VV N310 and Zero 185gr LSWCHP's

Anyone have any luck with the Vithavuori N310 powder and Zero 185gr swagged HP's? I tried out a couple of loads 3.5 and 3.8gr neither seemed to group very well at 50 yards. This is just my general impression since I don't have access to a machine rest. My loads were with Winchester primers and mixed brass, OAL 1.210, crimp 0.469. Gun is an Accurailed 1911 with Barsto barrel and, 5lb recoil spring with slide mounted dot. same bullet with 3.8gr Bullseye shoots better. I have a bunch of N310 and would like to use it up. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Joe Chambers was kind enough to share this load with me:
Zero 185 gr. LSWCHP
3.8-3.9 gr. VV N310
1.22" OAL
.469" crimp

My guns seem to love this load. Very mild and the sight snaps back to center with a 9-11 lbs recoil spring.

Thanks for the reply. Tried some with 3.7grains and a OAL of 1.250 and got some good groups. Need more testing but your post convinced me to keep at it.

OAL would do better at 1.210, 3.8gr and .469 crimo is a great tested load

Not doubting your load but I am curious why the OAL just barely has the shoulder outside the brass. Doing a little testing I found I could seat the bullet at a OAL of 1.275 and just touch the rifling. I backed this off a smidge to 1.250. I have heard of rifle shooters coming up with OAL this way. Does this not work with pistol barrels as well? That bullet did seem to feed better a little longer but I didn't shoot several hundred or anything I would call conclusive. Again not doubting your results just trying to learn and expeirment.

Here's my bullseye load for 200 gr lswc:

3.7 gr N310 with OAL=1.235"

Mikey v83 wrote:Not doubting your load but I am curious why the OAL just barely has the shoulder outside the brass. Doing a little testing I found I could seat the bullet at a OAL of 1.275 and just touch the rifling. I backed this off a smidge to 1.250. I have heard of rifle shooters coming up with OAL this way. Does this not work with pistol barrels as well? That bullet did seem to feed better a little longer but I didn't shoot several hundred or anything I would call conclusive. Again not doubting your results just trying to learn and expeirment.

pistol is not like rifle, you dont want the bullet sitting in the rifling, soon as you shoot a few rounds you could get failure to feed because of built up grunge. In a 45 acp you should only have .25-.30 thousandths of lead above the case rim, about the thickness of your fingernail. Ive ransomed hundreds of loads and the one i gave you will shoot 2'' groups @ 50 yards thru a match barrel but load them however you want cause many testers agree OAL in the 45 has nearly no effect on accuracy.

I HAVE FOUND 3.95GR VV310 THE BEST IN MY RRA WAD GUN WITH A 30MM 4 DOT SLIDE MOUNTED. I DO USE A 15LD RECOIL SPRING THOUGH. JP

I have always used the COL to establish head space with lead bullets and NEVER had any reliability issues.
I figure that some guns may be sensitive to COL and the loader has to determine that.
Also, have NOT found N310 to be very accurate in ten different 1911 .45s.
Best powders I have found are 231/HP31 (at almost ANY charge weight) and AA2. Clays and N310 will go from inaccurate to accurate (if they are ever accurate in the given gun) to inaccurate in about 0.3gn change in charge weight--almost like there is only a single magical accurate charge weight.

Are the magnusbullets swaged LSWCHP re-boxed Zeros, clones, or different?

I'm considering trying them when I renew my bullet supply.

Call up Terry Labbe and ask him. He'll give you the straight scoop. He's a High Master bullseye shooter, as well.

The ones Terry at magnus sells are made by zero, 185 lhp-wc is the same style as the old stars but not an exact copy, they have a longer nose and the hole in the nose is larger than the one on the old stars. They also have no lube groove, same as the stars, but where the stars were lube dipped, the magnus (zeros) bullets are ran thru a lube sizer and have a light lube in the thatched area around the bullet. I tested some and they were accurate but imo not as much as the original Star brand. Another company makes a star type too, precision delta bullets you can check them out on there website.

DavidR wrote:The ones Terry at magnus sells are made by zero, 185 lhp-wc is the same style as the old stars but not an exact copy, they have a longer nose and the hole in the nose is larger than the one on the old stars. They also have no lube groove, same as the stars, but where the stars were lube dipped, the magnus (zeros) bullets are ran thru a lube sizer and have a light lube in the thatched area around the bullet. I tested some and they were accurate but imo not as much as the original Star brand. Another company makes a star type too, precision delta bullets you can check them out on there website.

In talking to Jim Russel at Star a few years ago he said he made all the molds for the .45 185 GN lswc. Star also made most of the jacket machines for Zero and Precision Delta.

Aguila in Mexico bought his .45 machines and said they have no plans to market it in the US.

Star is currently working on new machines to make "cowboy bullets" as they think it is a better business decision.

When I lived in Indy would stop by Star, they had orders from every bullet manufacturer in the US for extruded lead and jackets of all calibers.

Tom

I've been using Terry's 185gn LSWC swaged bullets for the long line and they have been grouping very well for me. I just reordered 3 boxes of the SWC, and added one box of the LSWCHP to try out. I'm curious to see if the LSWCHP outperform his swaged LSWC. I'll report back later.

You need to test loads for your pistol. With a 12# spring I could not get 3.9gn or less of N310 to cycle. 4.0 and 4.2 did not give me good groups. i was going to try a range of 4.1-4.4 next time I test.

Mixed brass can cause poor grouping. Federal brass has a much larger primer flash hole than most other brass. For benchrest loads I would suggest sorting your brass to eliminate some variables.

Doug Hall wrote:Mixed brass can cause poor grouping. Federal brass has a much larger primer flash hole than most other brass. For benchrest loads I would suggest sorting your brass to eliminate some variables.

Not all federal has the large flash hole only that made in the past 4 years or so, before that it was the same as all brass, except the white box winchester which was the first to use the lead free primers which is the reason for the large flash hole.