200Gr SWC what a pain!

[Shane45 807]

So as some of you know I build my own 1911's. Well I just got my Dillon up and running and slapped some ammo together. I grabbed a box of Ranier 200 Grn SWC. Whipped up a batch and ran to the range to test. Now keep in mind my 1911 has had pretty much no malfunctions ever. I shot around 400 rounds of various hollow points and a ton of ball with no troubles at all. But man did my pistol hate these SWC's! 3 point jam after 3 point jam!!! Little research and it seems this is common for that projo. But my 1911 eats most anything, what gives? I found a suggestion to load long. That made it worse! Played with various lengths, nothing seemed to make a diff. Maybe the ammo aint the problem? Im pretty sure my extractor tension is good. Polish job on the barrel mouth is perfect. Hmmmm, feed ramp angle and mesurments arent coming up right. I felt my feed ramp angle was a bit off and shallow so I altered it. I deepened the ramp, added a little more angle and then polished it. I notice in cycling that it is much more fluid and the ka-chunk of the rounds it did manage to feed is gone. Range report later today!

 

The culprit and a bad pic of the adjusted ramp.

 

 

[djg0770 481]

not a single problem in my 1911

[Shane45 807]

Do you shoot 200grn SWC's?

[lunker 274]

Shane,

 

I used to have occasional feeding difficulties with Hornady 200 grain lead SWC out my Colt Gold Cup. They fired and ejected OK, but would occasionally hang on the feed ramp. I preferred 230 grain ball so I never tinkered around with their OAL, which I suspect was the problem.

[djg0770 481]

Do you shoot 200grn SWC's?

 

Yup - lead, not jacketed, but otherwise the same.

[Shane45 807]

Lunker,

Yeah the guy I bought them from let me know about some feeding issues AFTER I bought them LOL. He was using them in his Wilson and was having the same 3 point. I think your right that generally there is an OAL problem for this projo but when I couldnt solve it by adjusting OAL thats what led me to believe I might not have paid enough attention to the ramp when I built it. It has fed Triton, Fed H Shock's, Ranger HP's all no issue. Just these damn SWC! But, I cant have a failure. IT MUST WORK!

[Shane45 807]

Interesting... I used to shoot the lead version too. A lot in fact! Thats why it was a suprise to me that I was having trouble. I never had issue with those but they were lead like yours and a different weight (152grn). But that was in another pistol that frankly was loose enough to chamber a small child!

[autoxnyc 4]

When you say you deepened your ramp did you take off more material off the top? There should be a transitioning "step" from the feedramp to the barrel for feeding reliability.

 

When I lined up my barrel on my 1911s to the feed ramp they all have a step in it. I have 0 issues with LSWC in any of the 1911s I have. If you take away more material toward the top of the feedramp then that "step" will be reduced. It should be at least 1/32" and as much as 1/16". The way you shape the hood/lip on the barrel is also important.

 

This article is very informative on how to make 1911s reliable:

 

http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/tech/reli ... ecrets.htm

 

 

 

So as some of you know I build my own 1911's. Well I just got my Dillon up and running and slapped some ammo together. I grabbed a box of Ranier 200 Grn SWC. Whipped up a batch and ran to the range to test. Now keep in mind my 1911 has had pretty much no malfunctions ever. I shot around 400 rounds of various hollow points and a ton of ball with no troubles at all. But man did my pistol hate these SWC's! 3 point jam after 3 point jam!!! Little research and it seems this is common for that projo. But my 1911 eats most anything, what gives? I found a suggestion to load long. That made it worse! Played with various lengths, nothing seemed to make a diff. Maybe the ammo aint the problem? Im pretty sure my extractor tension is good. Polish job on the barrel mouth is perfect. Hmmmm, feed ramp angle and mesurments arent coming up right. I felt my feed ramp angle was a bit off and shallow so I altered it. I deepened the ramp, added a little more angle and then polished it. I notice in cycling that it is much more fluid and the ka-chunk of the rounds it did manage to feed is gone. Range report later today!

 

The culprit and a bad pic of the adjusted ramp.

