My wife bought me a Lee Progressive 1000 .45 acp kit for my birthday.  I got it set up and adjusted then loaded up a couple different recipes for my Cougar 8045.

I tried loading 185 LSWC over 4.7 gr of TiteGroup with a 1.250 COL....10 rounds loaded and 4 of them didn't cycle my slide.

I also loaded 185 LSWC over 5.1 gr of TiteGroup with 1.250 COL...80 rounds fired at 7, 10 and 15 yards with every one of them dead on with my point of aim.  I think I'll be sticking with this recipe.

Good Luck with the press and the load data.  We should get together sometime and compare notes.  Need anything LMK.

Curious question...are you using gas checks?

No gas checks. Primer, Titegroup powder and D&J 185 grain Hard cast lead semi wadcutters

 

 

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Good Luck with the press and the load data. We should get together sometime and compare notes. Need anything LMK.

What caliber(s) do you reload? I currently only do .45 ACP but I have other brass that I would be willing to trade for 45 brass.

 

 

 

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You name it, I probably reload it.  In pistols, 9, 38, 357, 45, in rifles, 223, 300BLK, 7.62x39, 308, 30-06, 458SOCOM, are the most popular I do. 45 brass can be had from the classified on Brian Enos website.  I have a couple other places to source also.  One can never have too much 45 larger primer brass. 

Have fun. What were the group sizes?

 

Re: gas checks. These become useful at velocities of 2000 fps and higher.

For .45 Auto, you can't get the velocity up high enough to need more than 10 BHN for bullets that are at least 0.001" larger than groove diameter.

 

Re: .45 Auto and 185gn bullets

I do "know" a few things that may only apply to me, but:

200gn L-SWCs are more consistently accurate, from 25-50 yards, over a range of powders and charge weights than 185gn bullets.

Nosler 185gn JHP and Zero 185gn L-SWCHP are the most accurate 185gn bullets I have found, but I'll stick to 200gn bullets.

The old H&G #130 (I think) button-nose 185gn L-SWC is very accurate in some guns, but I sold my mold when it was a waste of time in my .45s. Mastercastbullets.com casts an excellent version of this bullet, if your gun(s) like them.

Best accuracy with a lead bullet has been with the bullet shoulder just "kissing" the lede/rifling. The chamber throat can vary quite a bit from barrel to barrel, so optimum COL varies from barrel to barrel.

5.2-5.3gn is generally a max load for TG and 185gn lead bullets.

4.5gn is a very reliable load in all my .45s with so-so accuracy (best accuracy has been in the 3.8-4.0gn range, but not good enough to "write home" about.

Do you have a brand new gun that might need about 200 rounds to "break in," because a 4.7gn load should have cycled your gun 100%.

I have yet to find a consistently accurate load with TiteGroup for any cartridge and certainly not for lead bullets in .45 Auto. Other powders you could try specifically for accurate .45 Auto loads with 185-200gn bullets, if you ever want to try, are:

Bullseye (3.5-4.0gn)

231/HP38 (~5.5gn)

AA2 (~4.5gn)

Red Dot (~4.5gn)

 

Even Clays (at 4.2-4.5gn), N310 (4.2gn), and WST (~3.8gn) have been more accurate for me than TG.

I bought the gun used...it's a Stoeger Cougar 8045...the spring is pretty heavy but I'm not sure exactly how heavy. Also, this is only a 3.6" barrel so it's not going to build as much pressure as a 1911 with a 5" barrel. The 5.1 put me in a 2" grouping shooting offhand, because I don't have a bench rest. As I said, only a few of the 4.7 gr didn't cycle, I may try some more at that weight just to be sure. I'd like to try somewhere between 4.7 and 5.1 but the powder measure on my Lee 1000 only has a limited number of measurements. I'm just getting into reloading so I don't have any high-end equipment yet.

 

 

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