[Sanders]

I got a box of 500 of these on sale a while back and sat down to load them up. The manufacturer provides no load data for their bullets, and neither does anyone else. All anyone says is to use cast lead data for similar bullets.

I like to load my .45 ACP a little on the hot side. Usually, I'll go with a Cartridge Overall Length (COL) of 1.23", and never have any problems with feeding.

I looked up cast 200 gr. SWC bullets in my Sierra book and the Lyman manual. The Sierra manual was a little too cautious for my taste. I wound up going with the Lyman load with a midrange charge of Unique.

Anyway, I was having a hell of a time getting the bullet to chamber in my 1911 at the COL I usually use. I thought I had set something up wrong on my press, because nothing would drop into the barrel without it sitting up 1/10 inch too high. I finally figured out I had to set the bullet in deeper. I wound up having to go to 1.17" to get the round to chamber properly.

Testing today gave me good results. A nice hard-hitting round that knocked my steel target over a couple times - performance I usually only get from my .44 magnums. I had a few failures to load with the ones that had a COL of 1.19-1.20", but with a slight push on the slide, they worked.