Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

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Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby engineer40 » Wed Mar 08, 2017 8:25 pm

Just throwing this info out to the community in case it could be beneficial to anyone. I have (had) 1000x 230gr FMJ hollow points from Everglades to use in my 1911. They cost about 16 cents a piece. Last weekend was the first time I tried reloading any 45 acp style bullets in my 450 Bushmaster... I have to say that I am impressed!

Only picked 1 powder and charge weight to try at first, and don't think I'm going to change anything. At 50 yards I was making 1 big hole in the paper. 2 separate 8 shot groups. Yes 8 shots per group, not lucky 3 shot groups. ;)

These shoot better than the factory 250gr Hornady loads, which are also pretty dang accurate to be honest.

Rifle is a stock Bushmaster 16" upper.
Loads were 38gr of Lil Gun. (Use at your own risk).

Now I just need to get this darn rifle feeding more reliably and I'll be a happy camper! :D
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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby Hoot » Wed Mar 08, 2017 8:47 pm

engineer40 wrote:Just throwing this info out to the community in case it could be beneficial to anyone. I have (had) 1000x 230gr FMJ hollow points from Everglades to use in my 1911. They cost about 16 cents a piece. Last weekend was the first time I tried reloading any 45 acp style bullets in my 450 Bushmaster... I have to say that I am impressed!

Only picked 1 powder and charge weight to try at first, and don't think I'm going to change anything. At 50 yards I was making 1 big hole in the paper. 2 separate 8 shot groups. Yes 8 shots per group, not lucky 3 shot groups. ;)

These shoot better than the factory 250gr Hornady loads, which are also pretty dang accurate to be honest.

Rifle is a stock Bushmaster 16" upper.
Loads were 38gr of Lil Gun. (Use at your own risk).

Now I just need to get this darn rifle feeding more reliably and I'll be a happy camper! :D


Glad you found a successful, low cost practice bullet to use.

I'm assuming they are these?

Image

Reminiscent of Hornady 250gr XTP with the hollow point drilled out a little bigger ad no cannelure. "The proof is in the pudding", but we usually test at 100 yds in order to compare apples to apples. 38gr of Lil Gun under a 230gr bullet is not a brutal load. A couple of daredevils have taken them up as high as 45 or 46gr to push the limits. Don't interpret that as an encouragement. Stay with what works or you. Can you measure the length of one so I can plug it into QuickLoad and also, to what COL did you seat them? There is a general concern shooting JHP that are intended or 45 ACP speeds up to 450b speeds,but sounds like none of yours came apart, so good deal. Please repeat your efforts at 100 yds and we eat up pictures like dogs on a bowl of gravy. ;)

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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby commander faschisto » Thu Mar 09, 2017 7:11 pm

Don't forget the biscuits! :)
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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby engineer40 » Sat Mar 11, 2017 8:59 am

Yes, those do look like the bullets I used!

I also do all of my testing at 100 yards. I shot at 50 yards because I wasn't even sure if these would be hitting paper. And I had read about the bullets that are normally meant for 45 ACP coming apart, so figured I would stay close to the target my first time shooting. I will certainly do some testing at 100 yards soon as I can.

I do have a problem though. I may have to play with OAL, because right now they seem to be nose diving when feeding unless I only load 1 round in the magazine at a time. Which obviously sucks, so I'll need to figure that out. I'm still happy though as to have found a low cost bullet that doesn't come apart at 450 Bushmaster speeds. I do have a chrono and will also try to see how fast 38gr of Lil Gun is pushing these.

Here is a picture I shot loaded with Sm rifle primers. I also shot a group with Sm rifle Magnum primers and that group was even smaller but also had a flyer. I normally count flyers as part of the group until I can disprove it was something other than the load.

Image
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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby Hoot » Sat Mar 11, 2017 10:48 am

Please measure the length of one of them. At the price they are fetching and given they don't fly apart, they may push the 230 FMJ out of the top spot on the affordable plinking bullet "Leader Board" by virtue of being longer. Most FMJ RN run somewhere between .615 and .650 in length. Also, at what COL were your loads jamming at?

