Best place to buy 45 Long Colt Round Nose Flat Point

Have you considered reloading? You can reload exactly what you want for probably 1/3 the cost of buying any sort of factory .45Colt It may be as low as 1/4 the cost of the fancier specialty loads.

If you shoot a fair amount of this stuff the number of loads required to pay back the cost of the reloading equipment will be achieved in half a year or less.

I'm with BC, in .45 Colt you have to load yourself for any cost effectiveness. Even at Walmart they are over $1 per round now

Based on casting your own Lyman 454190 250gr LRNFP bullets and loading them, you can load a box of 50 for about $3.50. Compare this to the $30 - $35 per box of store bought ammo. The .45LC is DEFINITELY a cartridge that you want to reload for.

Don

What IF reloading is not an option, then what? Please understand that reloading for many folks simply isn't possible due to either space/facility constraints, age/physical issues or startup equipment and learning curve barriers. I "think" the OP wants direction on boxed ammo access, though I could be wrong.

I started handloading in a two foot space in the closet. If you want to do any appreciable amount of shooting with the .45Colt, you need to handload. It'll pay for itself in just a few boxes of overpriced ammo.

You have to reload if you shoot .45 Colt. Get a Lee Hand Press, a hand primer, a set of dies, a loading block (piece of wood or plastic with 50 holes drilled in it), and a used powder scale. That's pretty much all you need. You can use the scale to make a custom dipper out of something like a .40S&W case and a piece of wire so you don't have to weigh every charge.

You can actually get by without the loading block because .45 Colts will stand up without tipping over unless you are just *really* clumsy.

This is the cheapest I've ever found for factory .45 Colt: http://sgammo.com/product/aguila/50-round-box-45-long-colt-200-grain-lead-aguila-cowboy-action-load

If you are going to shoot .45 Colt you either need to be willing to spend through the nose or reload. I'm still paying off brass, so my cost for 50 is $9.24. Once I have all Once fired Brass, it drops to $6.74 per 50 rounds. Once I start casting it will drop to $2.75 per 50 rounds.

Lee Hand Press, Lee dies, Lee dippers, some 250 gr LSWC, some Unique powder, large primers & brass. For ~$100 you can get started and shoot far more for the same cost. It'll all fit in a small box (I used to use a 4.5" Mortar round wood box but that was bigger than I needed) and hide in a closet between sessions.

Even if you're living in a studio suite size place you can set up a minimal "one storage tote" reloading setup that fits in the space needed by four shoe boxes. And THAT is for a small bench style.

I know you asked about where to buy the ammo. But even at the lowest cost you can find for .45Colt AND with free shipping you will still be able to reload for less than half the cost per round.

Up here in Canada where all our stuff for reloading is about a third again as expensive I've got a buddy that comes over to use my press. He's reloading 200gn LRNFP bullets we buy for $66/500 from a commercial caster along with the rest of the stuff needed for 22cents a round. Even if you buy your bullets instead of melting and casting your own I strongly suspect you could cut that to around 15'ish cents per round in the US.

The small Lee progressive turret press he's using along with the other bits to reload will fit into a medium size storage tote and go into a closet. The press is mounted to a hunk of 2x10 which we're currently clamping to a hunk of the counter in my laundry room pending my new shop renos being completed. The press along with the F clamps and other various bits and pieces needed would fit into a plastic storage tote about 12x18x10 with room to spare. Although to do this the handle would need to be removed as it sticks out at an odd angle.

Once you get a little experience in reloading the time from the tote coming out of the closet to the first bullet rolling off into the catch bin would be no more than 15 minutes to set up, fill the powder and primer holders, check the charge weight to confirm nothing moved and then to start loading progressively. Cleanup and tear down from the last bullet to the closet door being closed to put the whole thing away would be about the same. In between you can easily produce 200 rounds an hour after even a little practice. My best at cranking out .38Spl on this same rig is to use up 100 primers in just over 15 minutes So around 350 an hour. And that was not a panicy pace. It left me time to watch that the primers were indexing correctly and with a sort of double bump on the lever to ensure the primers were seated well.


