Just purchased a snubby CA Bulldog in the 45 Colt and am looking for some fairly tame plinking handloads. My powders on hand: IMR 7625, Bullseye, HP38, Accurate #5, and Titegroup. Just ordered some Missouri Bullet #1 Cowboy 250 grain Hi-Tek bullets. The revolver will arrive at my FFL later this week. I have the Lee handbook and a spiral bound load book for 45 Colt that I just got from Cabela's. I also have looked at a couple of web sites: MD Smith's and Steve's Pages. If there are "better" powders please share. Thanks.
Need recoil friendly plinking handload for CA Bulldog in 45 Colt
- Thread starter nevadabob
- Start date
- Status
Mr_Flintstone
Member
My immediate thoughts are Trail Boss, but the bottom end on all of those are pretty tame.
Jerry M
Member
Starline brass came out with just what you need for reduced loads in .45 Colt.
https://www.starlinebrass.com/45-cowboy-special
Good luck
https://www.starlinebrass.com/45-cowboy-special
Good luck
the Black Spot
Member
I've used bullseye in 45 colt bulldog for low end shooting. Even 6 gr of unique is not bad with 250 gr bullets
RealGun
Member
I am currently loading 45 Cowboy Special with 160 grain coated lead (Bullets by Scarlett) and 6.1 gr HP38/W231, which is .3 gr below Lyman minimum. It would probably burn a bit cleaner at 6.4. 4.7 Titegroup ran well also. Note that this is a 45 ACP load, one among several candidates, since the cartridge is the same except for a rim. My rifle uses 45 Colt running 4.5 gr of Trailboss and 255 LRNFP from Penn. These are loads lightened for Cowboy Action but would serve for practicing fundamentals. For a carry gun I would favor 45 Colt, simply loaded to published minimum.
Note that the lighter bullet helps to provide minimum recoil.
BCR#1
member
If you use 200 grain LSWC boolits, you could back the powder off even more.
Bill
Bill
Thanks again for more info! If the 250 gr bullets make it too jumpy then I'll back down on the bullet weight. A concern I have re the lighter bullets is decreased bearing surface. Usually a lighter bullet calls for increased powder (Lee: 200 gr lead bullet calls for 6.5 gr Titegroup while the 250 gr lead bullet uses only 5.5 gr Titegroup)
Last edited:
RealGun
Member
Not sure which post you are referring to, but data for a lighter bullet indicates a load with more powder to achieve similar pressure.
- Status
Similar threads
