Henry BB 45 Colt

[Ian]

The SWC nose on this MP bullet doesn't come close to touching anything but air until it hits the target, but for sure they were slick as an eel with the PC and lube combo. Are you saying to just try taper crimping in a band and let them jump? The front bands on these are only jumping about .060" or so to the ball seat the way I was loading them, rolled tight into the underside of the wide front band.

 

[freebullet]

Hmm, so coating + lube = good. Kinda sounds like the diameter is to small. Really makes me curious about the internal diameters.

Glad you got something fun & usable going. I would also have trouble doing much better with irons.

 

[fiver]

yep sometimes that just seems to work. [shrug]

I have a couple of rifles that I went through all the gymnastics of measuring and stuff,, looking for fitment and closing off the air gaps etc, and as soon as I got bent cause they wouldn't shoot and just said screw it i'll load them to here for some fire forming they suddenly started shooting.

 

[Ian]

I've been racking my brain for two days about a bullet design to fit this thing. Too many conflicts, though. Chamber too long, throat too abrupt, OAL restricted, etc. A 300-grain heeled wadcutter would fit pretty well, I think

Maybe it is a diameter thing. I sized the PC'd bullets the same as the uncoated ones, but the coating can sure make up for some fit problems. My operating theory at this point is the PC is slick and the front band is slipping the bullet right up the middle. Like I said earlier, I couldn't find anything amiss with the recovered, uncoated bullets, but who knows why they didn't shoot. Or should I say didn't shoot well past 50 yards. This thing about going a certain distance and grouping well and then a few more yards the bullets turning and flying all directions has really got me going. In the past I always attributed this to insufficient twist rate or to bullets which had too wide of a nose, but that cannot be the case with this 1:16.

 

[fiver]

if it's truly a 16?
1-18 would maybe splain it.

look at what happened when marlin? airc changed their 44 barrels like 2 turns in a foot, suddenly 200gr bullets were all the rage.

 

[waco]

My brothers Henry BB will not feed my RCBS 45-270-SAA
Color me jelious.

 

[Brad]

Ian, I have a bullet I want you to try. Let me cast some up and send them your way. My Marlin loves the bullet over 10-10.5 gr of surplus 105, a powder similar to AA5. Runs 1150 or so from a 24" barrel.
This is the only bullet the Marlin is fed. It does well in the 4 5/8 BH with the same load.

 

[Ian]

Waco, I trim to 1.270" and jam the case mouth up under the base of the front band. With a good taper crimp it feeds like butter. ETA this is the MP version....

I did a lot of shooting this afternoon with the BB, this time having a go with the AM 45-255C.

First batch was plain, lubed, sized .4525". 10-shot average velocity 912, SD 16.6 with two in a row way low and the next one high (having powder measure problems). 75 yard group was 3-1/8" with the first shot way low, otherwise a 2.5" group. Interesting to me was the first shot from the cold, lube-fouled barrel was 2" below the second shot, but both had exactly the same MV at 922 fps.

Second round was the same but powder coated. 10-shot average 915 fps, SD 13.9, with one that didn't read and one shot falling down at 896. This made a 5" group with the first shot again low, otherwise 3" group.

Third round was PC only, at .4525". Six shots into 4-1/2", average 909, SD 24.2.

Fourth round was PC only, at .454". Ten shots into 3-1/8", first shot way low, nine into 2.5", eight into 2". This one acts like it wants to group.


I suppose that next I'll try plain lubed ones sized .454" to see if that first shot flyer remains, then I can try PCing them and lubing them @.454", based on the first two groups it shouldn't make much difference. I may work on the sights some, get rid of that big brass bead on the front which makes it so difficult for me to precisely aim at 75 yards.

 

[Ian]

Brad, that would be fantastic...but let's make sure it will feed, first. The limit from meplat to case mouth (effective nose length) is about .340" for my Henry, anything longer and I'll have to shave some metal off of the lifter. Will they make .454"? I'm also operating on the theory that this rifle likes them a little big, I'm sure the Marlins do too.

 

[Brad]

These are a dual crimp groove bullet but the shorter nose to crimp is still .370.
They will cast around .453. I size to .452 and they shoot quite well for me. Never tried larger in the Marlin.
Too bad they are too long for your rifle, this is a great bullet design. My 6 cav Lee has made a whole bunch of them over the years. First GB I ever got in on. Waited well over a year for this one.

 

[Ian]

Rats. Well, I'm studying hard over on Tom's site, lots of good designs already made up for the .45 Colt, still haven't found the exact one I have in mind yet. I have a fleet of revolvers and want ONE bullet to fit them all, I think .454 will work, I just have to be careful about how far forward the front band goes. Don't tell Rick my cylinder throats have all been reamed to .4525".....

