lee trimmer would be off spec. I must be missing something.

Maybe I should just be happy that the reloaded rounds cycle through the gun with no problems when I rack the slide? But that's not me. I want to figure out what the deal is here.