Now I've gone and done it!!

[Foto Joe]

So last weekend I went down to my brothers house and used his press to load some 45LC for my Dakota Buntline just for grins.

The load went like this: 33gr 3f Goex, Ox-Yoke dry-lube wad and a .451 round ball.

The results: YIKES this stuff is FUN!!!

That little 140 grain RB has quite the kick to it with 33gr of powder!! And the accuracy at 25 yards shooting duelist was about 5 inches, I'm impressed!!

Now onto further questions:
Do I really need that lubed wad between powder and ball??
How about loading conicals of say 255gr RN with BP in a 45LC, anybody do this??
And do I need to wash the brass inside and out between loads??

 

[wittzo]

You don't "need" the lubed wad, but lubed wads tend to make roundballs perform better, depending on the revolver. Some people have better accuracy, almost everybody notices their pistol is easier to clean and stays cleaner when they use a lubed wad.

255 grain conicals with 20-30 grains of BP has been a standard load for a long time. If your pistol can handle modern .45 LC, it will certainly handle that. The first time I loaded .45LC with BP, I used some 255 gr wadcutters I had left over from years before, they worked fine. Now I load 25-30 grains of BP with a 200 grain roundnose and 200 grain wadcutter and it works fine in my conversions with less recoil. I'm going to start using the 200 grain round nose to load .45 ACP, since I've got the mold and can make the bullets for "free".

Washing the brass would be a good idea, but you just have to soak them in hot soapy water to get most of the contaminants that would harm the casings out, just like cleaning your barrel and everywhere else BP gets to. Make sure you clean your pistol within a day or two of shooting it with BP to make sure it won't rust.

 

[Foto Joe]

I did notice that the 12 rounds that I test fired has a real purty patina to them after I wiped them off with Windex before I ran them back through the press.

I'm not so much worried about hurting the brass as much as I am about screwing up a set of carbide dies with BP residue.

 

[wittzo]

You might get the BP residue in the die and it will attract moisture and might make them rust, but I don't like to run dirty brass through my resizers so I can keep them clean. They work better that way.

 

[Bluehawk]

Windex (with ammonia) on brass?? Not a good idea!!!!!

 

[StrawHat]

I load the Lyman 545424 (255 grain Keith SWC) overa full case of black powder. It became my everyday load for the 45 long Colt many years ago. I have recently started experimenting with the RCBS 45-270 (270 grain Keith SWC) with the same powder charge. Not sure what I expect the heavier bullet to do that the 255 weight doesn't already do.

I use a black powder compatible lube on the bullets and have no problems keeping the revolver firing all day. I try to get a little compression of the powder when I load. Black powder wants 100% loading density, no air space between powder and bullet. I have not used lube cookies or wads in revolver ammunition.

When out shooting some guys will have a bucket of water with a squirt of dish soap in it. They drop the fired brass in there and let it soak prior to leaving the range. My style of shooting does not permit me that luxury so I soak the brass when I get home. Usually over night and then a quick wipe inside and out before a trip through the tumbler to clean and polish.

I use water to clean my revolver but some use Windex with VINEGAR. Never saw the need for it and to me it is just an added expense.

Black powder cartridges are a lot of fun to make and shoot. Eventually you will experiment with a lot of cartridges for which black powder may have neer been intended.

 

[Bluehawk]

I read last night that the .45 Colts cartridge...according to an 1880's sales flyer...was a 250 grain bullet over 40 grains of black powder. Purchase price: $22/1,000...primed shells : $10.50/1,000...bullets: $7.00/1,000

 

[Bluehawk]

some use Windex with VINEGAR

Windex is not good but vinegar is fine..it's used in many households and elsewhere for polishing brass objects and fixtures. Cheap white vinegar is great for cleaning that but also for cleaning glass coffee pots...getting rid of hard water deposits like in your dishwasher when it gets clogged, disinfecting countertops and floors, alternate deodorant for your armpits...etc. I also use it for "etching" the cast lead soldiers and cannons I make to prepare them for painting so the base coat will stick to the lead surface!

 

[Foto Joe]

Windex (with ammonia) on brass?? Not a good idea!!!!!

The Windex was used on those 12 cases because it was sitting right there under the bench. I don't plan on using it on a regular basis but I am quite curious as to why not.

