A few years ago I came across a bunch of Linotype and traded it to a bullet caster for about 3,000 .45 H&G mold 205 cast slugs.

I'm trying to get them to shoot in a Paraordinance P-14-45 and in a Glock 30. I'm not a bullet caster at all just a reloader but must be doing something wrong in loading these darn things as in both shooters the rounds will fail to feed. They are catching the front rim of the brass on the feed ramp and hanging up.

When I'm seating these to the proper depth it ends up with the front ridge forming the base of the bullet is at the mouth of the rim and that leads to a sharp rim mouth that is introduced into the barrel. The nose of the bullet does have a sharper taper to the point and doesn't have that nice rounded bullet sharp that a 230 grain FMJ has.

If I go back and add a firmer crimp to the rounds won't that alter the head-space on the round as the .45 ACP head-spaces off the mouth of the rim? Or would there still be enough of the bullet edge to catch the front of the chamber?

I guess I could not seat the bullet so deep and crimp more into the base of the bullet but I don't know what the concerns would be with this approach?

I've also noticed that this sharp leading rim is gouging into the magazine follower when it is attempting to exit the magazine and that's not good.

Any help on getting these darn things to feed would be great. Thanks.

NRA says that you can put up to a 20 degree roll crimp on the 45 acp and it will still headspace the cartridge. Personally I haven't seen very many 45 acp cases that are actually the .898 inch long. The way to check your reloads is to remove the barrel from your pistol and use it to gauge your cartridge. Push the cartridge into the chamber and the head should be flush with the rear of the barrel hood. It's okay if the cartridge head spaces off the front band of the bullet. Playing with different degrees of crimps can show you which are the most accurate in your pistol. NRA did a big test on this and in their opinion found that the roll crimp was generally more accurate then a taper crimp. Your findings may vary.

Good success and what you finalize on.

H&G 68s have to be seated to as long an AOL as possible to feed in my P14 also. I suggest you adjust the AOL using the method joe describes so the #68 is seated at maximum length for your P14's chamber. The problem is the ramp on ramped barrels like in the P14 is steeper than in a standard M1911.

Larry Gibson

I have a 4 cavity mold of that bullet and I can tell that it shoots very well in all my 1911's, my Glock 21, and even my Ruger Blackhawk revolver with the extra 45 acp cylinder. I have zero feeding problems with it out of any of the semi autos. Larry told you about the ramp on ramped barrels, so you may experiment with OAL to see which feeds the best.

i have 2 1911's.
one i seat the shoulder out the titch and it does headspace on the boolit.
the other gets seated flush and i give it a kiss on the roll crimp in the seater die.
the roll crimped ones will work fine in them both for general stuff.
but the accuracy shows enough difference that i load both ways and keep the brass separate.

Many thanks lads.

I'd been using a set of RCBS dies in a single stage press with the 3 die carbide set up and a taper crimp. I messed around with a stronger crimp on about 10 rounds and with an alternative OAL on another 10 rounds to see what the feeding would hopefully improve to.

Then after rereading these posts I remembered that I had an old set of 45 ACP RCBS dies and upon checking them out, the seating/crimping die does produce a roll crimp. I've removed the seating plug and will run another 10 rounds through with this method. If this works out the best after testing the rounds, and I'm thinking it is the best possibility, I'll just run about 700 rounds through this crimping die.

This will give me 3 alternatives to see which one will produce the most reliable feeding and accuracy.

Thanks again for your posts as it looks like one of the above will "git'er done"

I believe the carbide dies are okay for straight walled cartridges such as many of the rimmed revolver ones. I don't like them for the tapered semi auto cartridges which the 45 acp and 9mm belong to. Redding has introduced some new titanium dies, but instead of the single titanium ring at the mouth of the die it has two rings, the one at the mouth and another up where it sized the neck down. I suppose it sizes two different dimensions with the upper neck ring sizing smaller. I feel that is a step in a the right direction. I'll stick with my original RCBS dies for those semi auto rounds.

As a follow up:

The ammo with the roll crimp proved to be the most effective at solving the feeding ramp problems. It seems like no amount of taper crimp could overcome the sharp rim that the truncated cone shaped H&G 68 cast slugs left unfilled by the bullet body.

Smoking J,

That sounds like an interesting die that Redding has introduced. It sounds like it provides a body taper crimp with a roll crimp on the mouth of the brass, correct?

I wonder if running your round through the taper crimp die first with a slight crimp on it and then rerunning the same round through a roll crimp die to finish off the mouth of the brass would accomplish the same result? As you know that would be an extra run through the press but might add to the functioning or perhaps just better to get the Redding die.

Teancum,

That new Redding die is a the sizer die. It doesn't have anything to do with the crimp die. I've never tried what you suggested.

I'm glad you got ammo now that works.

i run all mine on the dillon then the roll on the rock chucker.
it's easy for me to keep things separate this way.
i need the titch deeper seating anyways.
so i keep things separate, a little more down on the seater then the separate step.
anytime i roll crimp its a separate step.

I favor the roll crimp also. I see lately here on Accurate that people having crimp problems are with the taper crimp.