 

 

[Shane45 807]

When I say deepened I mean I increased its depth down into the mag well. It was a little short measuring in at around .300 vert depth. My best guess is that the angle was around roughly 29/30 degrees. My gap was actuallly pretty big so I easily maintained the >1/32 gap. I increaded the angle to about 31.5 which moved the top lip foward but still good with the gap to the barrel. The barrel lip is GTG.

 

 

My analysis of my jams led me to believe that the slightly short feed ramp and angle being a bit to shallow was causing the sharp shoulder of the profo tip to hang on the feed ramp and pop the round out from under the extractor causing the 3 point. Since HP and of course ball dont have that shoulder, I never had the issue. I also found that there are special hybrid mags for this type of ammo that holds onto the round much longer than normal mags to help combat the issue. Prior to my mods SLOW hand cycling revealed the tendancy to pop out from under the extractor when the round would try and do its I beam immitation. After, it stays under the extractor and feeds. I also stopped getting the mid section crease in the brass from where it was being forced over the lip of the ramp.

 

Cant wait to get to the range and see if my corrections worked!

[Pizza Bob 1,488]

I shot tens of thousands of the 200 gr LSWC through a box-stock series 70 Gold Cup without a hitch. Later shot the same load through a Baer-built 1911A1 and then a stock Combat Elite - never a problem. These were not plated and were the H&G 68 pattern. The nose on your plated bullets looks longer than I remember the H&G's being. Can't even offer a suggestion.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

[Shane45 807]

P Bob, your comment rang true and made me go look. They are indeed longer than the lead ones I have and the tip diameter is far bigger too! Much more flat to the nose on the plated ones..... interesting! The lead are CP IIRC, the plated is Ranier.

[Pizza Bob 1,488]

The lead are CP IIRC, the plated is Ranier.

 

All the 200 gr LSWC that I shot were also CP, from back in the day (mid-80's). This CP was owned by John Ricco, who used to shoot IPSC in our club and went on to own Classic Pistol in Southampton, up until about a year ago.

 

I'm guess the longer nose contacts the feed ramp first and kicks the nose up into the barrel hood. The shorter H&G 68 probably contact nose and shoulder simultaneously, and direct into the chamber. All that being said, I still have no clue how to correct your problem. If you seat any deeper, it looks like the shoulder of the bullet would be below the case mouth. Keep us apprised.

 

Adios,

 

Pizza Bob

[Guest]

1911 LOVES 230 grain...

[Shane45 807]

In diagnosing my issues I found one other issue maybe adding to the overall problem. It puzzled me that the issue was intermittant. And to add to odd it seemed the ammo loaded up fine at home. I could drop the slide and it would feed but when I got to the range for the match it was jam jam jam. I'll get back to this in a second. I just figured it was luck of the draw but in looking at the brass I noticed little dings in the side of the rim(extractor side). So I pulled the slide and watched what was happening when I loaded a mag. What I found was if I just loaded the mag easy, the round stayed in the mag. If I slapped it like a $20 Hook&^#* the round would kick foward nose down. What was happening is that with the Wilson 47D's, the rim of the round was hitting the bottom of the ejector. I relieved the bottom of the ejector so now I can slap it home and not make contact. So my thoughts are when I was loading a mag and feeding at home gently, it worked. Slapping it in at the match causing the tilt and movement foward of the extractor added to my issues. What is interesting is that only SWC exposed these issues. Ball and 3 types of hollow points never had 1 jam.

 

Shane

[tony357 386]

Are you using a mag desighned for the swc ?

[Shane45 807]

No. I have 4 Wilson 47D's, 1 Certac, 1 CMC and 1 Wolf. Im heading to the range in about an hour to see if loaded long works. I think I may be selling off the 47D's. I really like the Certac mag.

[Shane45 807]

Well, loaded out to 1.265 seemed to do the trick. Zero malfunctions and it gave me 1 ragged hole with 10 shots at 10 yds.

[Shane45 807]

Made up a batch @ 1.251. Ejecting a live round loaded at 1.265 was a little.... problematic. We'll see how these go.

[Shane45 807]

INTERESTING! I broke out the old IPSC gun that has digested tens of thousands of the CP Bullet SWC's. Loaded up a few of the 1.240 batch of Raniers and bam, 3point jam. This pistol is so loose it would chamber a small child. Even though I got it wo work in my single stack, I'm done with Ranier SWC's. After some more online research, it appears Im not alone in this conclusion.