Any suggestions for loading 225 FTX in the 45 Colt for the 460 XVR?

For hot 296 or 110 - I load medium and 10 grains of Unique might get you 1,100 fps. I don't think you want to drive that bullet to the max as I doubt it will stay in one piece.

I would assume you need to talk to Hornady, since it's fairly new. For speed, they show the 225 in 44 mag up to 1750 fps.

Do you have any Casull brass?
That's a rifle bullet; I assume you will be shooting from a long-barrel handgun? (8-ish inches?)

I've been playing with QuickLoad, and it looks like about 26.5 grains of Alliant 2400 in .454 Casull brass should be a good starting place, and 2400 is a lot more flexible than 296 if you find you need to reduce the load. (OAL doesn't make any difference because it will be *way* under the 65000 psi limit -- about 40000 psi) You should get about 1800 fps from your XVR, which is in range for what a .45 Colt jacketed rifle bullet should expect.

I used a Hornady XTP MAG bullet #45220 for the calculations, reducing the weight from 240 gn to 225. Be careful, this is just a simulation using a lot of assumptions. Do not try it with .45 Colt brass until you get real data from Hornady. HTH

I would email Hornady - example - there are three .452 XTPs one is for .45 Colt and two are for "Mag" (i.e. .454/.460 or I suppose "Ruger Only") - Hornady loads the Leverevolution FTX 225 at 960 FPS for 460 ft lbs out of a 4.75" barrel. They load the 225 grain FTX .44 mag at 1410 and 933 ft lbs out of a 7.5 inch barrel. I would have to think the .45 Colt version might not be able to take "Ruger only" loads at 1,300 fps plus. I still think 10 grains of Unique would be a great load. If you are punching paper it would not make difference but if you are hunting or for self defense I can't see how 1,100 FPS would not work on most anything with 605 ft lbs. I still think it will "blow-up" at "Mag" levels but Hornady should know.

If you have any of the originals, you could chronograph them to find out what the velocity really was, then duplicate it pretty easily.

If you want to keep it down to 1200-1300 fps, use .45 Colt brass with 10 grains of Unique or 11 grains of Herco. (I shoot 255 grain cast bullets in my Blackhawk sometimes with 12 grains of Herco) If that's still too fast for you, just back off the powder a little more until you get what you want.

If it was me, and I couldn't wait to get the proper info from Hornady, I would load them to the specs given for their 250gr XTP in .45 LC cases and work from there using the same practices as developing any new load. Your certainly aren't gonna hurt the gun if they're a little hot, but by rights, starting at the min load for a heavier bullet, your load should not be hot at all.

Now believe me Scrapperz, and excuse me if I am, cause I'm not trying to be critical here, but IMHO I see no advantage to paying the premium price for the LEVERevolution bullets to be shot outta a handgun. The flex tip is basically to improve ballistics at rifle velocities and to be safe to use in tubular magazines. Neither of which applies to a .460 handgun loaded to standard .45 LC velocities. Hornady's 250gr XTP is cheaper and performs very well at .45 LC velocities and there is a wealth of proven reloading info out there for it. Bullets designed for .45 LC can be safely loaded and shot outta .460 cases with reduced loads and are accurate and much cheaper than the Premium Red Tips. Now I realize if one has a box of 'em, it don't make sense to not load and shoot them(been there, done that), but other than they look cool, I cannot see any advantage to use them in a handgun. Hornady's 240gr and 300gr XTP'Mags are excellent bullets for the .460 and can also be shot using moderate loads that shoot very comfortably outta a 8 3/8'' XVR. I have a load using 260 gr Speer JHPs(I got a bunch cheap) and a reduced load of IMR4227 that shoots almost to the same POA as my 240/300gr. hunting loads.

Also Thank You for your suggestion as I will probably try it eventually.

Click to expand...

No problem. Loading for the .460 has been a challenge for me and after 3 years I think I'm starting to get 'er figured out. Originally there was not a whole lot of info for the cartridge out there and what was varied widely and most of the time was too hot for me and my gun. I've now taken a conservative approach to reloading for it and have found by chrono-ing my loads that my velocities are not suffering for it. I see on another forum you got the suggestion to try Trail Boss. This is something I have been playing around with and have had good results with. Go to the the Hodgdon web site.....they have a formula there for developing reduced loads with TB. I e-mailed them and they said assured me that the formula would work for jacketed bullets and the .460.

Here is a link.....Trail Boss Reduced Loads

FYI, I loaded some 250 grain FTX bullets in 45 Colt cases for my Blackhawk. I tried a few different loads but 9.7 grains of Unique gave me 1075 or so across the chrony, again with the 250 grn FTX. I tried 2400 but was on the low side at 18.5 or so grains, same bullet.

have you guys had any issues using normal 250gr xtp at full loads?
and any suggestions for 250 gr hard cast bullets?

Folks, I have been using these for some time now, and I have to point out that these bullets were designed for RIFLE VELOCITIES, hence the groundbreaking soft polymer tip, something specifically created to allow spitzer bullets -- with their much better ballistic coefficients -- to be safely loaded into tubular magazine (mainly lever action) rifles for the first time.
I load these all the way to the levels recommended safe only in the Ruger Blackhawk/Colt Anaconda/Dan Wesson/Ruger Redhawk/Thompson Contender .45 Colt guns.
The bullets hold together just fine and in fact show good accuracy from my 7.5" barreled Blackhawk.
I currently am going to hunt deer with them using the same loads in my new Marlin 1894 in .45 Colt, and my Chrony indicates they are moving along at a warm 1560fps from its 20" barrel.
My load consists of 25 grains of W296, fired by a Federal large pistol magnum primer from Starline brass.
From my Marlin, I was able to put the entire magazine of ten rounds into a single ragged hole @ 50 yards.
Keep in mind here that these loads are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS in Colt SAA, any of the various clones (Uberti, etc.), the Colt New Service, S&W 25, and any other .45 Colt not mentioned above that can withstand these "+P" level loads.
In other words, if your .45 Colt gun is not expressly listed as safe for firing Corbon's +P or Buffalo Bore or Double Tap, do NOT fire them in your gun.
Oh, and the bullets hang together just fine at the well over 1500 fps I am getting out of my Marlin.
Remember, these were designed for RIFLES, so all the hyper-cautiousness about kicking them up in the .460VXR is ridiculous.