Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby drt4lfe » Sat May 20, 2017 8:55 pm

Got to the range today.....the 185 Hornady's shot about 4 MOA which was kinda expected.....no more experimenting with them....the 250 Hornady's all shot pretty good...the 40 grain load of Lil' Gun shot the best about 2 MOA at 100 yards with a Vortex red dot....probably a MOA or maybe better load with a good scope. I have a Nikon 3x12 I am gonna put on it and see just how accurate it may be...even with the muzzle break after 25 rounds my shoulder had enough.....
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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Jorgescar69 » Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:41 pm

Hello...
I'm new to the 450.
Are you guys crimping at the crimp groove
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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Jorgescar69 » Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:41 pm

Hello...
I'm new to the 450.
Are you guys crimping at the crimp groove
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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Hoot » Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:54 am

Welcome aboard Jorge!

Whenever I reload a bullet with a driving band groove or cannelure such as this bullet,

Image

which I'm taking out to the range for the first time this morning, I always taper crimp down into it, This caliber craves bullet retention. I seat the bullet until almost all of the cannelure is buried below the case mouth, with a little bit still showing and taper crimp down into it. In the case of true .452 diameter bullets, a resultant case mouth diameter of .474 will suffice. In the case of .451 diameter bullets (above example), I crimp to a resultant case mouth diameter of .473

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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Jorgescar69 » Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:45 pm

Hoot wrote:Welcome aboard Jorge!

Whenever I reload a bullet with a driving band groove or cannelure such as this bullet,

Image

which I'm taking out to the range for the first time this morning, I always taper crimp down into it, This caliber craves bullet retention. I seat the bullet until almost all of the cannelure is buried below the case mouth, with a little bit still showing and taper crimp down into it. In the case of true .452 diameter bullets, a resultant case mouth diameter of .474 will suffice. In the case of .451 diameter bullets (above example), I crimp to a resultant case mouth diameter of .473

Hoot

Thanks for the reply Hoot...
What's the full length?
And will it feed out the ar mag?
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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Hoot » Sat Jun 08, 2019 8:56 pm

Jorgescar69 wrote:Thanks for the reply Hoot...
What's the full length?
And will it feed out the ar mag?


Let me save you some time and money. The length was of no consequence as they did not shoot worth a damn. That's just how it goes sometimes. Let me qualify that assertion. In my 20" 1:24 twist barrel, they didn't perform well enough to pursue at muzzle velocities starting out averaging around 2340 fps for 5 shots fps and up through 2560 fps. That's not where I intended the range to run through. They ran faster than QuickLoad predicted they would using Lil Gun. I would describe their 5-shot 100 yd groups more as patterns. I followed that experiment up with a second one using bullets not intended to be for handguns and they shot really tight groups. Aside from running a followup experiment at lower velocities, I will keep them as handgun bullets. "You pays your money, you takes your chances" Lest I forget, yes, even at 2.05 COL (to catch the cannelure) they fed reliably. I'd venture that they would feed reliably in a .45 ACP as well, which is where they'd better serve.

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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Jorgescar69 » Sun Jun 09, 2019 1:02 am

I have a bunch of "cowboy copper plated flat points " that I would like to try at loads that won't kick my fillings loose.
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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Bmt85 » Sun Jun 09, 2019 1:53 am

Jorgescar69 wrote:I have a bunch of "cowboy copper plated flat points " that I would like to try at loads that won't kick my fillings loose.


Do not use plated pistol bullets in the 450 Bushmaster. Plated bullets (along with some other pistol bullets) usually have a low velocity rating, which the 450 will surpass on a starting load. Doing so may lead to pressure issues. Hornady XTP’s are another pistol bullet to stay away from. Xtp mags are fine though.
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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Hoot » Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:03 am

Bmt85 wrote:
Jorgescar69 wrote:I have a bunch of "cowboy copper plated flat points " that I would like to try at loads that won't kick my fillings loose.


Do not use plated pistol bullets in the 450 Bushmaster. Plated bullets (along with some other pistol bullets) usually have a low velocity rating, which the 450 will surpass on a starting load. Doing so may lead to pressure issues. Hornady XTP’s are another pistol bullet to stay away from. Xtp mags are fine though.


Those bullets I pictured are not plated. They're definitely cup and core. You cant roll a cannelure in plated bullets as their walls are too thin. I have some plated, (TMJ) truncated round nose bullets. The thinness of those walls make it hard to get enough resistance to compression to provide adequate neck tension that this caliber needs. The bullet needs to push back against the constricting case when you're applying the taper crimp. If it just yields, the crimp is weak. The first ones I tried, you could push them back into the case after applying what I considered to be a healthy taper crimp. That was the kiss of death when I was playing with the idea of trying them a couple weeks ago. Experiment cancelled. Still, I had loaded up three of them to see what they would do and took them to my range trip yesterday, to shoot when I was done testing. I gently hand loaded them into the chamber, one at a time and shot them. No hangfires nor squibs but they didn't fly well at the 100 yd target board. Two made it to an 8x10 target but one went MIA along the way. The larger backing board was too shot up to tell where its hole fell. No surprise there. I just wanted to get rid of them to save pulling them down. No harm, no foul.

Anyway, once crimped,the cannelured jacketed bullets did not push back into the case nearly as easily as the plated ones with their smooth, polished surface. That's a quick test every reloader for this caliber should always perform with this caliber. My experience has been that aside from solid copper bullets, most .451 bullets have a handicap compared to .452 bullets in that you're already starting out down in crimp resistance due to the case having to travel further inward than your die is normally set to, in order to grab onto them. The challenge of adequate neck tension is more critical, the less the bullet weighs, thanks to Newton's 1st law. Heavy bullets, while more of a challenge in keeping from moving during chambering when the neck tension is too light (pulling), don't have their velocity as severely impacted as a function of neck tension. Different issue.

The other bullet I referred to that I was testing was the Lehigh Defense 250gr solid copper Xtreme Penetrator bullet:

Image

Like their 245gr brass brothers that I previously reviewed, their velocity SD's and groups were like night and day, compared to those 220gr cannelured bullets. I'll provide more details when I write them up but one charge weight had an extreme velocity spread of only 4 fps! That's like unobtanium in this caliber and yielded a 3-shot single hole at 100 yards. That quite a testimony if you gauge your reloads by their precision performance. Of course that comes as no surprise in the light of the old adage that "you get what you pay for." At $1.04 per bullet, I'd expect better performance than a bullet that goes for 19₵. ;)

Again, more on that later.

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Re: Range Report .452" Speer 250 Grain Deep Curls

Postby Bmt85 » Wed Jun 12, 2019 2:05 pm

He said plated, so figured he was talking about plated.
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