45 long colt - cowboy action loads vs home defense loads vs the original load?

[Nicodemus38]

the original load for the 45 "government" that the us army specified was 40 grns black powder and 250 grain bullet. modern testing has shown it can creat 1,000 fps in a 7.5" and longer pistol barrel.
the load was reduced to 35 grains of powder, and then to 30 grains of powder to make shooting easier.

cowboy action loads are just designed to get the bullet out of the barrel and to group consistently. giving htem ammunition that would generate full house energy and recoil levels would have most of them shooting air.

 

[Leaky Waders]

OK, so no chronograph for Christmas...I'll search the threads and see which one to order.

So, of the 100 rounds of 230 grains honrady LRN loaded over 7.3 grains Universal (the weighed amount that fills a lee .7cc dipper) and using large pistol primers (remington no. 2 1/2)...the following was observed.

Out of my S&W model 25 - all of the rounds felt very comfortable to shoot and hit the paper at 7 yards. My oldest son and brother in law liked the low recoil.

In the old style vaquero, 7 rounds dented the primers but did not fire. After placing these rounds in the S&W - 4 fired. Three left the primers deeper dented but no firing.

I'm wondering if I had my primers too far into the case? Or if the primers were just no good? Or something else. I have the bullets saved - I need a bullet puller and will get one tomorrow or soon after and examine the bullets after taking them apart.

I also found some remnants of unburned powder on the S&W. I'm not sure what's up with that. Maybe the primers are not hot enough to ignite the load?

I plan on getting some unique powder to use soley for my 45 colt loads, is there a certain primer manufacturer I should strive for?

Overall it was a fun time and everyone enjoyed the shooting. The stump that the targets were stapled to has quite a hole in it now.

L.W.

 

[Sport45]

I also found some remnants of unburned powder on the S&W. I'm not sure what's up with that. Maybe the primers are not hot enough to ignite the load?

This is not unusual with low pressure rounds like the .45 Colt. If you up the charge a little bit the powder will burn better. When I'm shooting Unique in my Redhawk I'll find the bench littered with powder afterwords.

I'm wondering if I had my primers too far into the case? Or if the primers were just no good? Or something else.

I vote for something else. It's darn near impossible to get primers "too far" into the case as they need to be seated to the bottom of the pocket and crushed in a tiny bit. And that many primers being bad all in the same cylinder is unheard of. When you decap them you can look and see if the anvils are missing but I doubt they are. Even if the cases were empty I'd think the primer would have pushed the bullet out of the case. How heavy was the crimp?

I plan on getting some unique powder to use soley for my 45 colt loads, is there a certain primer manufacturer I should strive for?

I've been using Unique and find it to work very well in the .45 Colt. Any primer should light it off. I've used Federal, Winchester, and now Wolf large pistol primers and them all seem to work fine. So just use whatever you can find until the dealer stocks start improving.