Loading holy black 45 colt. Questions and recomendations

Status
Not open for further replies.
grter said:
Bear vs flintlock


Click to expand...


Inland grizzlies do this with modern stuff too. One critter I have 0 interest in ever hunting! If they realize where it came from you’re in deep doo doo unless you got a CNC hit.
 
grter said:
Bear vs flintlock


Click to expand...



Mr.grtr...that clip is one of my favorite parts of the movie. I heard the bear only did half his role and the rest was a stunt double bear..and his grunts were a voice over done by Morgan Freeman using state of the art electronic voice filters that mimic animal sounds. Pshhh..Hollywood
 
rodwha said:
Inland grizzlies do this with modern stuff too. One critter I have 0 interest in ever hunting! If they realize where it came from you’re in deep doo doo unless you got a CNC hit.
Click to expand...


Id love to hunt one....buuuuut only with a heavy wide meplat conical in .54-.58+ caliber aaaaaand with a couple back up rifles ready to shoot and some buddies standing by with slug shooting shotguns.
 
TheOutlawKid said:
Sounds like a very good and simple load that others, especially new shooters, can use. Care to share what you think the volume of powder youre using? Im sure others would like to maybe try the same but are a bit intimidated with "eyeballing" a load measurment. Good stuff and thanks for sharing.
Click to expand...

I'd have to review my notes at home, but I believe it is 28 grains in nickel Starline cases. Different cases (and different bullets, of course) require different volume, though, which is why I never suggest a particular weight when loading BP cartridges. I just use a dial caliper to measure the shank of the bullet to the crimp groove, and then - using the depth rod on the caliper - add powder into the case until the base of the bullet will compress it about 1/16th of an inch.
 
TheOutlawKid said:
Id love to hunt one....buuuuut only with a heavy wide meplat conical in .54-.58+ caliber aaaaaand with a couple back up rifles ready to shoot and some buddies standing by with slug shooting shotguns.
Click to expand...

My dream would be/is to hunt grizz, but I don't think I'll ever be able to afford a trip to Alaska, and if I shot one up North where I hunt, and we have grizz, I can't afford the fines, or worse yet, losing my hunting license for five years or more. !!! But if I did, I think my 1861 Springfield or .62" Jeager might do the job better than a revolver. I'd not feel naked with my Brown Bess, 140 grains of black and that big .69" round ball, but then I'd have to get closer. And for sure, I'd want my son behind me with a .458" something or other. ;)
 
2.2 cc dipper in 45 colt case (2f or 3f). I use the big lube 200 gr for my 24" rifles (like the extra lube groove size) and a normal 200 gr Missouri Bullet Co with BP lube for the Ruger OMV's (enough lube for a 5.5" barrel)
 
treedoc1 said:
Don't think these are anemic cowboy loads.View attachment 962657
Click to expand...

Heck no that aint look anemic at all! Great pic! I just dont see why these full black powder loads with a .45 cal bullet at 200+ grains are considered weak or undergunned. They truly are a great combination and that soft pure or close to pure soft lead really does amazing damage on game. If i had a cartridge rifle it would be a lever gun in 38-55, and maybe 45-70...and i would go up against bear cofidently with any of those loaded with black powder behind the bullet. But im a classic muzzleloader guy and have faith in a .54 cal with a 380 grain REAL bullet...i have a very good friend in alaska who hunts all year long and says .50 cal round ball is all thats needed to take down the large black bear in the area and i trust his judgement on what will do the job well as he gets atleast a few bear every year. I bet a .45 cal REAL bullet at 250 grains would take down a large black bear considering it weighs more than a .54 roundball at 230 grains yet has better sectional density.
 
Blackpowderwarrior said:
That was terrifying, ill never look at my bear brethren the same. Here in the Blue ridge smoky mountains we have some pretty damn good sized bears. Theres an ol' tsalagi Indian tradition down here about black bears
Click to expand...

Ok now you piqued my interest.. What is the tsalagi indian tradition?
 
Ugly Sauce said:
My dream would be/is to hunt grizz, but I don't think I'll ever be able to afford a trip to Alaska, and if I shot one up North where I hunt, and we have grizz, I can't afford the fines, or worse yet, losing my hunting license for five years or more. !!! But if I did, I think my 1861 Springfield or .62" Jeager might do the job better than a revolver. I'd not feel naked with my Brown Bess, 140 grains of black and that big .69" round ball, but then I'd have to get closer. And for sure, I'd want my son behind me with a .458" something or other. ;)
Click to expand...

