Me and Heavy Bullets in the 45 Colt

[JimT]

Long ago in another century and another hemisphere I was a young guy with 45 Colt and a hankering to hunt with it. Having grown up reading Elmer Keith and watching my Daddy shoot a quarter-mile at targets the size of house door - and hit them more often than not - I did not realize that most shooters thought this stuff could not be done.

About '73 I bought a copy of SIXGUNS from the old man himself. As I read through Elmer's stuff and noted his use of the 300 gr. 45-90 rifle bullet in the old Colt. His blackpowder loads looked good and his experiments with 2400 gave me some ideas, especially since I had come into possession of a Ruger Blackhawk in 45 Colt. The heavier frame and cylinder of the Ruger vs. the Colt SAA would obviously let one push the bigger bullet to velocities more in line with what the original weight bullets could safely be run.

Using the Lyman copy of the bullet - 457191- I experimented with powder charges and primers and eventually settled on a load that averaged just under 1200 fps. This bullet and load was extremely accurate in my sixgun and had plenty of power to punch through most any critter I was gonna run across. It was also an excellent long-range bullet, retaining accuracy 'way on out there. I had a 16" truck rim hung on a tripod at a bit over 400 yards. On an average day I could ring it 3 out of 5 shots. On good days I did better. Retained velocity at that distance was pretty good as the big chunk of lead dented the rim fairly well.

Once, up on Gray's River in Wyoming myself along with John Taffin, John Linebaugh, Bob Baker and others spent some time shooting at an old log cabin at more than 1/3 of a mile. Going over and checking the cabin we found many of our slugs went in through the front log walls and out the back. One of my 300 gr. 45 slugs had gone in through the pine log in the front wall and struck an angle-iron bed frame, heavily denting the bed frame. We found the slug on the floor where it had bounced and fitted it to the indentation on the bedframe to make sure. It still had more punch than many would think possible after starting out at less than 1200 fps and flying all that distance.

Most of this was done back in the days when magazine editors would not run any stories about heavy 45 Colt loads because "everyone" knew that 45 Colt brass was weak. Everyone except those of us who had tested it that is. Eventually some common sense began to creep into print and better bullets began to be available through the use of custom molds. In time I adopted the use of a different bullet for hunting - one that had a better nose shape for quick game stopping. No .. I never did use those huge wide nosed ones much, but I opted for something in between. Something that would give me good long-range accuracy and good tissue-destroying ability. Life often is a compromise, especially if you want to use cast bullets.

After a while though I noticed that 300 gr. was no longer considered a "heavy" bullet in the 45 Colt. People were experimenting with bullets from 325 gr. on up to ridiculous. The problem was, many of the "experimenters" had no clue about such subjects as "Diminishing Returns" ... "Pressure Curves" ... "Loading Density" or other useful bits of knowledge. I saw more than a couple Rugers go up in peices .. lots of peices. That none of the shooters were injured seriously is a testimony to Ruger's engineering and God's grace. I even saw an example of Freedom Arms immensely strong 454 blown in half. I was not present when it happened I hasten to add. Also .. in my own defence, I never blew up or bulged a gun with any of my own handloads, though I did bulge a cylinder once with some factory loads and that in a .41 Magnum.

It's been quite a long time now since I have cast any bullets or even done any shooting. These days when I get back to the US I am more likely to spend time shooting my 22. We are planning on making The Shootists Holiday this next year and perhaps I will get a chance to try some long-range rock busting. Who knows? But I do know that anymore I don't enjoy the recoil of heavy bullets and heavy loads. My wrists are 66 years old at this writing and still work without pain. I am not gonna beat them any more. I kinda enjoy having parts of my body that don't ache.

But it was fun at the time.

[Mac in Mo]

Thanks Jim

Kevin

[Blaine]

[Griff]

Thank you for the great read.

[Nath]

Ecellent Jim.

I keep thinking small is more these days!

I can see a day coming when 22mag will cover my bases!

200yds seems so far now compared to when I was in my twenties! 20yds seems far more exciting nowa' days.

God bless.

N.

[oneyeopn]

thank you very much.
I love my 45 colt rifle.
taking her hunting today, opening day of Handicap Deer Season in Kansas. I have always wanted to take a deer with her and this year with the help of some people in this forum, I have a load that I believe will do it successfully although not near as heavy as in your article. After enough surgeries my body wont take the abuse either.

[Borregos]

Thank you for the great read.

+1

[Hobie]

Love it... I notice that I am buying and shooting more .22s nowadays. I'm a little, wee-bit jealous, I never had a log cabin to shoot at!

[w30wcf]

Hi Jim,
Thank you for that neat story! You might want to consider shooting those historic loads in a 45 Colt rifle ..... no wrist wear and tear. I do shoot that bullet in my Marlin Cowboy rifle and it is accurate and carries well over longer distances as you have indicated.

