Loading 45Acp in Ruger SR1911

[Tall John]

Hi, 

 

Ive been reading old posts on loading 45ACP.  I don’t WB yet but want to load to be compliant.  I have a brand new Ruger SR1911 (won at the CT Bushwackers Buzzard Boil) so I need to get comfortable with this platform before showing up at a match.

I’m setting up to reload, just bulge busted 1600 cases that I need sort by HS (Discarding Amerc) and have a lot of Titegroup, and a couple pounds of W231 so not really wanting to buy more powder right now.
 

 I also have two coated .4515-.4520 cast bullet profiles.  The one on the left is my 225-229 grain (I haven’t sorted by weight yet) and the one on the right is a 200grn HT coated commercial bullet.  It seems like there is no benefit of using the lighter weight bullet due to the 150 PF min so I’m inclined to go with the heavier bullet since they are essentially free to me.

Relative to powder choice it seems like a 4.0-4.2 grn TiteGroup load or 5.0grn w231 load would meet the min Power Factor.  Hodgdon lists the OAL at 1.20” for a 230 grn LRN.

I’ve seen the good advice to only load a few at a time until i find what works best…

so anything else I should consider here?  Anyone loading for an SR1911 and can share anything about OAL issues I should know about?

 

[Garrison Joe]

The short throat in a 1911 barrel catches a lot of new loaders of .45 AUTO by surprise, as they load a few hundred, go to the range, and find every one of the loads fails to go the last 1/8" into battery.   

Some keys to loading so they will feed well in your gun:

1 - the point on the nose where the upper end of the cylindrical section of the bullet (the shank) STARTS to narrow down (round over) to the nose ogive is the place where the case mouth should be placed during seating.   If you crimp down on the shank, the nose will jam into the short throat of the barrel and round will not go fully into chamber.  If you crimp out on the ogive of the bullet, you will have collapsed bullets during hard feeding.  Remember that there is NO standard nose length on cast .45 AUTO bullets, because there have been hundreds of molds made to cast these slugs over the years.  Regardless of what a manual may state.  So, don't load to the published OAL, load to put the case mouth at the start of the ogive turn-in.

2 - apply a taper crimp that just returns the case mouth to 0.472", measured with a caliper.  You are only straightening out the case from where you expanded the mouth, and just barely catching the surface of the bullet with the inside edge of the case mouth.  Looking down from on top of loaded rounds, you should still see a bright ring of brass all the way around the bullet.  The case mouth is the headspace location, so if you "bury" the brass case wall all the way into the bullet during crimping, the headspace mechanism is removed and rounds can chamber too deep to fire.

3 - get a loaded round checking gauge, and check EACH cartridge to make sure it chambers perfectly.  Several companies make them, including Dillon and Wilson (the trimmer guys, not the gun guys, unless Bill Wilson just happens to be making them now, too).   Yes, you can take the barrel out of your 1911 and drop rounds into the chamber, but it will "get old" breaking down your pistol every time you load a batch of ammo.

4 - good on you for bulge busting your "range" cases.   But if a round fails the chamber check from step 3, the first thing to try is to bulge-bust that LOADED round.  I've busted thousands of loaded rounds and never had a discharge.   Second thing to do if you fail chamber-check is to look at the mouth of the case and find any lead finger-nails that "squirted out" during crimping.  Depending upon the quality of bullet and your ability to squarely seat a bullet, you may or may not find a sliver of lead needing to be trimmed off the round.  Those 2 corrections will almost always get the round to pass chamber-checking.

5 - chrono check and calculate Power Factor yourself.  Not every 1911 will shoot a load from the manual at the velocity that the book shows!

Sounds like you are well on the way to making great ammo.  good luck, GJ

Edited Wednesday at 09:56 PM by Garrison Joe

[Tall John]

Thanks Joe,  this is great info!  

