Posted on 02/11/2011 11:31:02 PM PST by Slings and Arrows
FEDERAL and AMERICAN EAGLE
45 AUTO PRODUCT SAFETY WARNING
Immediate Action Required
Certain lots of recently manufactured 45 Auto ammunition may contain an incorrect propellant charge. Use of product from these lots may result in firearm damage and possible serious injury.
DO NOT USE PRODUCT FROM THE FOLLOWING LOTS:
If you have in your possession any 45 Auto with the following brand names and part numbers, check to see if your ammunition package contains the above lots:
* American Eagle®(AE45A, AE45N1, or AE45A250)
* Champion™ (WM5233), GoldMedal®(GM45B)
* Hi-Shok ®(45C, 45D)
* Federal® Personal Defense ®(C45C, C45D)
Example below:
THIS WARNING APPLIES ONLY TO THE LOTS LISTED ABOVE.If you possess ammunition from any of these lots, or have questions concerning this warning, please contact us at 1-800-831-0850 or 1-800-322-2342 and ask for Product Service. Federal will provide replacement product and will cover the cost of returning the affected product.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
It’d be a damned shame if your Glock 30, Springfield XDM .45, or God forbid, a 1911 (*horrors!*) went kaboom because of defective ammo. Make sure yours isn’t among the recalled lots!
I dont reload. but the 45 acp seems pretty low risk.
I would be very cautious reloading something like .308
There is a lot of potential for kabooey with a hot cartridge like that.
Blew the damn mag out and locked the slide!
That is what I saw.
twice.
That is seriously ****ed up, and I know you speak the truth.
I have had this issue with aguila sub sonic .22
I learned my reloading chops on a RCBS Rockchuck many years ago. There’s a lot to recommend a good single-stage press. Slows you down, makes you think about what you’re doing.
Having said that, I surely do like the Hornady progressive using their Lok ‘n Load dies. I bought mine about 12 years ago. It does save time, and the caution learned from experience makes it a safe proposition. I still weigh every 20th powder drop, though, depending on what I’m running. And eyeball everything.
If it is a justified shooting, it isn’t going to make a hill of beans what you do it with.
And the” Geneva Convention” doesn’t cover ammo... or have any bearing on a justified self defense case.
Rifle chamber pressures are higher in normal situations (mid-50K psi), yes, but I must warn you as a guy who reloads and crunches numbers:
There’s a lot more room for error in a .45 ACP case than in a .308 case.
The root of the reason is that smokeless propellants were still in their infancy when the 1911 and the .45 ACP were developed. The cases were made with large capacities to enable the cartridge to meet design goals with the relatively slow-burning powders of the day.
Today, we have a huge number of smokeless powders in comparison to 1911, and not quite as huge a number relative to the 1950’s when the .308 was developed. In particular, we have a lot of development in pistol powders to get denser charges.
If you’re on a progressive press, an overcharge of a .308 will easily be seen. There’s going to be loose powder spilling everywhere in almost any load configuration I can think of in a .308. Unless you’re really, really not paying attention, you’ll know that you’ve double-charged a .308 round.
In a .45 ACP, as I said earlier, it is easy to double-charge them with some of today’s faster-burning powders. By this I mean that you could be pulling away on your progressive press and double the powder charge and not have any spill out of the case. The reloader can be happily pulling away, just stuffing pills down on top of a case, and not paying any attention to whether or not the case was double-charged. Nothing spilled out, so everything is OK right?
Wrong. Oh, so terribly, painfully wrong.
Nominal .45 ACP case pressures are in the high-teens of PSI - like17K to 21K PSI - at normal loads. 23K for “+P” loadings.
A double charge of powder would increase your pressures to 30k+ PSI.
There’s a reason why people have been trying to develop a replacement for the .45 ACP cartridge - eg, the .45 Super, .45 GAP, et al. The .45 Super is mostly about thicker brass at the web that increases the failure pressure for the case - nominal pressures for the .45 Super case are up around 28K psi. The .45 GAP takes the opposite approach - they reduce the size of the case, which reduces the over-charging issue.
This problem of “too much case capacity for modern powders” occurs in other older handgun cases too. It is even easier to do something really wrong in a .45 Colt case.
The need for small pistol primers is predicated on the higher pressures.
If you have, let’s say, 40K psi in the case, and you have a large primer, that’s that much more area against which the pressure can be forcing that primer to back out.
Since the length of the powder stack isn’t terribly long, the small primers will have sufficient brissiance to light off the powder, and yet be less prone to backing out.
Oh, and on the “don’t use reloads for self-defense” - I have taken course from a JD who said exactly the same thing. His recommendation was to use the ammo that at least a few PD’s in your state use - which will typically be good (and probably expensive) JHP rounds from a major ammo manufacture.
That way, if in a civil wrongful death trial the family of your uninvited guest wails and claims that you were using some special ammo you cooked up because you were “seeking to kill someone,” you point out all the PD’s that also use your ammo and defuse the issue.
You seem less than pleased.
Unless one chooses the round, powder and pill to prevent double or over-charging, I heartily agree with you on the single-stage press.
If we’re talking about something like 9mm and the right powder, you can basically fill the case to the mouth, use a steel rule to wipe the excess off the top and stuff a pill on it.
But the older rounds like .45 Colt, .45 ACP, .38, etc... I like to inspect and observe every last one of those, every time.
Well..
I guess we will hold the 45 at arms length...
Funny thing.
Those glocks I saw go pop were 9mm
Most Glock ka-boom’s I’ve seen resulted from using cast lead bullets in reloads. There have been some verified instances of factory loads causing failure in the .40, .45 and 10mm Glocks, but they’re rare and usually lead was shot down the same bore prior to the factory jacket loads causing problems.
I’ve seen documented ka-booms in Springfield XD’s, HK USP’s and other pistols using the “polygonal rifling” and cast lead pills.
Personally, I believe that there is an issue with polygonal barrels, their tolerances and leading. The problem in constructing a test for this is that when one says “cast lead bullet,” we first have to discuss the exact composition of the casting lead. There are all manner of alloys used in casting lead bullets, and they all behave slightly differently in casting or swaging, how much they lead the bore, etc.
Then we have to get into bullet coatings and lubes on cast lead.
The result is that there’s no hard, reliable data that can prove beyond doubt that “cast lead causes ka-booms” in poly barrels, because we have to start saying “Well, if you use this alloy, you’re OK, and if you use that lube, you’re OK, and if you use this lead remover, there’s no problems... “
I’d say that the data is very suggestive tho, and I don’t shoot anything other than copper jacketed pills in Glocks or other poly barrels. On this point, the 1911 has an edge, I believe.
Still, you can disassemble a 1911 very quickly with a double-charge. Double charges are rare, but they do happen, and the .45 ACP case allows for hefty over-charging with fast powders. Using the proper powder selection, it is impossible to double-charge a 9x19 case. NB the caveat - with the proper powder selection.
And, BTW, for those who might think that I’m bashing the 1911 or Glocks, I wouldn’t own them all if I didn’t like them. I own and shoot them all. Never had a ka-boom in anything. But I’ve seen ka-booms, been on the range at the time ka-booms happened in another lane, etc.
Like what reasons?
Very much so.
Very much so.
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