Hunting grizz would be nice...but id suffice for black bear. I dunno what id do with all that grizz meat...as i eat what i kill. My freezer would be packed for years from just one bear. But i know if the opportunity came up at a shot for grizz i would take it lol. And that .62 jeager would be just about perfect for a roundball load. I know id feel real comfortable with that large of a roundball.
 
rodwha said:
I’m wondering if the huge lube grooves are necessary when shooting the dirtier powders. I shoot 3F Olde Eynsford and the bullets I created have small lube grooves and I shoot all day long without problems and clean up is quite easy. Nor do I see a degradation in accuracy (talking up to 10 cylinders from each revolver). Also shot a lot of T7, but it doesn’t foul like BP so I don’t consider it a fair example.
Click to expand...

Howdy Again

First of all, let's go over the purpose of bullet lube. With Smokeless powder, bullet lube on lead bullets helps prevent friction from causing heat to from build up on the outside of the bullet. As we all know, bullets resize themselves to fit the rifling as they travel the length of a barrel, so by definition bullets are an interference fit in the rifling of a barrel. Without any bullet lube, friction of the bullet against the bore would quickly build up to the point where the outside of the bullet would become soft and lead would adhere to the barrel. That's why we use bullet lube, to cut down on the friction and keep the outside of a lead bullet from overheating and melting. Even with lube on a bullet, there is a 'velocity barrier' (I just made that up) and at some given velocity lead bullets will begin to soften and melt. Copper jackets on jacketed bullets have a higher melting point than lead, so there is no need for bullet lube on jacketed bullets.

If no lube is present, Black Powder fouling will tend to build up in the rifling of a barrel. It quickly forms a hard caked on deposit. Depending on how many shots are fired, this deposit can clog the rifling and cause inaccuracy. The hard caked fouling is also difficult to remove when it comes time for cleaning. Black Powder bullet lube has to perform two functions. A good Black Powder bullet lube will be soft and gooey. In addition to lubricating the bullet as it goes down the bore, BP compatible bullet lube will combine with the fouling and keep it soft, the fouling does not form a hard caked deposit. The lube gets shed from the lube groove as the bullet makes its way down the bore, and leaves behind a mixture of fouling and bullet lube. This mixture stays soft, and each succeeding bullet wipes out the fouling left behind by the previous bullet and leaves some soft fouling behind, to be in turn swept out by the next bullet. In this way, the fouling stays soft, accuracy remains good, and cleanup with water based solvents later on is a snap.

To get back to the question, yes. I used to talk about this with a guy on another forum years ago. If you look at traditional old Black Powder bullet designs, none of them have the type of huge, deep lube groove the Big Lube bullets have. And there are different grades of powder that leave behind different amounts of fouling. I used to use Goex pretty exclusively, and Goex is pretty dirty stuff. I always find it interesting that the old tins of Goex said 'Black Rifle Powder' on them. Goex is pretty dirty stuff, it leaves a lot of fouling behind, and during the 19th Century it probably would have been classified as Musket Powder, not Rifle Powder.

pmQaEI2qj.jpg




Anyway, I used to chat with another shooter on another forum about this. This fellow was always arguing with me that he did not see the need for huge lube grooves in a rifle bullet because he was shooting a powder that did not leave as much fouling behind. I don't think Old E was on the market yet, he was probably using Swiss, which definitely leaves less fouling behind than Goex. At the time, there were some bullet designs on the market that were sold specifically as Black Powder bullets. Most of them had two shallow lube grooves on them. If you look in the Lyman catalog you can find several molds like this. Anyway, I bought a few boxes of 'black powder bullets' with two shallow lube grooves filled with some sort of BP compatible bullet lube. None of them carried enough lube to keep the fouling soft in the 24" barrel of a rifle. The bore was 'starved for lube' the last six inches or so from the muzzle and hard fouling began to build up. This was with Goex. My friend who was using Swiss did not have the same problem because he was probably using Swiss, which generates less fouling than Goex. It got down to a matter of economics. I used to go through a lot of powder every year during CAS season, probably close to 20 pounds or so. Besides Swiss being more expensive, I could buy Goex locally, so I could buy a few pounds at a time. If I wanted to use Swiss no place local carried it, I would have to have it shipped to me, so I would have to buy a large amount and invest a sizeable amount of money in powder. So Big Lubes and Goex worked best for me. Because I shoot Black Powder in cartridges both in revolvers and rifles, I only keep Big Lube bullets on hand because they work well in revolvers and rifles.

