# .45 ACP Length??



## birdman (Jan 26, 2006)

I am new to reloading. Just got a press and have been working out of the manual and following as close as I can to directions. 
This is my second reload batch. I loaded 230 grain ball ammo - no problems worked great on batch one.
I loaded - second batch - 230 grain Hollow Points and although the OAL is .003 shorter that max I am having trouble even getting them into the clip.
Any advise?


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## CHARLIE (Jun 2, 2004)

Well now I would suggest seating the bullet a little deeper..


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

Which manual, which bullet, and what is the COAL spec you are using for that particular load? Because different bullets have a different ogive curve, the OAL can to vary for different bullets to get them to fit a SAMI spec'd chamber and not have the bullet right up against the lands. You don't always load to max spec length for the cartridge. I've also found errors in load manuals too.


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## CHARLIE (Jun 2, 2004)

He said trouble getting them in the clip not in the chamber. Just have to be to long.


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## cody p (Aug 25, 2010)

Im going to ask this not trying to insult make sure its not a 45 GAP iv seen 3 guys with this problem some glocks dont clearly show that thay are 45 GAP not ACP.


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

CHARLIE said:


> He said trouble getting them in the clip not in the chamber. Just have to be to long.


Hence my question to the OP; which bullet and load? The last thing you want to do is just shove the bullet deeper into the case and push pressures up even higher without first understanding the load being used and where that load is pressure wise. Doing that is not safe IMHO without first understanding the context of the problem. Especially with 45 ACP and the over ramped barrels used on some guns that provide poor support for the case near the rim.

If the load is indeed made to spec, I would look at the magazine being used and the profile of the metal curve at the front of the magazine. not matching the ogive of the more cylindrical less pointed HP bullet. There may be different magazine options available, or it could be that gun was never designed to shoot anything other than ball ammo (like an old GI spec 1911) and the magazine is not made to fit other bullets than ball.


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## magnumb (Apr 27, 2010)

Brass also gains length and width upon firing. The OP doesn't say that he did or did not trim his brass. If not, and he reset his seating die to fit the cannuleurs of the second batch of HP's OR the HP's cannuleurs are lower than batch one's cannuleurs, this could also cause his second batch to be seated out just far enough to not fit the magazine as desired. Ball ammo and HP's rarely share the same distance of ogive from top to bottom.....perhaps another reason why the disparity. The inside of the seating stem makes contact where it makes contact......no matter the configuration of the bullet's frontal area.

As Charlie said, if the above isn't the case, seat 'em deeper. This will also ensure that the first batch loadings will have ample room in his magazines. Another possibility is that the HP's are longer or that the OP applied less pressure on the ram with this second batch, therefore not seating them as deeply...........who know's? I can easily get a .003 difference in most all metallic loads by just applying more or less pressure when seating bullets. That is why I measure each and every hunting load, every fifth handgun load and every 20th or so .223 load. Consistency, consistency, consistency........................

Concerning the OP's mag issue............this is one of those rare instances where shorter is better....................:smile:.


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## birdman (Jan 26, 2006)

My mistake - used a Rouund Nose OAL and not Hollow Point.
I am using both a Sierra and Lyman Manual.
This new brass never fired - the case lenght is right.

I got PM telling me to envision it as a round nose round and set the lenght as that. 
I went to a factory hollow point round and measured OAL - it was a good bit shorter than a factory round nose round. 
Took apart to the rounds and have reset them to the factory round length. Go in to the magazine and gun fine.Plan on trying them out tomorrow.

Thanks for all the replies.


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## CHARLIE (Jun 2, 2004)

Mountains out of molehills


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

While magnum pistol and rifle brass often gains length, that is seldom the case with low pressure straight walled pistol cases using taper crimped bullets. They pretty much stay the same, or actually get slightly shorter when you full length resize the case, which you should do with an Auto Pistol round for reliability. I reload about a thousand rounds of 45 acp every other week and keeping careful records and sorting brass for making accurate handloads needed to be competitive in shooting NRA Bullseye matches. Winchester, Remington, Starline, and Magech brass is all a couple thousandths short new from the factory. Myself and about 30 other BE shooters approached Starline about making a run of brass to SAMI Max length spec and were turned down. We wanted to do that so we could start with brass that actually headspaces on the case mouth versus the extractor.