If you simply do not want to reload that's fine. But please don't try to convince us that you can't reload for reasons of room or ability. Like any new skill it's easy and obvious after a bit of training and time at the job. And we've shown that a lack of space is not an issue. A lack of TIME because you're working too much overtime is about the only truly good excuse to not get into re-loading. But then you're making enough extra money from all that overtime that you can't complain about the outragious prices for .45Colt, right?....

When I started out shooting 45 Colt in both pistol and rifle in CAS shooting events I did so with factory ammo. All of the stuff marked Cowboy loads is what you want and I bought what was cheapest at the time. My preference was Winchester first but not always the cheapest or easiest to find but found MagTech a good substitute. Another good source if buying in bulk is Georgia Arms for what you want. I now reload myself which really brought down my costs substantially also.

Just wondering the price to get me set up reloading, and could I reload in an old barn?

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You can get set up to reload at the kitchen table for less than $100.

A hand press gets pretty tiresome to use and it's slow. But it works.
A minimal bench-mounted press could be bolted to a piece of 2x6 and attached to the table with a couple of C clamps, and the Lee Reloader bench press is even cheaper than their hand press.

Wal Mart to actually answer the question.

They sell Winchester 250gr rnfp's at my local one.

Yes, it's a given , reloading is more cost effective in 45 Colt.

I'm with BC, in .45 Colt you have to load yourself for any cost effectiveness. Even at Walmart they are over $1 per round now

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My local Wal Mart has 50-round boxes of Federals at $32 a box. These are light loads, 225 grain bullet at around 850 fps.

zxcvbob said:

the Lee Reloader bench press is even cheaper than their hand press.

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Is there any problem with the $30 Lee press for handgun cartridges? I'm interested in reloading .32-20, which is supposed to be tricky to seat and crimp due to the fragile case, but for the same reason, I'm guessing it doesn't require lots of force to size, so maybe the open front design is not a drawback???

I might branch out into 10 mm or .45 LC if I take the plunge...

The handpress works just fine -- if anything, the feel it gives you, and it's reduced leverage is better for cases with thin brass.

I was thinking of Lee's cheapest bench press:
http://leeprecision.com/reloader-press.html

Does the hand press change the workflow of loading? By which I guess I mean, is the depriming/priming process the same? How much different is the speed vs. a single press?

Here's the manual for that cheap bench-mounted press: http://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/CF1391.pdf

What I can't tell from it is how the press handles spent primers. With the hand press, they accumulate in the ram until it gets full, then you have to remove the shellholder and dump them -- except the shellholder is stuck because it has a primer jammed up the back.

I will guess that the bench press's ram is drilled all the way thru and the spent primers fall out the bottom. That would be a big improvement for productivity, but might be messy -- it depends if you can attach a hose to the bottom to direct the primers into a coffee can, or if you can position a wastebasket under the whole thing and collect them that way. I've never seen one of the presses in person so I can't say. I wish the manual said something about it.

The Lee Reloader press dumps them on the bottom but not on the floor. There are two ways to deal with the spent primers though. Remove the press and sweep the spent primers up or like I did put a 2" funnel under the press, bolt it down with the funnel through the mount and add a tube to feed them to a jar or garbage can.

This is the setup I've got for now until I get my Dillon unpacked.

http://leeprecision.com/product.php?productid=3780&cat=6300&page=1

Changes I made were to not use the case feeder or auto indexing. I found that one little hitch and the trail of disaster was long and ugly. By making it a manually indexed press I have a lot more control and can more readily recover from a mishap by indexing around to remove the cases that are in process and replace them correctly. And trust me, "stuff" happens that will cause you to need to do such things on a regular enough basis that it's well worth removing the auto indexing feature. Same with the case feeder that I never could get to work just right. It would work fine for 10'ish or so cases then suddenly stick or otherwise jam up the works.

