I've pretty much given up trying to practice with my .45 anymore. It is a Series 80 Colt, it is a good weapon, but it is a little bit picky on ammunition. It will fire good-quality ammunition all day long and it even digests Wolf and Blazers with no problem.
It does not care for Sellier & Bellot brand hardball and, as for the crap reloads that are sold at ranges, forget it. The last time I tried to shoot those things, I had a jam every magazine and some of the jams were so bad that a "tap-rack-bang" drill would not work. I suspect they are slightly undercharging the powder loads, which shows up considering I have a hardball recoil spring.
I still have a few boxes of good rounds, but as I cannot be certain that I can obtain any resupply, I'm done shooting that pistol.
My 9mm, a knock-off of the Beretta M84, will shoot the crap reloads, so at least I can practice with that, for now.
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You could do your own handloads...mine feed just peachy.
Deadstick, I think I'd flip out when I couldn't collect 100% of my own brass.
Maybe if I had a garage, but in a 1-br apartment, I dunno.
Yes, the bulged reloads were more than annoying. But the .45 was interesting to fire.
Reloading isn't too be bad if you have a square foot of table space to setup on.
and about 2cu ft of space to store. But then you have to store primers and powder.
Eck!
One of my uncles did reloading in a 12x60 trailer that probably wasn't much bigger than your apartment, he just stored his gear in a cabinet when not using it.
I am just baffled as to why this .45 is so picky about its ammo. One of the usual arguments regarding the .45 ACP is that it's typically less picky about its ammo than, say, a typical 9mm. Not that any autopistol is completely immune to jamming when faced with bad ammo -- thus one argument for a .357 revolver as a home defense weapon rather than an autopistol -- but this is ridiculous.
One of the usual arguments regarding the .45 ACP is that it's typically less picky about its ammo than, say, a typical 9mm.
I don't know about that; the only 9mms I have had any experience with have been Berettas and the Taurus clones and they have seemed to have been very reliable. The .45s I have shot all seemed to want to be set up for a particular power level. You can have a light target recoil spring or a heavy hardball spring. Firing service hardball loads in a gun with a target spring will beat the crap out of the frame. Going the other way and the gun may not cycle correctly.
Stock Colts also have smallish ejection ports, so if the load is mismatched to the recoil spring, you can get a nice jam when the empty has only partially begun to pivot out when the slide tries to slam shut. Worst case is you have to find a hard edged surface (like the edge of a table), put the end of the slide against the table and then ram the receiver forward to force the slide back.
It would help if I had the recoil port opened up. It'd probably destroy the finish on the gun (factory satin) to do that.
With service hardball and with my chosen defense load (Golden Sabers), it works every time.
Which what I need it to do.
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