Newbie reloader here. Well last night I attempted my first reloads, 45 acp. Pretty much if there was a mistake to be made I made it. So glad I did not get a progressive press, there were plenty of other challenges. I certainly did not need to add the complexity of a progressive press to the mix!

Anyway I was wondering how important is it to get to the published COAL?

The Speer book says for .45 acp a COAL of 1.650. Starting with new cases I totally over expanded and ended up with a COAL in the range of 1.255 - 1.300. None of my rounds were over 1.300.

Should these rounds not be used?

Thanks all for your thoughts.

Ugh sorry about that what I meant to post was I had a coal in the range of 1.225-1.230 with none over 1.230.

Per my Speer #14 the coal tested is 1.260 for TMJ RN / 230 grain.

what he said

I was using 5.9 grains of Winchester 231. Per the manual the max load is 6.2 so I guess there is some wiggle room in case the crimp is too tight. That is a really sloppy way to look at it I guess what I am saying is that they should at least be OK to shoot. Resizing will be interesting.

You just have to remember that a short cartridge will give you higher than expected chamber pressure. Your rounds are probably ok, as long as the crimp is tight enough to keep the bullets from being pushed deeper in the case from recoil while in the magazine. It's acceptable to load a cartridge longer than what's specified in the load data, the limiting factors are whether the round will feed in your magazine and chamber without hitting the rifling. It's a good idea to make up a dummy cartridge without primer and powder that is the correct oal. When go to set up the dies in the future you just have to rotate the bullet seating screw until it touches the dummy round.