I did not realize that these Lee setups cost this much when new. But they can typically be found on sale for less or found used for much less.

If you want to go simple for now then a single position style press isn't a bad option. It can always fill some other useful function later after you jump in with BOTH feet and go for a progressive setup. But in the meantime to avoid having to reset the dies each time it's nice to go with a breech or bayonet style system for the repeatability of locking the dies in place as needed. Lee makes a breechlock version and Hornady has their Lock n' Load system that use this sort of each and fast change style systems.

Does the hand press change the workflow of loading? By which I guess I mean, is the depriming/priming process the same? How much different is the speed vs. a single press?

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I prefer to prime with a Lee Autoprime -- much faster and better than the average priming setup on any single-stage press.

The Lee handpress is no different from a single stage press in terms of function or operation -- it just doesn't have quite as much leverage. On the other hand, you can keep your whole reloading room in a tool chest in the closet.

:banghead: How did this thread get from buying .45 LC ammo to reloading? To repeat, some of us aren't interested in reloading.

To put it bluntly, if you're not interested in reloading, you don't plan on shooting very much or becoming very proficient.

Because at the cost of buying .45Colt ammo it is only fair and prudent to suggest reloading as a cost effective option. Some folks simply do not realize just how easy it is to get into cost effective reloading and soldier on buying high priced factory ammo. Buck would appear to be such a soul from his replies. At least I don't see him telling the reloading folks to shove off.....

Buck13 said:

Does the hand press change the workflow of loading? By which I guess I mean, is the depriming/priming process the same? How much different is the speed vs. a single press?

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A hand press or single stage press with hand priming does alter how you proceed. It'll also slow things down to around 120 to 150 rounds per hour for your time. But it does bring the cost of equipment down. Before we found the progressive indexing table for the Lee my buddy and I were using my press as a single stage with single operations. We used a block of 2x6 drilled to hold 50 cases at a time.

The operations were;

1. Clean the brass by washing in a mix of liquid laundry soap and vinegar with water. A dash of soap, two cups of vinegar and a quart to quart and a half of water. Stir around every 2 to 3 minutes and soak for 10 minutes total. Rinse well and lay out to dry for a couple of days in a warm'ish spot.
2. Size and deprime using the sizing die. I found that spritzing a SMALL amount of WD40 onto a layer of 3 paper towels and then rolling the brass around on it provides just enough lubrication to the case outsides that they slip in and out of the sizer nicely. Note that this is no where near enough lubing to make the cases look at all wet. It's very minimal.
3. If you don't have a powder dropping setup to go with the flaring die then now is the time to run them through the flaring die. The flare should be just barely wide enough that the bullet sits with stability in the flare instead of teetering around half in and half out of the flare.
4. Use a Lee or other hand primer tool to prime the cases.
5. If you didn't flare the cases before priming because you have a powder and flaring step all in one now is the time to powder and flare. Otherwise a small funnel and powder scoop that drops the correct amount is used to powder the cases. After you are done use a small flashlight and double check for powder and proper level before seating bullets. THIS IS A HIGHLY IMPORTANT STEP TO AVOID MISHAPS! ! ! !
6. Set the bullet and seat to proper depth. With cast lead rounds this is easy since the bullets all have a cannalure groove to indicate the proper depth. You want the crimp to just squeeze into this groove in such a way that the narrowest possible amount of the groove is still showing.
7. Sit back and smile at all the little "soldiers" lined up and waiting to serve you.

I should also note that if you use dies which have actual effective locking rings instead of the O ring Lee dies that a screw style single stage would work just fine since the collar/nuts can actually be locked nicely to the die body. And with a solid lock like that the screw style press will allow positive and repeatable placement of the dies as they are switched for each operation. So using the better dies from RCBS or Hornady does negate my suggestion of the breechlock or lockn'load options as almost a requirement for decent speed and simplicity.

Paul is right though. It's quickly shifting towards reloading....