[twodogs]

I've been trying to develop some lead, (.452/.453), 200 and 230 grain round nose loads to work in both my RIA 1911 GI and my Ruger Blackhawk Convertible. I've pretty much determined that my Blackhawk chamber throats are about .001/.002 smaller than my RIA. If I load for my Ruger and the case gage I've got, my OAL is down around 1.22. The grease ring lands on the lead bullets have to be seated even with, or below, the case mouth or else they jam the Ruger. At that OAL they perk right along in the Ruger but are too short to reliably feed in the RIA. If I load them out to 1.25 +/-, they run fine in the RIA but jam the Ruger.

Jacketed bullets, (.451), aren't near as sensitive and I can load them to 1.250 + and they work fine in both guns.

I can handle this by simply labeling my loads and marching happily on and/or using jacketed bullets but, it's been driving me nuts. I probably ruined 150 rounds by over-crimping to get them to fit both guns but, then, I didn't want to shoot them so I pulled the bullets.

Anyone need some tapered .453-.444 lead bullets.

(Also posted over on the 1911 Forum)

 

[btrumanj]

twodogs, I found this out early on with my Blackhawk. Mine, apparently like your gun has minimum headspace. Any factory .45 ACP jacketed ammo works fine but all of my reloads with lead bullets do have to be seated with the driving band flush with the case mouth. I'd always been taught to leave about a 1/32 of lead showing like the Speer and other manuals show for swaged bullets. They just wouldn't work in my gun. Had some pretty good argument with my one 1911 shooting buddy who couldn't understand why his loads wouldn't chamber in my gun. Since I use Win 231 for all of my .45 ACP loads which in my books call for a shorter OAL than most other powders and realized what the problem was it has worked out pretty good. Usually the 230 gr RN and the 200 gr SWCs can be seated at 1.20 to 1.22 like you use but the 225 gr flat nose bullets have seated 1.190 to 1.195 to go fully into the chambers. These all work well in my P97 auto and the 230 gr RN work in another friend's old 1911 Colt.
I don't know if all BH cylinders are like this but a good post to bring this up because many with the BH convertibles probably have trouble with lead bullets.
Baker

 

[twodogs]

btrumanj,

Thanks for the reply. There's at least three of us now who have both Blackhawks and 1911's who have run into this. My 1911 just doesn't like to feed anything shorter than about 1.25.

I hope others see your reply before wasting all the time and bullets I did while trying to sort this out.

 

[J Miller]

Yep, I have the same problems with my ACP cylinder. Any exposed lead shoulder forward of the case mouth causes problems.

Joe

 

[Snuffy]

yep I agree.