Back in 1977, I became interested in IHMSA. The 200 meter rams sat full footed on Rail Road ties and thus were a bit difficult to knock down at the club I went to. Full power 44 magnum loads would leave 30%-40% of those rams hit still standing. I didn't own a 44 MAgnum, preferring instead the .45 Colt in a Ruger Blackhawk.

I felt that a heavier bullet was the answer and decided on the Lyman 457192 350 gr bullet. After some testing, I decided on 20 grs of 296 which gave close to 1,100 f.p.s. in the 7 1/2" barrel. That combination proved to be 100% positive on those pesky rams. I got a bit of pleasure out of telling the 44 Magnum boys that I was using a century old cartridge and wasn't having any trouble......

J.D. Jones attended those early matches and I gave him some bullets to try. He had a reduced steel Mastadon target and told me those were the only handgun loads that would put that target down. Shortly therefter he began offering heavy bullet molds for the 44 MAgnum.

Interestingly, the 457192 / 20 / 296 combination has proved to be very accurate from the Marlin, even with its 1 in 38 inch twist. Velocity runs 1,390 f.p.s. and is pretty much a duplicate of the old 45-70-350 in power.

w30wcf

[Sarge]

Great post, Jim.

I got my first taste of Heavy 45 Colt late in january of 1986. Me and some other wayward Missouri boys took a brand new Ruger Bisley and a hatfull of H110/325 LBT loads down on the MO river, in the dead of winter, where we could really stretch it out. Nobody had a chronograph in those days but the load was reported to crowd 1300 fps. I learned right darn quick not to rest your hands on anything hard, when firing them.

Before the river started freezing, some dufus had thrown an old refrigerator off the river bridge at Lexington. Through some miracle, it had stayed afloat until it washed up on a jetty over a quarter mile away, out in the channel. We held over ala Uncle Elmer and hammered away. Before long, we were hitting it. Post-mortem revealed that that most of the hits had sailed through it. Right there is where I started to realize the potential of the 45 Colt in a stout revolver.

Old notions die hard though... five years later I had a 4" Model 29 .44 Magnum, a 5 1/2" Blackhawk in 45 Colt and three pound of H110 to settle this question. I was loading Sierra's 300 grain NOT-soft point in the 44 and Hunter's Supply 325's in the 45 Colt. A section of 8" utility pole was the test bed. I leaned a 4 foot long, 3" thick native oak plank up behind the pole to catch bullets. Long story short, the 44 slugs would just poke their nose out of the pole. That 45 Colt would shoot through the pole, bury itself halfway into the plank and knock it over like it had been hit with a hammer! At the time I had a safe place to shoot a half mile and I wrung that Blackhawk out to 600 yards. It would shoot through a heavy oak pallet at that distance, like it wasn't even there.

I have pared my pile of guns down over the years, but a heavy framed Ruger Vaquero in 45 Colt remains as my go-to sixgun. I don't shoot much heavy stuff these days but I keep a hundred or so loads on land, loaded with a 335 Keith-looking SWC at 1200 fps. I know exactly where they print from that gun to 50 yards... God help me if I ever have to tackle anything that load won't handle.

[Pitchy]

I don`t shoot the 45 much but i`ve always liked heavy bullets in everything else.
Cool read.

[bobbyjack]

Long ago in another century and another hemisphere I was a young guy with 45 Colt and a hankering to hunt with it. Having grown up reading Elmer Keith and watching my Daddy shoot a quarter-mile at targets the size of house door - and hit them more often than not - I did not realize that most shooters thought this stuff could not be done.

About '73 I bought a copy of SIXGUNS from the old man himself. As I read through Elmer's stuff and noted his use of the 300 gr. 45-90 rifle bullet in the old Colt. His blackpowder loads looked good and his experiments with 2400 gave me some ideas, especially since I had come into possession of a Ruger Blackhawk in 45 Colt. The heavier frame and cylinder of the Ruger vs. the Colt SAA would obviously let one push the bigger bullet to velocities more in line with what the original weight bullets could safely be run.

Using the Lyman copy of the bullet - 457191- I experimented with powder charges and primers and eventually settled on a load that averaged just under 1200 fps. This bullet and load was extremely accurate in my sixgun and had plenty of power to punch through most any critter I was gonna run across. It was also an excellent long-range bullet, retaining accuracy 'way on out there. I had a 16" truck rim hung on a tripod at a bit over 400 yards. On an average day I could ring it 3 out of 5 shots. On good days I did better. Retained velocity at that distance was pretty good as the big chunk of lead dented the rim fairly well.

Once, up on Gray's River in Wyoming myself along with John Taffin, John Linebaugh, Bob Baker and others spent some time shooting at an old log cabin at more than 1/3 of a mile. Going over and checking the cabin we found many of our slugs went in through the front log walls and out the back. One of my 300 gr. 45 slugs had gone in through the pine log in the front wall and struck an angle-iron bed frame, heavily denting the bed frame. We found the slug on the floor where it had bounced and fitted it to the indentation on the bedframe to make sure. It still had more punch than many would think possible after starting out at less than 1200 fps and flying all that distance.

