45 lc

[benjaminw7528]

 I was wondering if 40 gr of black powder and a 250 gr bullet be good for deer hunting

[Mikey]

I believe 40 gns of black powder was the original loading in the 45 Colt.  Two other offshoots of the 45 case, the 44-40 and 38-40 are so called because of the powder charge they carried.  I don't think they ever referred to the lc cartridge as the 45-40 but I believe that is exactly what it was..........

Probably shoot through a whitetail at 25 - 50 yds.  Mikey.

[Redhawk1]

Keep your shots under 40 yards, and with good shot placement you should not have a problem with deer at all.

[Lloyd Smale]

if you can get that much into a case you will get about 900 fps out of that load and it will do alot of killing. you will definately need to use 3f to even come close to getting that much in a case though. One problem i can see (well really not see) is that i hunt in thick timber and its nice to see the direction the deer took off in after the shot and with that load your not going to see anything through the smoke for a second or two. Id like to try it myself someday though.

[Ken ONeill]

That charge was for the old balloon head cases, and I believe you will only get about 35 gr. or so into today's cases. That's plenty of velocity to kill a deer though. As Lloyd says, you WILL get some smoke.

[Graybeard]

While you will get some smoke you're not gonna get enough to hide the exit of a deer. Lotsa folks use BP in CAS shooting and are still able to see their targets to emtpy the cylinder. I've watched it in use in CAS matches and yeah it smokes things up with five fast shots one shot isn't gonna hide the deer from you.

[benjaminw7528]

 thanks guys I might try the 35 gr load

[Lloyd Smale]

Maybe not in open but ive shot deer in the MI swamps with a muzzle loading rifle where the smoke has blocked my veiw of a hit deer.

[Graybeard]

But Lloyd in that rifle you likely used three or more times as much powder as he will be using.

[Lone Star]

Shooting black in my .45LCs during the Alaskan winter I didn't find the smoke to be very objectionable, I'm sure I could have made a follow up shot through the cloud.  IIRC I used around 30 grains FFg behind a 250-grain LEE FN and a few cardboard wads.



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[Tallwalker]

I loaded some black powder loads in .45 Colt for an engineer to evaluate, and can't tell you how many grains I used. I know that I checked the seating  depth of the bullet, and allowed for 1/16" compression of the double F. Then I trimmed a case to use as a dipper, and had at it. Make sure you use bullets with a soft lube like SPG to keep the fouling soft.

Edit: I did check my measure, and it was 35 grains that I loaded.