Paging Broom Rider: Regarding Rock River reliability

[Questor]

Broom Rider:

In my earlier thread about life with a troublesome Rock River target 1911 you made an entry about a problem that seemed identical to mine. The following load makes my Rock River completely reliable. See the other thread for more detail:

Cartridge is a very accurate 45acp bullseye target load:
Remington R-P headstamp brass. This is very important.
Commercially cast 200 grain SWC, standard bullseye design
4.0 grains Bullseye powder
Winchester WLP primer
Generous bell with expander die: 0.482" (to prevent lube from caking up at case mouth)
Shorter than standard OAL: 1.235"
Tight crimp: 0.466"

[Broom Rider]

Thanks, I'll try that next time I'm loading. I did try a little bit tighter crimp and that seemed to help for a short time, I'll try the idea of belling the case mouth wider and see if that helps. I appreciate your post and help! Thanks.
I'm not on all the forums everyday so this is the first I had seen your post.
Shoot straight, shoot safe!

[Questor]

In suffering with the problem, I too tried a tighter crimp with my standard load. And it too helped for a little while. That's what put me on to the idea that the chamber might be shorter and tighter than standard. It gave me the idea to significantly shortening the OAL and tightening the crimp.

I went from hating the gun to now shooting it almost exclusively. It works well with my Marvel conversion for .22LR too. I'm truly happy with it now.

I read somewhere that Rock River has a chambering philosophy for their AR rifles that applies tighter chamber dimensions. Maybe that philosophy translates to their target pistols too.

Ironically, these loads are not reliable in my Kimber. Probably because they are too short. So, this load would be specific to the Rock River.

Please let us know if it works for you.

[Broom Rider]

I try to load ammo that will work in any of the 1911's I'm likely to be taking to the range.
I was talking to a pistolsmith that I have a lot of respect for and he suggested that Kart barrels have a chamber of minimum dimension and that many 'smiths will still run a reamer in them. RRA may not be doing anything to the chamber and it may benefit from having the chamber finish reamed. The accuracy would probably still the same.
I've gotten to where the RRA has become a safe queen. My Les Baer shoots as well and never has a problem at all. My Colt Special Combat Target is also very reliable while not quite as accurate. The RRA does have the nicest trigger action though.
Thanks!