Most of this was done back in the days when magazine editors would not run any stories about heavy 45 Colt loads because "everyone" knew that 45 Colt brass was weak. Everyone except those of us who had tested it that is. Eventually some common sense began to creep into print and better bullets began to be available through the use of custom molds. In time I adopted the use of a different bullet for hunting - one that had a better nose shape for quick game stopping. No .. I never did use those huge wide nosed ones much, but I opted for something in between. Something that would give me good long-range accuracy and good tissue-destroying ability. Life often is a compromise, especially if you want to use cast bullets.

After a while though I noticed that 300 gr. was no longer considered a "heavy" bullet in the 45 Colt. People were experimenting with bullets from 325 gr. on up to ridiculous. The problem was, many of the "experimenters" had no clue about such subjects as "Diminishing Returns" ... "Pressure Curves" ... "Loading Density" or other useful bits of knowledge. I saw more than a couple Rugers go up in peices .. lots of peices. That none of the shooters were injured seriously is a testimony to Ruger's engineering and God's grace. I even saw an example of Freedom Arms immensely strong 454 blown in half. I was not present when it happened I hasten to add. Also .. in my own defence, I never blew up or bulged a gun with any of my own handloads, though I did bulge a cylinder once with some factory loads and that in a .41 Magnum.

It's been quite a long time now since I have cast any bullets or even done any shooting. These days when I get back to the US I am more likely to spend time shooting my 22. We are planning on making The Shootists Holiday this next year and perhaps I will get a chance to try some long-range rock busting. Who knows? But I do know that anymore I don't enjoy the recoil of heavy bullets and heavy loads. My wrists are 66 years old at this writing and still work without pain. I am not gonna beat them any more. I kinda enjoy having parts of my body that don't ache.

But it was fun at the time.

Jim t the 7th I just turned 67 and like you I still shoot the big guns that don;t hurt shooting.

I still like my trapdoor with 70 grains of BP and kicks like a 12 guage,but it took only three shots

from a H&R single shot ten gauge 3&1/2 turkey loads to make me trade it off for 75.00 muzzel loader.

Bob

[Gaterskiner]

Great thread. I recently got the .45 Colt bug after buying A Marlin Cowboy in .45 with A 24" barrel. Since then I got A Ruger Blackhawk Bisley and A Rossi 92, 16" in .45. Just getting started loading for them. I plan on loading some hot rods but will probably keep em down some. Im 61 already and think I can load the .45 past my personal limits. It will be fun trying though!

[J Miller]

I haven't busted a cap from anything in a year and half. They're just sitting on the shelf gather dust.

But, the next time I do you can bet your bippie it won't be a dinky little .22 I do it with. The .22 S. L. LR. has never really interested me.
Pull the trigger, click ....... look at my shooting buddy and ask: "Hey, did this thing go off?"

I've never been interested in bullets much heavier than 265 grs in my .45 Colts. That's basically because my Lyman 454424 casts that weight when using wheel weights. And I figure that if I can't do it with that bullet over 9.0grs Unique or 18.5grs of 2400 at the most, then I best be using a real rifle.

I have shot some 300gr bullet loads with IMR 4227 and 2400 and I found them painful to my wrist. Very snappy recoil from my 7.5" Ruger BH.
A couple years ago I got some H110 and loaded some up. Only fired a few and they seem easier on the wrist than the faster powders.
At some point in the future I plan on doing a real decent load test on the 300gr weight in my Ruger, Winchester and Marlin. I might actually buy a mold for that weight, maybe.
But if anyone thinks I'll try anything heavier ..... they can think again.

Joe

[KirkD]

JimT, I enjoyed that. I'm just reading through Keith's Sixguns book now. It's got me doing a little Colt SAA practice in the back yard every day now, and a lot of dry firing practice as well. Once the corn comes off the field down below the back yard, long range shooting will commence.

[piller]

Thoroughly enjoyable. Thank you for sharing this.

[1894c]

Love it... I notice that I am buying and shooting more .22s nowadays. I'm a little, wee-bit jealous, I never had a log cabin to shoot at!

Right on HOBIE...i have an old friend who said that when I turn 50 i will be shooting more .22's than anything else...he was right...I have two Browning BL-22's, a Ruger Bearcat, an ancient beat-up old style Ruger Single-Six (1958), and a Beretta 21a...I have also horded 25,000 rnds. of .22 ammo...THANK YOU JimT... :)

[rjohns94]

Great read Jim. Thanks so very much

[tman]

Thank you, The industry needs more writers like you. Your short article is worth the price of a subscrition of the modern gun rags.