Originally Posted by
brickeyee
No reason to use hard cast bullets in .45 ACP Bullseye loads.
On the other hand, I see no reason NOT to use them. Bullets that are too soft can lead to problems.
Swaged bullets (they are very close to 100% lead) are all you need.
Some time ago, I got some Speer swaged 200 grain SWC's and they were a source of some difficulty at the range. After testing their hardness the source of the problem was clear.
At HBN 6.9 they were too soft to stretch a good case enough to create the tension needed for a good grip on the bullet. That resulted in these things:
• In good thick brass these super-soft bullets were not stretching the case. Instead, the case was reducing the diameter of these soft bullets during seating - as much as 0.0028" in good thick Winchester brass and about 0.001" in weak R-P (not R·P) brass. So instead of shooting a 0.452" OD bullet, 0.449 to 0.451" OD bullets were going down the barrel and accuracy suffered. Leading also increased because of gas cutting on a bullet too small to fill the grooves.
• Soft bullets see an increase in bullet setback due to the poor case grip on the bullet - especially when fed as the first couple of rounds out of a full magazine. This, coupled with an increased natural nosedive under those conditions would often see the bullet stuck firmly on the lower part of the feed ramp. The 1911 needs a firmly held bullet so it can glance up and off of the feed ramp on its way into the chamber and not bleed off excessive energy from the slide.
• Coupled with setback due to soft bullets, the amount of setback becomes more variable - decreasing as the magazine empties. This is because as the magazine empties, the amount of nosediving decreases. Hard lead bullets (when properly loaded) suffer very little setback when fed in a 1911 because they do a good job of stretching the case when seated. This means the range of their seating depth reduction during feeding is inherently smaller. On the other hand, because soft bullets do a poor job of creating case tension their range of seating depths after being fed is inherently greater. Most handloaders take take great care in loading their ammunition with a suitable and consistent COAL/seating depth. They assume that COAL remains the same up until the firing pin hits the primer. Bullets that are too soft can upset all that.
Regards
When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind. [Lord Kelvin]
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