I'm a total newbie reloader. Made my first batch today. .45 acp. 230 gr Ranier plated bullet, 4.6 gr 231, CCI primers, and mixed brass. 1.25" OAL. Shot them and probably half of them were key holing pretty bad. I was shooting a paper target that was taped to a piece of plywood, so I know it wasn't the target blowing around causing the problem. What can I do to stop this keyholing issue? Thanks
-
ODT Gun Show & Swap Meet - May 4, 2024! - Click here for info
Key holing
- Thread starter Legitmw
- Start date
Shoots fine with store bought stuff?
Last time I had a keyholing issue, it was the barrel. Converted it to .22 and called it a day.
Last time I had a keyholing issue, it was the barrel. Converted it to .22 and called it a day.
Keyholing is sometimes the result of an undercharged round causing the bullet to tumble prematurely. I know my .38 stuff will keyhole if I push the lower limits of a loading. Don't have a chart in front of me to see where your loading is in terms of minimum to maximum...but that would be my bet.
Looks like he nailed it. The Hornady reloading manual puts the min charge for Win 231 at 5.0gr (for 700FPS)... you stated you're at 4.6gr
Last edited:
OK...looked it up on Hodgdon's website. At 1.25" OAL...that's a little long. They list the OAL at 1.225" for a 200gr. LSWC, or 1.155" for a 200gr. JHP. IIRC, the rainer bullet is probably more similar to a JHP/JSP bullet length than a SWC length. So you might be as much as 1/10 of an inch long...which is a lot in reloading. That's potentially enough to cause the bullet to exit the case too quickly before full pressure is reached. And that would definitely cause keyholing. I'd try seating a little deeper and using a slight taper crimp to help up the pressure before I added more powder.
4.6 grains of 231 is a lower end load for lead rounds...5.2 is minimum for a jacketed round. 5.6 is a maximum for lead rounds (per the Hodgdon chart)...so I'd say somewhere in that 5.2-5.6 range would make the Ranier bullets perform well since they are truthfully somewhere between lead and jacketed rounds in terms of their tolerance of velocity (as Romany also confirmed).
But YMMV...hope that helps.
4.6 grains of 231 is a lower end load for lead rounds...5.2 is minimum for a jacketed round. 5.6 is a maximum for lead rounds (per the Hodgdon chart)...so I'd say somewhere in that 5.2-5.6 range would make the Ranier bullets perform well since they are truthfully somewhere between lead and jacketed rounds in terms of their tolerance of velocity (as Romany also confirmed).
But YMMV...hope that helps.
Last edited:
Thanks, man. If there's one thing I know about reloading is how to load low-pressure rounds. All I do is .38spl...but in truth 45ACP and 38SPL are very similar in terms of what velocities they perform well at. And the pressures are even eerily similar...
Maybe one of these days I will work up a 231 load for my .38's...but I really like my AA#2 load that I currently load most often.
OP - best of luck with the fix.
You actually beat me to it....when I read this I immediately thought it was an undercharged load, but had to go digging through my books to make sure. Never want to give out bad load data or advice.
Awesome info. It shoots fine with store bought, only have a few hundred rounds through it. Ranier says to use lead bullet data, and according to my Lee manual the starting load is 4.3 (699 fps) and max is 5.3. It also says 1.20", so I'll definitely be shortening the OAL and upping the charge a few grains. Thanks a ton guys!
Typically your charge on a lead bullet is going to be less than a jacketed one of the same weight due to the fact that the lead stages more easily down the barrel than a copper jacket. It takes less powder to move lead at the same speed than copper jacketed so necessarily, you'll need a beefier charge with jacketed bullets.