Edited Wednesday at 08:24 PM by Tall John

[Deacon KC]

Your Ruger should feed either of those bullets with no problem, they both have a nice shape to them. Good magazines are a must for any 1911, the Ruger factory ones are good, MecGars, Wilson's [the best but expensive] . KimPro mags are good but avoid the basic Kimber ones. 

[Tall John]

On 3/11/2026 at 2:07 PM, Garrison Joe said:

The short throat in a 1911 barrel catches a lot of new loaders of .45 AUTO by surprise, as they load a few hundred, go to the range, and find every one of the loads fails to go the last 1/8" into battery.   

Some keys to loading so they will feed well in your gun:

1 - the point on the nose where the upper end of the cylindrical section of the bullet (the shank) STARTS to narrow down (round over) to the nose ogive is the place where the case mouth should be placed during seating.   If you crimp down on the shank, the nose will jam into the short throat of the barrel and round will not go fully into chamber.  If you crimp out on the ogive of the bullet, you will have collapsed bullets during hard feeding.  Remember that there is NO standard nose length on cast .45 AUTO bullets, because there have been hundreds of molds made to cast these slugs over the years.  Regardless of what a manual may state.  So, don't load to the published OAL, load to put the case mouth at the start of the ogive turn-in.

2 - apply a taper crimp that just returns the case mouth to 0.472", measured with a caliper.  You are only straightening out the case from where you expanded the mouth, and just barely catching the surface of the bullet with the inside edge of the case mouth.  Looking down from on top of loaded rounds, you should still see a bright ring of brass all the way around the bullet.  The case mouth is the headspace location, so if you "bury" the brass case wall all the way into the bullet during crimping, the headspace mechanism is removed and rounds can chamber too deep to fire.

3 - get a loaded round checking gauge, and check EACH cartridge to make sure it chambers perfectly.  Several companies make them, including Dillon and Wilson (the trimmer guys, not the gun guys, unless Bill Wilson just happens to be making them now, too).   Yes, you can take the barrel out of your 1911 and drop rounds into the chamber, but it will "get old" breaking down your pistol every time you load a batch of ammo.

4 - good on you for bulge busting your "range" cases.   But if a round fails the chamber check from step 3, the first thing to try is to bulge-bust that LOADED round.  I've busted thousands of loaded rounds and never had a discharge.   Second thing to do if you fail chamber-check is to look at the mouth of the case and find any lead finger-nails that "squirted out" during crimping.  Depending upon the quality of bullet and your ability to squarely seat a bullet, you may or may not find a sliver of lead needing to be trimmed off the round.  Those 2 corrections will almost always get the round to pass chamber-checking.

5 - chrono check and calculate Power Factor yourself.  Not every 1911 will shoot a load from the manual at the velocity that the book shows!

Sounds like you are well on the way to making great ammo.  good luck, GJ

My load…..

my projectile..4520-.4525” 225-229grn cast, PC’d.  

two groups of dummy rounds.  Both groups plunk and manually feed
 

Group A OAL is 1.168” ;  0.473” case mouth.  Looks like maybe too much crimp?

 

or Group B  OAL 1.178 case-mouth 0.4755

 

Thoughts?

[Garrison Joe]

You have a rolled crimp on group "A."   Most taper-crimp dies if set too far down on the case will force the crimp to change from taper to a roll crimp.

The length / seating position looks great on "B".  I would tighten the crimp slightly on that and try to see half the wall thickness of the case show when you look down on it.  Kinda surprised "B" will plunk into the chamber fully with a mouth diameter at 0.475"+, as 0.473" would be the "straight wall" diameter for a .45 AUTO load.  But, if it will chamber 100%, shoot 'em.   

For comparison, my loads are averaging a 1.180" OAL, but I shoot a truncated cone bullet that has a shorter ogive nose than your rounded nose slug.  And the mouth of the crimped case runs right at 0.472" and there is no roll to the crimp shape and half the case wall is visible from above.

good luck, GJ

[Tall John]

Thanks Joe.  I’m hoping to use my Lee combination seat/taper crimp die so I can use my bullet feeder.  I’ll futz with it some more this weekend.