REALLY BAD IDEA - Resize cases on loaded ammunition - 45 ACP 1911

[Land_Owner]

[ORIGINAL POST]After a plethora of feed ramp hangups and incomplete closure of battery, I took out the barrel to use as a Go-No Go device trying each and every hand loaded round, culling out the ones that didn't chamber.  I calipered a new factory round and the culled rounds.  No obvious differences.  So I took out the sizing die, carbide is great, and ran them up into the die again, fully loaded.  Worked like a charm.  Every round goes equally into battery.  I think the "cause" might be seating cast bullets into the straight walled but unchamfered case.  Do you chamfer your 45 ACP cases?[/ORIGINAL POST]

LAND OWNER SAYS:

THIS IS A REALLY BAD IDEA.  DON'T DO IT.

RESIZED BULLETS ARE LESS THAN BORE DIAMETER.

RESIZED BULLETS SLIP IN/OUT OF RESIZED CASE WITH EASE.

WHAT A MESS.  I AM LEARNING PAPER PATCHING TO MAKE THESE WORK.

[Larry L]

I don't chamfer them as that's what the flare is supposed to take care of. What you may be experiencing is an aggressive crimp can cause the case to bulge slightly close to the bottom area of the bullet in the brass that'll cause issues. Considering you said lead bullets, if they are a hair to large in diameter they can also create issues with the brass hanging up. I've probably had more issues with Remington and Federal brass with lead bullet issues than any other.

[Slowhanddd]

By chamfered,do you mean a belled out lip?If so all mine get a little swedge out be fore loading.

[Land_Owner]

I absolutely use a case mouth flaring die, trying to be careful not to over-flare.   I forgot about that.  No need to chamfer when flaring.  Good point.

Aggressive crimp...Hmmmm.  Perhaps some of the cases are slightly longer than others?  No real need in the past to trim straight walled cases.  Perhaps now there is?  I do have a case trim die.  Have not used it before however.

Still, running cases back through the sizing die worked real well - so far.  I have not shot any of them.  Probably did some imprinting on the cast lead boolits that are only 0.001" larger than bore diameter.  The barrel slug indicated 0.451" and the cast lead boolits are swaged to a die and mic'd diameter of 0.452".   Factory jacketed bullets are 0.451".

OD of Factory round at case neck is mic'd to be 0.473".  OD of resized reload is 0.473".  Hmmmmm....

[bigvarmnt]

I didn't like the sound of that when you first posted it. You just have to figure out why things are not working like they were meant to. Good Luck

[Land_Owner]

Each of the bullets is now smaller than bore diameter by twice the case thickness, which case walls swaged into the bullet and decreased the bullet diameter.  Unintended consequences.  Live and learn.  If it was an effective way to reload, it would have been discussed in all of the literature.  As it isn't, don't do it.

[Larry Gibson]

If you have some .45 ACP rounds loaded with cast that won't chamber due to over sized cast or other problems not related to OAL then they can be slightly resized and will shoot and function just fine.  Use a .308W FL die for this.  Remove the decapping pin and screw the die in until it sizes just enough to allow the cartridge to drop into the chamber.  I suggest using the actual chamber as the "guage" with the barrel removed.  Cartridge guages are many times allow .452+ sized bullets to "chamber" when the actual barrel chamber won't.  My Para14 with a "Match" chamber is such.  Yes the bullet will be sized down but the trick is to size it just down to .451 which is what it should have been in the 1st palce. Minimal resizing of the oversized loaded 45 ACP in the minimal tapered FL .308W die to just allow chambering does the trick.
 
Larry Gibson

[calvon]

+1 on what Landowner said. I don't like the idea of powder and primer inside a sizing die. If for whatever reason it goes off you have a mini hand grenade.

[SHOOTALL]

I would think if something happened the primer would blow out and you would have a blowtorch . BTW what could be expected to happen that could not happen when seating bullets or crimping or heaven for bid doing both in the same operation ?
If the bullets don't fit maybe your expander is to large. As for reaming or not , I do as it removes the rough edge around the rim. When you bell it only flares and maybe presses the irregular rough edge out into a bell. Better to have a clean edge if accuracy is the goal.
I would also trim each round to a uniform length so when you crimp longer cases won't be deformed in a way to make chambering hard or impossible.

[nitesite]

The day I have to trim pistol cases will be the day I quit loading pistol ammo.
 
Jes' sayin'.

[SHOOTALL]

Accuracy suffers when you don't just saying............but I understand accuracy is more important to some than others.