Hello all,

Well I am down to my bullet seating die in my RL550B. I have seated my Zero bullets in the past to an OAL of 1.17". I am curious as to what others are seating their bullets to? I am using a 185gr. SWCBB with Clays and around 3.8 gr. What have any of you guys found to be a good OAL length for accuracy? I know it is gun specific but I am interested in what others have found. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Sid

I have no ideas what the actual length was, but what I did was seat the bullet and checked to see if it fit in the chamber. This took several tries, seating the bullet deeper each time. Once it fit in the chamber I checked to see if it would function through the magazine.
The machine has not been changed in the past 15 years.
Jim

Use two different 200gr. SWC bullets in the .45acp (along with the basic 230gr. RNL). One has a longer bearing area and a short nose...it's loaded to 1.190" OAL. The other has a smaller bearing area and a longer nose and is loaded to 1.265". The 230gr. RNL gets loaded to 2.72".

Reason...on ALL three, the length from the case head to the start of the BEARING area is the same: .940". IF I seat any of the three farther out, the lead bullet makes hard contact with the rifling, making the slide hard to close (wich can casue a missfire) and exctracting a loaded round troublsome.

Guess the thought is: there is no set length.....so long as bullets are of differnt shapes, the OAL of the rounds will vary. Noticed that Lymans lists one 185gr. bullet as being seated to 1.080" while the one next to it is seated to 1.120" and one of their 200gr. versions is seated to 1.235".

I find that OAL is not the most important thing with SWC bullets in the 45. I found that the best thing is to seat the bullet so that its shoulder, where the cone meets the cylindrical base, is just about .005-.015" above the case mouth, regardless of what the OAL comes out to. That makes for my most reliable feeding. I've loaded 185, 200, 210 & 230 grains with this criterion.

Loading longer tends to shave off a little lead at the end of the chamber where it meets the bore. Then, that lead keeps the next round from chambering all the way.

The bullet & mold mfrs know this, and if you seat as I said, the OAL will come out in the SAAMI spec range. Seating heavy bullets longer than this made mine hang up in the magazine.

I shoot four different bullets in my 1911 .45 ACP, all 230 grain. Hornady flat point FMJ, standard round nose FMJ and hard cast bullets that duplicate both profiles. I load the flat points to 1.225" and the RN to 1.265".
My dad uses a 200 grain cast similar to the H&G #68. He loads them to a full 1.275".