.45 Colt Dirty Brass Solution

[Ed Gallop]

Sorry guys... I meant 250 grain.

Faster powder does make sense. The move from Unique to the faster Trail Boss seemed to improve blowback a little. My son has Red Dot so I'll borrow some of his for a change. That is the fastest powder available locally. Ed

 

[Walkalong]

PM Sent

 

[CraigC]

deleted...

 

[Jesse Heywood]

- Cylinder Chamber is .488 to .489 and .450 to .451 at barrel end.

The bore of .451 was what I was looking for. I seem to recall a write-up saying this gun had a large cylinder bore. With yours in the "normal" range, I have to agree that you need a faster powder. I just tested some Red Dot in 455 cartridges today, and was impressed. Shot good, mild recoil, and fired clean.

 

[BigBob3006]

Ed,

I reduced dirty cases and pistol with 7.1gr of W-231 with a 250gr RNFP bullet. Also makes cleaning a stainless steel Ruger much easier.

 

[Ed Gallop]

Faster powder definitely helped. So did a tighter crimp. I still have heavily smoked brass but it cleans off by soaking 20 minutes, drying, and polishing about 3 hours (instead of 12+ hours).

Annealing brass eliminated the problem totally but I'd rather have a little powder residue than permanently discolored brass. I found that heating the brass to less than bright red reduced discoloring a lot, and still reduced blow-back, but I've only annealed 50+ brass. With the faster powder and tighter crimping I don't have a blackening problem so no need to anneal.

Thanks to all.

 

[marsofold]

I have the same problem with Starline 454 Casull Magnum brass, even using 9.8 grains of Trail Boss under a 255 grain LSWC bullet and a Lee Factory Crimp die. Blackened brass that only cleans up in the tumbler. And pretty much a max load since it almost fills the case 100% after the bullet is seated.

 

[idahoglock36]

I'm new to the 45lc but had the same problem this week. Switched from HP-38 to Unique and the problem went away.....In fact I have never seen Unique burn this clean..(what am I doing wrong, Unique never burns this clean). My HP-38 cases looked like they had chain smoked for 50 years inside out.

All I can offer for advice is change powders and put a stronger crimp on.

 

[GooseGestapo]

I solved my blow-by issues by simply matching the components and charge levels.

My 24" Winchester M94 Legacy will blow-by with most any typical factory equivalent load. The pressure just drops before the bullet leaves the barrel.

By using the thinnest brass I could find (Magtech) and UPPING the charge on the powder and using a slightly slower burning powder, I eliminated the blow-by. The slower burning powder keeps the pressure up longer, allowing the bullet to exit the barrel before the case relaxes and looses it's pressure seal.

I even tried a custom set of Lee dies I special ordered from Lee (.003 oversize on the sizer die). That didn't work either.

With 7.8gr of Universal (top load for ORIGINAL S/A's, ect.) I don't get the blow by. At 7.2, I do.

However, for my HUNTING loads with the Win M94, and Ruger BlackHawk, I use 8.7gr of Universal for 1,200fps from the rifle and 1,000fps from the 4-5/8" revolver (not max for either of these guns, but meets my velocity goal). Accuracy is amazing even at 100yds and beyond.

 

[Wireman134]

Excessive chamber diameter is to blame. Most all cambering for the .45 Colt are at the upper limit of .490", .476" case diameters, of modern springy brass have to expand .014" to seal off blow back. Combine this with the CAS mouse fart loads and you get powder dirtied brass. This also leads to incipient case separation from over working the case if full length sizing.

 

[Foto Joe]

I started shooting 45LC loaded with Black Powder a month or so ago. The blow-back issue has been a big one for me with the Black Powder. I did find that using a decent amount of compression on the powder reduced it some and pretty much mitigated the over-heating problem I was having because of it.

I think what I'm gonna try is "Not" sizing my brass next time. I've owned this gun for over 30 years and never had a problem with smokeless powders either factory or re-loads. I just don't think the BP reaches a high enough pressure to seal the chambers. Since I have to wash the brass before I tumble it anyway, the dirty brass hasn't been that big of an issue, but having a gun too hot to unload is.

 

[zxcvbob]

If you have .45 ACP or .30-06 (or .308 or .270 or...) dies, try using them to resize just the top 1/2" or so of the .45 Colt brass and leave the rest unsized. That gives you great neck tension.

 

[ClemBert]

I have a little experience with 45 Colt loads. I load with both smokeless and black powder. I can't say that I've really experienced a lot of blow-back with either.

For the smokeless loads I use 8 grains of Unique, a 0.030 fiber wad, and a 250 grain 0.452 RNFP with a very light crimp. The only firearm I've shot this particular load from is a Taurus Judge. I really haven't noticed unusual char marks. Perhaps the chambers are tight on this particular revolver.

For black powder loads I use 40 grains of compressed black powder (Goex FFFg), a 0.30 fiber wad, and a 250 grain 0.452 RNFP with a light to medium crimp. Honestly, shooting the holly black you kind of expect to get a lot of soot on your brass so compared to the smokeless loads perhaps I was looking the other way. I'll remember to take a closer look next time. So far I've only shot these loads through a Ruger Old Army with a Kirst Konverter cylinder.

Here are my loading die numbers:

0.474 - New Starline 45 Colt brass
0.470 - After using the Lee resizer/decapper die
0.472 - After using the Lee powder thru expander die (just the brass head)
0.476 - After installing the bullet (0.452) in the brass

I suppose this is a list of things one could try to minimize blow-back.

(1) Don't resize the brass
(2) Use the expander die to expand it as well as it can
(3) Compress the powder firmly (black powder only)
(4) Put a good decent crimp around the bullet to develop maximum pressure

 

[ClemBert]

After my post I went back searching for some fired brass from those loads where I used 8 grains of Unique. I inspected them for signs of blow-back. I did not find any significant evidence. They are mostly bright and shiny. The brass from the BP loads, on the other hand, definitely show that the holly black was fired through them.