After years of lurking here in handloading and reloading I just loaded up my first 10 rounds of .45 colt last night - a 255gr Keith over 8.5 grains of Unique and WLP primers.
A couple of questions:
1.) Since this was my first time, I neurotically I weighed every charge, but now I'm curious - how case filling is Unique? At 8.5, I seem to be a little less than half full.
2) Roll crimp. I felt like I couldn't get enough crimp, so I kept crimping these until the die was about maxed out (in relation to the shell-holder). The cartridges don't appear squashed and chamber cleanly, but I'm curious if you can "over-crimp" rounds like this.
3) In my pile of mish-mash .45 colt brass, I have a bunch of PMC and PMC +P+ cases that have mouths that are not even / concentric - should these be trimmed to an equal length before trying to use them? It seems like left as is, the crimp would suffer.
These will get launched from a 5.5" Ruger Blackhawk...
Anyway, thanks for any tips - I're lurked in this part of the forum forever, and appreciate all of the information that's been made available here.
A couple of questions:
1.) Since this was my first time, I neurotically I weighed every charge, but now I'm curious - how case filling is Unique? At 8.5, I seem to be a little less than half full.
2) Roll crimp. I felt like I couldn't get enough crimp, so I kept crimping these until the die was about maxed out (in relation to the shell-holder). The cartridges don't appear squashed and chamber cleanly, but I'm curious if you can "over-crimp" rounds like this.
3) In my pile of mish-mash .45 colt brass, I have a bunch of PMC and PMC +P+ cases that have mouths that are not even / concentric - should these be trimmed to an equal length before trying to use them? It seems like left as is, the crimp would suffer.
These will get launched from a 5.5" Ruger Blackhawk...
Anyway, thanks for any tips - I're lurked in this part of the forum forever, and appreciate all of the information that's been made available here.