In this photo, left to right the three bullets are the Big Lube Mav-Dutchman 200 grain 44 caliber bullet, one of the commercial 44 caliber bullets I tried with two shallow lube grooves, and a standard commercial hard cast 44 caliber bullet with one shallow lube groove pan lubed with BP bullet lube. Notice the different amounts of lube carried by each bullet. The one I settled on was the Big Lube bullet because it was the only bullet that carried enough lube to keep the entire length of a 44-40 rifle barrel coated with soft bullet lube.

pnXntUlpj.jpg




While we are still talking about Big Lube bullets in revolvers, there is one more function that BP bullet lube does in a revolver. It keeps the fouling blasted out of the barrel/cylinder gap soft. As I said before, this is critical to keeping a revolver functioning without binding. And as I also said, you can get away with less bullet lube on a revolver that has a bushing on the front of the cylinder. The Original Poster is talking about using cartridges in a Colt style C&B revolver, which lacks a bushing on the front of the cylinder. So he is going to need all the lube he can get on his bullets, to keep the fouling blasted onto the cylinder arbor soft. As I said before, with my Remingtons which lack a cylinder bushing, even with Big Lube bullets lubed with soft bullet lube, I have to wipe the face of the cylinder off after every cylinder full, or the cylinder will begin to bind.

Regarding using bullets with thin grooves filled with BP lube in a revolver, been there, done that many years ago. The pan lubed bullet on the right in the photo above was OK for a revolver, it did not cut the mustard for a rifle. Same with the bullet with two shallow lube grooves. The only bullet style that worked in a rifle barrel was the big lube style. I tried all the other tricks too. Adding a grease cookie under the bullet caused the bullet to become glued to the base of the bullet, causing it to fly like a lopsided dart and ruining accuracy. I needed to add a card between the bullet and the lube cookie to prevent it from sticking to the bullet, and a card between the lube cookie and the powder to keep the powder from being adulterated with lube. Let's see now, pour in powder, add card wad, add lube cookie, add second card wad, seat and crimp bullet. Do that 200 times for 4 boxes of ammo. Way, way too much work. Not to mention that shooting a CAS match with those cartridges I had to stop halfway through the day and swab out my rifle barrel or accuracy would suffer. When I discovered Big Lube bullets I stopped doing all that extra work and never looked back. Pour in powder and seat and crimp bullet. Done. Yes, bullets are expensive, but the cost more than makes up for all the extra work for me. No more swabbing out the rifle barrel halfway through the match, I have gone to two day matches, not cleaned my guns the night of the first day, and shot the second day with no problems. No binding, no loss of accuracy. I will never go back to the old way of doing things after I discovered Big Lube bullets.
 
Last edited:
Howdy Again

There was no bear involved in the dreadful scene in The Revenant when Leonardo DiCaprio's character is attacked by a bear. The production designer stated there were no live bears used to film the scene, there were no bears on the set. They originally considered using a live bear, but all the trained bears he looked at were fat and would not look like a wild, lean Grizzly bear in the early 1800s. The scene was entirely shot with a stuntman in a special suit, and the bear was created in the studio using Computer Generated Imagery. The scene was rehearsed with stuntmen for months before they got to the location. When they got to the location the actor was strapped to harnesses and off camera stunt crew yanked the harnesses to make it look like he was being thrown about by a bear. The area was dressed with 25 foot tall rubber trees so when the actor was slammed into them he would not be hurt.

https://thecomeback.com/pop-culture...-was-really-a-stuntman-in-a-blue-costume.html
 
One More Post

Holy Black

Sorry if I offended some with my take on this term. When I first started shooting Cowboy Action Shooting around 20 years ago, there were a few shooters who liked to use the term Holy Black to refer to Black Powder. Some, not all, of the guys who used this term were clearly looking down their noses at the shooters who loaded with Smokeless powder. It always brought to mind the term 'Holier Than Thou', which means sanctimonious or self righteous. So Holy Black has always left a bad taste in my mouth, based on what some of the guys who used the term were saying back then if you read between the lines.

These days I seldom hear the term, when I do I often hear it spoken by neophytes with Black Powder.
 
TheOutlawKid said:
Hunting grizz would be nice...but id suffice for black bear. I dunno what id do with all that grizz meat...as i eat what i kill. My freezer would be packed for years from just one bear. But i know if the opportunity came up at a shot for grizz i would take it lol. And that .62 jeager would be just about perfect for a roundball load. I know id feel real comfortable with that large of a roundball.
Click to expand...

A black bear I’d jump at the chance to hunt and feel my .50 cal rifle is more than plenty, and created a heavy bullet for my ROA in case I had to track it, which seems fairly likely.

