Reloading 45LC. Seeking advice...TIA

[diginit]

I'm familiar to loading the 45ACP (with Bullseye, 231, and Unique,under 185 to 230gr bullets) and 5.56. (NA). But Just PPT'd a Barretta Stampede, 5" barrel, from a friend and it came with 200 rnds of 255 gr. ammo, new Lee dies, and a bunch of brass.
I never reloaded Long Colt before. Do I have to trim the brass? If so, what length is optimum? With the size of this brass, Are Magnum primers used or will standard LP primers be OK? What's a good powder? What is the Min and Max gr bullet to use in a 45LC and what gr shoots the best? Any other tips would be appreciated. Pet loads also...

[SnWnMe]

Woohoo! This my fave cartridge to load. I don't have my notes nor tables and I don't want to go by memory but I just use factory and Lee tables for W231 and 255 gr slugs. I use both regular and magnum primers (whatever the last gun show had basically) but I never hot rod the caliber so it is not a concern for me. I imagine that given your platform you won't heat it up either. Anyway, try it out with regular pressure loads for now. It's fun as it is!

Congrats on the new acquisitions.

[Peter W Bush]

Tagged. Just picked up an old Vaquero last week. Waiting on dies and bullets to come in. Damn I hate adding a caliber...

[Bongos]

the nice thing about reliading is it doesn't matter what caliber you buy, you can shoot often and not cost a bunch!
Raineir Bullets are good, look ar W231 or trailboss for powder

[diginit]

WOOHOO is right! $435 + dros for everything. And she has only had 200 rnds fired. Oh, He drove from Fresno to San Jose today to dros her, So I gave him 50 bucks for gas. So 485 + DROS.
Just found out I should trim to 1.275 after doing some reading. I use 231 for my 45ACP so that is a good thing. Still not sure what gr. bullets I'm going to use though.




Oh yea. Came with a drop holster too! The only drag is that it is too big for me. So either a leather shop or the marketplace is a future stop... Here's the kicker... I'm picking her up on my birthday in 10 days...

[Southpaw45]

Let me tell you what I do. Im an addicted Cowboy Action Shooter. I reload and shoot any were from 5 to 6 thousand rounds of .45 Colt a year doing matches and practice. After some years of testing different loads, I have settled on one that works good for me.

205 grain Bear Creek cast bullet
5.5grs of Trail Boss powder
any standard L.P primer
crimp heavy

There is no need at all to trim your brass. I have brass that must have been loaded a hundred times and I never trimmed them. Theres a lot of good powders that work just fine in the .45 Colt. Ones that come to mind are Clays, 231, Unique and Titegroup. I settled on Trail Boss just because its designed for large capacity cartridges like the .45 and It would be really hard to do a double charge with it so its safe. Keep in mind that my load is light for less recoil and you can load heavy if using Ruger Vaqueros...

[diginit]

I mic'ed the brass. They were anywhere from 1.277 to 1.287. In order to achieve a uniform crimp, I trimmed them to 1.275 as per my manual. 1.287 will dig into the bullets more than 1.277 and is .002 over max case length. I would either have a light or heavy crimp without trimming. Resulting in very inconsistant loads.

You just raised more questions. How strong are the Beretta MOD stampede's? The fit and finish look great. But what about the steel? How does Trailboss meter? I know 231 runs well through a measure. Unique doesn't meter as well but is sooo much cleaner and can push a bullet faster than 231 safely. My 200 gr 45ACP loads clear ave. 910 FPS with room to go faster with Unique. But this load is more accurate at 50 than 200's at 990 or the 185's I clocked at 1100. Still not at max. With 231 I got 900 fps max safely. So I guess I do push the envelope abit with the 1911. But it is eaiser to rebarrel than a colt style revolver. So I will load lighter for the LC.

It's going to be a long 10 days... I'll be back to look for more answers to my list of questions. Thanks for the responses guys.

[The King]

like the song says, "Eight Grains Unique."

[Cowboy T]

How I handle .45 Long Colt

The .45 Colt is my second favorite cartridge to reload--first is .38 Special--and I shoot a lot of both. It is a wonderful cartridge and has not stopped being wonderful in its (currently) 138-year-long history.

While Unique is "the" traditional powder for .45 Colt and continues to work very well here, other powders are also good. I happen to use Titegroup for my softer loads. It's a little sooty at the lower pressures, but it gets the job done nicely.

The key to non-hot-rodded .45 Colt is using very soft lead, no harder than BHN 8 if you can, and using properly sized bullets for your chambers. Will harder cast bullets work? Of course they will, but if they're not sized right, you will get gas cutting and the resultant leading (I found that out the hard way).

Now, down the road, if you end up with a gun that can take it (e. g. a Ruger "old model" Blackhawk or a Super Redhawk 454), you can hot-rod the .45 Colt to .44 Magnum power levels. But do not even THINK about trying that in a SAA or any clones thereof! Only T/C's and *certain* Rugers for hot-rod rounds!

[NotEnufGarage]

like the song says, "Eight Grains Unique."

What song is that?

[choprzrul]

What song is that?

Kinda rhymes with '8 days a week'.

.

[elnielsen]

Good info. I reload .45LC and .40 and a few others. This time I'm lazy and having someone else do it all and then I'll take back over as I shoot and free up some brass. I found Mastercast.net
45 Colt 225 Gr FP (Cast .452 Dia.) 840 $11.75
when you send in your brass for them to reload. $11.75/50, this is amazing. No matter how bad it is that's so cheap for not having to do the work myself.

I use Unique and started out with 255grain jacketed HPs, I suppose there's no reason not to just use lead bullets except that I was getting the leading. Can't remember if that was from bullets I had bought, for ones I had cast myself. I'm pretty sure I had added 5% tin, someone told me to do that and I believed em.

[Cowboy T]

With .45 Colt, the softer the lead, the better off you are. This is a low pressure round, about 13,000 CUP/PSI (the same applies to .44 Special). Ideal hardness for this round is BHN 8. "Pure" lead, around BHN 5, is not too soft for this round!

Mastercast.net is fine stuff, good enough for the NRA to resell at their range in the Washington, DC area. The bullets that they use are hard-cast, about BHN 18, like many other bullet/ammo houses. Assuming your gun doesn't have...umm, "generously sized" chambers and bore, it should be OK with minimal leading.

[diginit]

225's huh. I prefer Moly coated lead. No leading in the ACP. Maybe I'll just try using the 230gr RN for both and see how that works. From the 2 manuals I have, It seems that 255gr is the heavest I should run with 175gr cast being the lightest. What do most Cowboy/Colt shooters prefer? A lighter,faster bullet or a heavier,slower one?

[Southpaw45]

Competitive Cowboy action shooters prefer a lighter slower bullet like a 200 to 205 grain bullet for reduced recoil with smokeless powder. Black powder Cowboy shooters load a heavier bullet like 250 to 255 grain bullets. The black powder shooters dont worry much about recoil because of the powders burn rate, recoil is more of a push. They just want more smoke and flame...