As it is, I measure and sort cases using the longest ones for matches. After 3-4 reloadings they've shrunk 2-3 thousandth and then length becomes stable and they go into the practice pile. When the brass eventually fails around 15-20 reloads later it is because of thinning and cracking at the case mouth. If you section a piece of worn out 45acp brass, you'll find the web area to be thicker than what it was when new because; 1) There is minimal case stretch from 45 ACP Sami pressures pulling out a taper crimped bullet, 2) The brass flows towards the web area during resizing.

And, I still maintain that telling anyone to seat a bullet deeper without knowing where they are pressure wise with their load is dangerous and poor reloading practice. When you are talking pistol size case capacities with small volumes, the pressure spikes up drastically with small reductions in case volume which you get when you seat a bullet deeper.



magnumb said:


> Brass also gains length and width upon firing. The OP doesn't say that he did or did not trim his brass. If not, and he reset his seating die to fit the cannuleurs of the second batch of HP's OR the HP's cannuleurs are lower than batch one's cannuleurs, this could also cause his second batch to be seated out just far enough to not fit the magazine as desired. Ball ammo and HP's rarely share the same distance of ogive from top to bottom.....perhaps another reason why the disparity. The inside of the seating stem makes contact where it makes contact......no matter the configuration of the bullet's frontal area.
> 
> As Charlie said, if the above isn't the case, seat 'em deeper. This will also ensure that the first batch loadings will have ample room in his magazines. Another possibility is that the HP's are longer or that the OP applied less pressure on the ram with this second batch, therefore not seating them as deeply...........who know's? I can easily get a .003 difference in most all metallic loads by just applying more or less pressure when seating bullets. That is why I measure each and every hunting load, every fifth handgun load and every 20th or so .223 load. Consistency, consistency, consistency........................
> 
> Concerning the OP's mag issue............this is one of those rare instances where shorter is better....................:smile:.


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

birdman said:


> My mistake - used a Rouund Nose OAL and not Hollow Point.
> I am using both a Sierra and Lyman Manual.
> This new brass never fired - the case lenght is right.
> 
> ...


So you used a COAL for the 230 grn round nose and applied it to the hollowpoint? In the future, don't do that, it is poor reloading practice and a bad habit to get into. The COAL for a load is spec'd to include the design of the bullet's nose. You should not substitue a different bullet design into a loading recipe unless it is the same weight, construction, and profile of bullet. A load you see in a manual is specific to a particular bullet. If you don't see your bullet in a manual, a lot of bullet makers websites have load data, or you can call them and get information. There is also a lot of good information on line at sites like Realguns.com and the load database they maintain that is well peer reviewed by some very knowledgeable people. This is not a hobby to cut corners, stick to proven accurate data.

And it is poor practice to "envision" and estimate when it comes to seating depth, especially with low case volume pistol brass. There are tools to be precise like a comparator that measures off the ogive profile, or a seating die that spaces on the ogive profile and not the bullet nose that will let you make ammo to spec. I'm not trying to scare you out of the hobby as it is very safe if you stick to common best practices, use the right tools, and use good date. When you are not using real measurements against real data, it is a recipe for disaster.

Example, a 45 ACP safe load at max pressure is 21000 PSI. This is with the bullet seated so the point where the bullet's profile edge would touch the rifling is 3-5 thousandths away from the lands in the bore. If you eyeball and seat your bullet out so it is in contact with the lands when the chamber closes, that once safe load will now generate about 35-37000 psi because the bullet can't jump out those few thousandths when the powder ignites. That is enough to blow out the case web on a ramped barrel and send pieces of hot brass into your hand or face. Look at a feeler gauge and see how thick 5 thousandths is and tell me if you can reliably eyeball that? By the same token, if you seat that bullet deeper than spec with that small case volume and fast burning pistol powder, you also spike pressures up way past the safe point. That curve that plots pressure VS seating depth is also not linear, it goes up logarithmically because of the way powders burn in confined spaces. Be safe, use real real date that exactly matches your bullet used and use the right tools.