 

[Bluehawk]

Foto...here is an excerpt from the Hendrix Group...an engineering outfit that mirrors a myriad of other cautions:

All copper alloys are rapidly attacked by ammonia in moist conditions, with the formation of a bright blue corrosion product, and contact should therefore obviously be avoided. Even in very low concentrations of ammonia, brass that is stressed by either residual or applied tension will spontaneously crack by 'stress corrosion', a phenomenon first observed many years ago and at that time called 'season cracking'.

Studies have been done of the effects of ammonia on small arms and artillery brass and all have shown it's something to be avoided at all times.

 

[Oyeboten]

Hi Foto Joe,


Glad to hear of your progress and fun!


The Lube Wafers I make and use are only about .042 thick, so they do not displace much powder...and, one can always Seat the Bullet a little farther out also, so long as one manages a good Crimp, and so long as it is not out so far as to interfere with the rotation of the Cylinder.


Given that in a longer Barrel, depending on Bullet weight, .45 Colt and Black Powder, the Bullet can reach or exceed 1000 FPS, I elected to use a nice Lube just 'cause it felt like a nice thing to do.

I found out then that the Lube Wafers of Bee's Wax and Olive Oil, also make for minumal and soft fouling, and, a very easy clean up once home from the Range.


Now, since I have not done any Cap & Ball Revolver shooting with no Lube, I can not compare the results personally...only that I had so often heard from others of fouling and Cylinder binding woes, and difficult clean ups and so on.

Same applies to Metallic Cartridge Revolver when using Black Powder.

35 Grains Goex 3 F, thin Lube Wafer, and hard compression, under a 230 Grain 'SAECO' Wadcutter set in backwards...is the most powerful Powder Charge BP Loading I have been able to make.

 

[Foto Joe]

Thanks Bluehawk

The blue patina after wiping down the dozen 45LC brass with a Windex dampened cloth now makes perfect sense. I shall resist the urge to do so in the future. Thanks.

I'm about to head up to the lodge my wife manages about 10 miles from Yellowstone and punch some holes in a few pieces of paper this morning with the 45. I'll let ya'll know if I can actually hit the target with this beast. The rounds in the belt are smokeless, this is just an old pic I have of the "Hog Leg".

 

[robhof]

That looks more like a giraffe leg, a great pistol. I love the long barrel pistols, they really reach out and touch things.

 

[Foto Joe]

That looks more like a giraffe leg

Cute, I haven't heard that one before.

Range Report from Giraffe Leg Peacemaker

Something that I never realized shooting pre 1873 replicas was that the re-loading process gives ample time for the gun to cool off. Shooting cartridges, NOT SO MUCH!! D@#$& that thing gets hot!! The trick I suppose would be to take one muzzle load revolver and one cartridge to give the cartridge gun time to cool off between loads.

Anyway, shooting .451 RB's with 33gr 3f at 25 yards provides a nice 5" group duelist and cut it in half for two handed.

The down side is the cleaning though. I guess I'm just going to have to pull the grip and guts so I can submerse the whole thing in the sink. I'm used to being able to pull the barrel and soak it. After 75-80 rounds the barrel was a mess, although the cylinder pin looked like I'd just put it in. I did get some binding on the cylinder but it was from the recoil shield rubbing spent cartridges. It appeared that I got quite a load of soot on the recoil shield after about 50 rounds. It would flake off when the cylinder rotated but did cause some sticking once or twice. Pulling the cylinder and wiping down the recoil shield would have fixed the problem.

 

[robhof]

I've got a ROA with one conversion and 4 C & B cylinders and it gets to smoking pretty good if I run through the lot. I usually bring a few spare guns to plink between rounds. If you're going to shoot alot, you might try some of the subs, they produce less residue, especially the 777. I can't get real black here so I use Pyrodex or 777.

 

[StrawHat]

Black powder shoots much hotter than smokeless. Not sure why but it does. That is why the Henry rifle soon evolved into a rifle with a forearm, the barrel got hot real quick!

 

[Foto Joe]

As far as the heat generated, think about it. If I load 33gr 3f in my Dragoon and pull the trigger, I've guesstimated from a pic taken at nite that the flame is between 22 and 25 feet long!!! Gee, I wonder why the Peacemaker gets so hot??? I.E. same load only in a cartridge.