Oysters on the half shell...

[RetCapt]

Oysters on the half shell are a menu item at many seafood places. Having a half shell in your 1911 breech is not good.

I was shooting the 1911 the other day when all of a sudden, the thing would no longer chamber any more rounds. Dang. I figgered I probably would hafta go back and run 'em thru the sizing die or such. Or perhaps I had the seating depth off...
Finished repelling the attacks of the paper monster with my .22 and went home. Disassembled the gun for cleaning, and I felt a strange resistance when running a patch near the breech end. Finally looked in there and found the forward half of a shell case. Wow! Usually the case fails lengthwise, but this was new to me...

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OK, so now what?

I tried to pry it out with a screwdriver blade. Tried to get a small knife tip in there. No go.

Finally figgered it out. I went to Ace Hardware and bought an expanding bolt thingie. Cost me 59 cents. I set the thing to expand against the inside of the shell case. No go. Even wrapped the expanding end with some wet/dry sandpaper I had.

Next, I set the depth to have the expander legs hit just in front of the leading edge of the half shell case. Tightened the screw, and got a good lock on it. Used a dowel and hammer at the forward end, and had to tighten the bolt a bit, but the shell case finally came out with the proper use of applied physics.

Normal shell cases provided for reference...

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When I shine my bore light in either end, the breech and barrel appear to be fine and dandy. File this technique away in the brain for future use as needed...

 

[dolang1]

I've never seen that one either. Looks like you handled it the right way. Thanks for the info. Later Don

 

[338Shooter]

Never loaded those SWCs in .45 before, but your crimp looks too heavy to me. That could cause pressure problems.

 

[Hawgman]

Somethings weird here. That only happens to .40S&W's right?

Seriously though, it looks like you're using a heavy roll crimp. You should be using only a light to moderate taper crimp on semi-auto.

 

[RetCapt]

Seriously though, it looks like you're using a heavy roll crimp. You should be using only a light to moderate taper crimp on semi-auto.

You are prob'ly right. I plan to shoot off the remaining buncha SWCs and switch to a flat point bullet. My 1911s are kinda picky about the SWCs...

 

[sabot_round]

your crimp looks too heavy to me. That could cause pressure problems.

+1 I've made the same observation.

 

[MBB]

Holy smokes! .45ACP headspaces off the case mouth. A firm roll crimp will screw up the headspace and create excessive space behind the casing. The casing will fill that space when firing. That's why the casing split along its circumference: it stretched too much. .45ACP should have a slight taper crimp. Really all the "crimp" should do is straighten the case walls that were belled after expanding to allow the bullet to seat. There should be no "roll" in a .45ACP crimp.

-MBB

 

[338Shooter]

If I'm loading boat tail bullets like the XTPs I don't even bell the mouth or then have to undo that belling with the "crimp".

MBB is right, .45 doesn't really need a crimp, it is just to remove the belling if you belled at all.

 

[Spiff]

Holy smokes! .45ACP headspaces off the case mouth. A firm roll crimp will screw up the headspace and create excessive space behind the casing. The casing will fill that space when firing. That's why the casing split along its circumference: it stretched too much. .45ACP should have a slight taper crimp. Really all the "crimp" should do is straighten the case walls that were belled after expanding to allow the bullet to seat. There should be no "roll" in a .45ACP crimp.

-MBB

If .45 ACP headspaced off of the mouth, we'd have to trim the cases...this is a myth.

But yeah, your crimp does look pretty excessive.

 

[338Shooter]

Now I'm curious as to what is the datum for measuring headspace in the .45.