A grizzly is a whole different bear who, instead of tucking tail and running, will come for vengeance if it knows where it came from. Were I to even contemplate a BP gun it would have two barrels for sure, and I wouldn’t even consider it without someone with a 40mm grenade launcher with me.
 
rodwha said:
A black bear I’d jump at the chance to hunt and feel my .50 cal rifle is more than plenty, and created a heavy bullet for my ROA in case I had to track it, which seems fairly likely.

A grizzly is a whole different bear who, instead of tucking tail and running, will come for vengeance if it knows where it came from. Were I to even contemplate a BP gun it would have two barrels for sure, and I wouldn’t even consider it without someone with a 40mm grenade launcher with me.
Click to expand...

I've been hunting the darn things (black bear) for over 20 years with no luck. Either they're out of season, too small, have cubs with them, or slightly out of range. Maybe next year. I have to laugh at people who are scared of black bears...I sure can't get close enough to one for it to attack me.
 
TheOutlawKid said:
Hunting grizz would be nice...but id suffice for black bear. I dunno what id do with all that grizz meat...as i eat what i kill. My freezer would be packed for years from just one bear. But i know if the opportunity came up at a shot for grizz i would take it lol. And that .62 jeager would be just about perfect for a roundball load. I know id feel real comfortable with that large of a roundball.
Click to expand...

Much of the reason that I chose a .62" over a .54", is that I hunt in a grizzly recovery area. Actually would have preferred a .69", but they only seem to make those in a heavy weight barrel. (have to take a test every year to prove I have some idea of the difference between a grizz and a black!!!) Also why I load the rifle fairly heavily. Not too long ago, they tranq'd and tagged a big one close to where I hunt, near Nordman Idaho. If you google might find a pic. Year before last, came on a grizz track the looked just like those giant tracks they make in Alaska. It was huge.

On the other hand, off season when I'm just out exploring, trekking, hiking in my mountains where I hunt, I just carry a .30-30, maybe my double 12gauge hammer gun, or just wear the .44mag and carry a .22LR rifle, and don't worry much. As I've said before, my chances of getting killed in a traffic accident driving up North and back far outweigh the chances of getting in a fight with Grizz. !!!

I don't imagine grizz would taste that bad, if it hadn't been feeding on fish, but I don't know, never ate a grizz. !! Black bear is good, but what I'm really going for is a bear-claw neckless and rug to go with my cougar claw neckless and rug. :)
 
TheOutlawKid said:
Heck no that aint look anemic at all! Great pic! I just dont see why these full black powder loads with a .45 cal bullet at 200+ grains are considered weak or undergunned. They truly are a great combination and that soft pure or close to pure soft lead really does amazing damage on game. If i had a cartridge rifle it would be a lever gun in 38-55, and maybe 45-70...and i would go up against bear cofidently with any of those loaded with black powder behind the bullet. But im a classic muzzleloader guy and have faith in a .54 cal with a 380 grain REAL bullet...i have a very good friend in alaska who hunts all year long and says .50 cal round ball is all thats needed to take down the large black bear in the area and i trust his judgement on what will do the job well as he gets atleast a few bear every year. I bet a .45 cal REAL bullet at 250 grains would take down a large black bear considering it weighs more than a .54 roundball at 230 grains yet has better sectional density.
Click to expand...



DSC01596.JPG
Kid, if you ever get a cartridge gun, make it the Model 1873 Springfield rifle. They ROCK! I bet even one who disdains the cartridge rifle, could get down with a Trapdoor. :)
 
Ugly Sauce said:
View attachment 962836
Kid, if you ever get a cartridge gun, make it the Model 1873 Springfield rifle. They ROCK! I bet even one who disdains the cartridge rifle, could get down with a Trapdoor. :)
Click to expand...

As Joe Dirt would say..."Daaaaaaang....". That is one nice rifle and seems like something that i would love to have. Ima do my research on them! Thanks for the heads up on it!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

O
  • Locked
45 Cowboy load's
Replies
23
Views
1K
higene
H
Griffen
  • Locked
Loading 45 Colt black powder cartridge- need some help
2 3
Replies
64
Views
5K
Dave T
Dave T
B
  • Locked
Got my first cartridge conversion cylinder....
2
Replies
33
Views
5K
Bigdog57
B
Arkansas Paul
  • Locked
Question for you fans of the holy black
2
Replies
34
Views
3K
Don McDowell
Don McDowell
J
  • Locked
Shot my Colt SAA today loaded with black powder.
Replies
11
Views
2K
barman
B
Back
Top