 

[Brad]

I also have a 265 WFN GC mould from Ballisticast. It also shoots very well for me. I don't use it much due to the GC. Shot a couple of pigs and a deer with it and a healthy load of H110.

 

[Brad]

Tom's 255A and 260M don't look too bad. I would prefer a max length nose to crimp but otherwise they are good. Weight is about right too.
275D with a smaller meplat would be good too. Maybe a .3 meplat instead of .34.

 

[Ian]

Those are exactly the ones I've been looking at. The 275D with a .3 meplat and the nose base widened to .453" but essentially the same tangential profile kept would be just perfect.

I've been looking hard at the 255A for a couple of days and tonight realized I have basically that same mould, actually two of them: Lyman 452664. One made in 2009 cast .449x.451 and I lapped the bejeezus out of it to make .453, but it's not much good since one cavity is bored off-center in the blocks. I was lamenting this back in 2010 or so and Beagle offered up a 2005 model of the same mould which casts a nice, round .453" with wheel weights. I'm thinking about taking the yucky one and learning how to remove the bevel base with my lathe, then cast a few and try them out. They have the right length and diameter of front bearing surface and correct weight to shoot to POA in most of my sixguns. Still, I would like a little heavier bullet with a little more meplat, and Tom could easily re-draw the 275D. I'd love to have an iron one from him, have I mentioned how fabulous his iron moulds are lately? I'll sleep on it for a bit and maybe try a flat-base 452664 before ordering one.

 

[freebullet]

A dab of nail polish on the shooter side of the sight would be easy to remove if it didn't help.

I've always considered feeding a secondary solvable issue. What bullet/powder combo is best being primary. Many ak's won't feed nuthin cept fmj's, mine feeds the mp312-150hp, but it didn't without some encouragement.

I have the mp454-308k hp with all the pin styles. Could cast some for you next week if you'd like to try that design. Would be wanting 300gr in that rifle, don't know if the rifle would, but...

Seems like it's getting broken in & starting to do better &...

 

[Ian]

Did the nail polish. Then Bic black. Put a 1200 lumen light on the target. Then a big clot of floaters decided to park right in front of my central vision, had to put pressure on my eyeball to get it to move, then the focus was not so great. Irons for any sort of distance shooting are getting harder and harder to work.

 

[Ian]

Put the lathe to use tonight, plain-basing that gar-basgsh Lyman 452664. Believe it or not, the bands measured .4595" where I had lapped them ages ago, so I ground a boring bar out of a piece of 3/16" HSS that Keith gave me, bored out the bevel, and just barely grazed the base band, cleaning up all but the faintest remnants of lapping scratches and leaving a final diameter of .4595". I also re-set the alignment pins before boring out the bevel base "shanks" to tighten a very slight wiggle. Threw a big pile of old cull bullets in the pot and cast some really nice .455" bullets, round and everything. I guess I remembered wrong about lapping to cast .453", it's been quite a few years. It was interesting that the leaded iron alloy needed to be .0045" larger than desired bullet diameter, far different from aluminum moulds. The one cavity is still off-center a few thousandths, but a tap on the ol' hinge bolt ejects the bullet no problem. Very happy with the way all that turned out and that I was able to turn complete lemon into a useful mould. Now to see how they shoot.

One more thing, I'm learning why real machinists don't use Chinese test indicators . They really aren't good. You find that out when indicating a part to .0002" in a 4-jaw chuck and you get a different reading every revolution because the slack and bind in the indicator gears doesn't return the needle the same way every time when the indicator ball bumps over the parting line of even a very tight bullet mould.

 

[fiver]

you know that the 664 is my most favorite bullet.
I learned how to lap a mold, and re-work alignment pins because I wore out my first 2 cavity one from using it so much.
they usually seat out 1.630 in normal length brass.
that broke my heart when I got my B-92 [browning] because it wouldn't feed anything over 1.615.
then I learned about adjusting the stop on the lifter.
of course that was after I bought a swaging kit to make 44 mag bullets from 40 S&W cases and could put the cannelure any where I wanted it.

 

[Ian]

This mould has about a .300" nose, same as the 2005 one I bought from Beagle. I wish it was about .330" but it will do; it's already 266 grains and would probably make 275 with a max-length nose. Maybe Lyman re-designed it and shortened the nose to fit the '92 and clones for the SASS folks?

 

[fiver]

when I got mine sass numbers were probably at like 5-600.
I haven't measured the meplat but it is fairly large, probably 65%.
my later 4 cavity is indistinguishable by eyeball but might be slightly different.

I would think if Lyman had a clue and was going to re-design their mold it would be more for the 73's or the marlins.
they are far more popular in the sass shooting since they can have a short throw kit installed, and are much simpler to make run sloppy and floppy.