COL for 45?

Runningfool

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So made my first attempt at reloading last night, put a dozen together and took them to the range today. Good news is they all went bang ;) but I had some issues with ejecting/feeding.
According to Hodgdon's website data for what I am loading, they list a COL of 1.225. When I loaded them to this length, the shoulder of my LSWC seemed to be just at the rim of the cartridge and the sharp brass lip of the case felt like it was exposed and perhaps catching up. I loaded another dozen to try out tonight and these I set the COL to 1.250. Here are the details that hopefully will help you experienced reloaders give me some advice. Thanks!

It may be worth noting that when I loaded a factory round nose followed by my reload into the mag (so that my reload fired first and was followed by the factory) everything ejected and loaded fine which leads me to believe that despite the heavy spring of my XD, it may not be that I need to increase my powder...but what do I know, I am new at reloading!

Gun: Springfield XD 45
Bullet data: 200gn LSWC, 5gn Winchester 231
Loader: Lee 1000
 
Col

I am using 200gn LSWC (lee mold) with 5.2gn titegroup in my Para .45 and it would not feed until I got the col to 1.200" I started at 1.250" and it was driving me crazy!
 
I am running a 200gr SWC from Ben Hunchak in an Armco tuned Norc 1911. The first test used an OAL of 1.185" and I had 1 jam out of 32 rounds tested. The round jammed up against the roof of the chamber, but fed fine when loaded into a mag again and the slide cycled.

I loaded another batch at 1.175" OAL to see if it likes a bit less length. I can't load these past 1.185" without the shoulder jamming the lands quite solidly and making extracting a loaded round fairly tough.

My load is 4.5gr of Red Dot under the 200gr SWC if anybody cares.


Mark
 
Have you got a crimp die?? After a range session take a close look at the feed ramp area to see where it hangs up also check the bullet for impact damage after ejecting or clearing.
Still haven't got my 200 grn SWC to feed but I am working on it cause I like the nice big holes it makes in paper, I am using a 230 Round nose and took 49 rounds of it to the range today, one round was SWC and it was the only jam all day.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. Changing the COL to 1.250 made a big difference but still having some issues. I think Skinny1950 you are onto something there and I need to increase my crimp a bit. Back to the reloading bench to tweak! Can't wait to get it right and then start churning out the rounds!
 
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