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## GulfCoast210se (Mar 28, 2011)

*To All*

Listen to Pocket Fisherman... He speaks the honest and technical truth..

I have been reloading and shooting competitively for over 45 years, at the height, about 500 rounds a week... I cannot fault or disagree with a word he has laid down... Hats off, he knows his stuff..

A tip though, when I set up a die for a new bullet, if it is offered commercially, like a 230 ball, or now golden sabers are offered to reloaders.

Place a factory round in the shell holder, back of the crimp and seating depth adjustment (pull the die out 4 turns or so, and the seating punch about 3/8 of an inch. Slowly run the loaded round up to the top of the stroke of the ram. now with your fingers gently screw the seating die down until it make contact, and your crimp will be pretty darn close to right, now by hand take the bullets seating plunger and thread it down until it makes contact with the top of the bullet, set your lock rings. You should be good to go... Double ck with a set of calipers against the book.

45's are easy to set up because they headspace on the mouth of the cartridge, and a taper crimp is all you use, Then it is just a matter of finding you OAL (over all length)

As far as case stretching in straight wall cases.... I've never seen it, at least enough to make any real difference.. I don't separate by mfg, or finish in practice ammo, but it do for match loads.

Match stuff I roll out of virgin, once or twice fired... practice, jeese, I have some I know have been through the press at least 20 times...

Welcome to the club...


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## CHARLIE (Jun 2, 2004)

Well I did suggest to seat the bullet deeper. He stated that the rounds (new reloads) went into the clip fine and then stated that the second reloads would not go into the clip. Obvious if he was using some commercial bullet it was not seated deep enough thats all. Pocketfisherman has a bunch of absoloutely correct information there to digest. I also loaded 45 ACP's by the thousands years ago to competevily shoot bullseys type shooting. Ended up using 185 Gr. H&G wadcutter with 3.5 gr bullseye. Duty round was 185 gr wadcutter gas checked with 8 gr unique. Well that was the first round all the rest just good ole 230 gr ball.


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## Bigj (Jul 22, 2007)

Need to get a set of calipers i used to shoot 45 acp's alot 200 grn semi wadcutter
we set the overall lenth at 1.285 If my memory serves me right


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## Pocketfisherman (May 30, 2005)

This is pretty much how I do a quick setup for a recipe changeover to a different bullet too. I have dummy no primer rounds made up for different bullet types and I use those dummies to get the dies set very close to ballpark and then do a final dial in on the seating and crimping die with the first few real loads with a caliper. If you do this, scribe a line around the bullet at the case rim because it is possible to accidently push the bullet in deeper into the dummy load while doing the setup. If you can see your scribe line you know it's still good to use. Each dummy has a number scribed into the case that has an entry on a page in my reloading logbook that describes the bullet and powder used that gave me the best results for which pistol. Bullseye shooters are anal-retentive by nature I think as it is the only way to even compete against the good ones. I like doing it this way because I waste only 2-4 rounds or so on the final dial in by caliper versus pro-longed trial and error to get it all right. BTW, I do also measure my taper crimp with calipers too and I use a different crimp for different pistols on the match guns because that is what gives best accuracy after lots of experimentation.



GulfCoast210se said:


> Listen to Pocket Fisherman... He speaks the honest and technical truth..
> 
> I have been reloading and shooting competitively for over 45 years, at the height, about 500 rounds a week... I cannot fault or disagree with a word he has laid down... Hats off, he knows his stuff..
> 
> ...


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## RobaloSunrise (Jun 10, 2011)

Your OAL will change with bullet design. If you use the bullet manufacturers specified OAL for the bullet you are using then it will load in most factory chambes and magazines. If you are using Sierra bullet you should be using sierra data.


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