The issue I and some others have had over time with the 230 FMJ ball is that lacking a hollow point, they're so darn short. They don't leave much insertion depth without have a very short COL (2.05). Their image doesn't appear to suggest that they are not rounded enough to feed reliably. That could also be an issue with your magazine lips, but that's a whole other conundrum. One topic at a time for now. ;)
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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby engineer40 » Sat Mar 11, 2017 12:56 pm

They measure .637 in length. But they are a hollow point so the ogive of the bullet may still be longer than a comparable round nose.

This is going to sound like I'm flippant with my reloading decisions, but I certainly am not. However I did not measure my COAL with this load. I eyeballed the seating depth based on the ogive of the 230gr JHP bullet with the ogive of a factory 250gr round; and that's where I set the bullet seating depth. I made the decision to try that solely because I couldn't find any data for the bullet I was using. I shot all of my reloaded ammo or I go measure one for you.
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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby Hoot » Sat Mar 11, 2017 2:05 pm

engineer40 wrote:They measure .637 in length. But they are a hollow point so the ogive of the bullet may still be longer than a comparable round nose.

This is going to sound like I'm flippant with my reloading decisions, but I certainly am not. However I did not measure my COAL with this load. I eyeballed the seating depth based on the ogive of the 230gr JHP bullet with the ogive of a factory 250gr round; and that's where I set the bullet seating depth. I made the decision to try that solely because I couldn't find any data for the bullet I was using. I shot all of my reloaded ammo or I go measure one for you.


Thanks for checking. It's within .006 of the Hornady 230gr XTP. I had hopes of the bullet being enough longer than an FMJ RN to afford more seating depth, but it doesn't look that way. I might mention that is odd. It has a hole full of air down into one end. You'd expect that it would have to be longer to make weight versus one that has the same space full of lead and a little jacket. Go figure. Regardless of seating depth and whatever COL you chose, it sure seems like it wanted to shoot well and that's about all you can ask from a plinker class load. That's an interesting method for determining what COL to use. I don't recall ever reading of someone using the factory round's ogive solely as a guideline for a different bullet, but like I said, you can't knock success. Lacking recipes, I can see how that would seem like a logical approach. Good enough for the Goose, good enough for the Gander. ;)

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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby engineer40 » Sat Mar 11, 2017 2:58 pm

I was fairly sure I would be fine with pressure levels in regards to seating depth. I was comparing against the factory round's ogive to give me the best chance of hopefully feeding properly. But like I said, it's going to take some additional testing. :D

I also need to do some more testing with crimp strength. It passed the "thunk test". However I'm not positive the cases are holding the bullets tight enough to not move when they are in the magazine. I used the Hornady crimp die that came with the set of dies. I'm going to do some experimenting with the Lee Factory crimp die from my 460SW Magnum dies. I'm a little concerned that the 450 BM headspaces off of the case mouth, so I don't want to crimp it to tight where it messes with that.
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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby Bmt85 » Sat Mar 11, 2017 4:24 pm

Couple of questions - What's the actual diameter of these bullets? Also, how much bearing surface do they have?

As far as crimping, I usually go .474-.476 depending on what I'm doing. Pretty sure Hoot experimented with taper crimping, and found you can go well past that (I want to say into the low .46's) and still headspace properly. Slowly take it down and thunk test each time.
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Re: Found an accurate and cheap bullet option

Postby engineer40 » Sat Mar 11, 2017 6:17 pm

Bmt85 wrote:Couple of questions - What's the actual diameter of these bullets? Also, how much bearing surface do they have?

As far as crimping, I usually go .474-.476 depending on what I'm doing. Pretty sure Hoot experimented with taper crimping, and found you can go well past that (I want to say into the low .46's) and still headspace properly. Slowly take it down and thunk test each time.



The bullets are .451 diameter. I was surprised they shot so well.

I'm not sure how to answer your question on "how much bearing surface". As much as they show in the above picture?
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