Author Topic: Question on loading Colt .45 (Read 3836 times)

poorcountrypreacher · « **on:** August 17, 2011, 06:02:33 PM »

I picked up the Lipsey's .45 convertible Blackhawk today and really like the looks and feel of it. However, the dimensions of the cylinder are quite a bit different from my SAA. The SAA has .455 cylinder throats, so I bought some .454 cast bullets for it. I also have several types of .452 bullets.

The Ruger has .449 throats. I've read that this is common for their guns to have undersized throats and a lot of folks open them up. I want to shoot it first and see how it does as is, but I wanted to ask you guys with more experience with the .45 a question - could there be any danger in shooting the .454 cast bullets in this gun? I just checked and they fit the cylinder ok. I'm just wondering if there could be a pressure problem from squeezing the bullet down that much? These are not super hard - BHN is 15. And my loads are not hot and shoot fine in the SAA. Thanks for any help.

Ranch13 · « **Reply #1 on:** August 17, 2011, 07:06:12 PM »

There most likely won't be any pressure problems, if you're shooting sane loads . Accuracy might be another ball game tho

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #2 on:** August 18, 2011, 12:25:00 PM »

Thanks for the reply, Ranch. I cleaned it this morning and had time to shoot 15 rounds. Started with some 250g .452 XTP bullets and it shot them ok. Took me a few shots to get the sights dialed in, but it put the last 3 into a 2" group. Then I shot a few 200g cast bullets that are sized at .452. It sprayed them everywhere; maybe a 10" group. That load shot pretty good in the SAA, so I am suspecting I'll have to have different ammo for each gun. Lots more time to play with it to find out.

44 Man · « **Reply #3 on:** August 19, 2011, 05:16:03 PM »

Yup, the lead bullets are squeezing down to .449 then not taking the rifleing. You will have to either open up the throats yourself (of have your local 'smith) or contact Ruger and ask them to do it. Hopefully you can just send in your cylinder rather than the whole gun, but if they ask for it, ask them for a call tag so you don't have to pay for the shipping to them. I have been fortunate for over owning dozens of Rugers I had only one, a SBH .44, that would not chamber .430 cast bullets and had to be opened up. All have shot very well. Please let us know what you do and how it comes out. 44 Man

coyotejoe · « **Reply #4 on:** August 22, 2011, 05:26:10 AM »

I'd certainly contact Ruger, I think if you call attention to the problem they will fix it without charge. It is fairly expensive to have a pistol smith do that work.

gcrank1 · « **Reply #5 on:** August 22, 2011, 05:53:43 AM »

And if you gotta ship it check out the options before paying the big bucks!

Ranch13 · « **Reply #6 on:** August 22, 2011, 07:49:15 AM »

With the jacketed bullets shooting alright, I'ld do a bit of messing with the cast bullet loads before I got real excited about the gun needing worked on.

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #7 on:** August 22, 2011, 05:07:54 PM »

Thanks for all the replies. I got to fire off about a dozen shots since I last posted, but haven't really been able to objectively evaluate the accuracy of the gun. I had about 10 rounds loaded with .454 255g cast bullets, and they definitely shot better than the 200g .452 bullets. Part of the reason probably was that the 200g load was a pipsqueak load that I was trying develop as a plinker with my SAA. I'm thinking the bullets squeezed down and there wasn't enough pressure to make them open back up and engage the rifling. The other loads I shot were standard velocity and shot better, though nothing to brag about. I'll have to do more testing before I decide what to do, and that means I gotta find some reloading time as I am all out of ammo.

I was hoping my new gun wouldn't have this problem, but I had read of it happening and figured it would be my luck that it would happen to me. I read this article by Jeff Quinn on how to fix it:

http://www.gunblast.com/Brownells_Reamer.htm

I'd probably be better off to send it to someone instead of spending $100 for the tool, but I'm not real anxious to mail another gun to a gunsmith. I sent my SAA to Long Hunter almost 2 months ago and still don't have it back. Somebody else on here got one back in a week, but my luck with single actions seems to be bad. At least the Single 10 is still working well and seems to be a fine gun.

tacklebury · « **Reply #8 on:** August 22, 2011, 05:42:29 PM »

I bought my NMB in .45colt/.45acp, I couldn't get decent accuracy with either cylinder and had a tough time keeping it on the targets at all at 25 yards. I contacted Ruger Service and they told me to send it to them and they'd review it. When I got it back a week later, it had a new barrel, and both cylinders. They didn't specify the problem, but it shoots near match grade groups now, so I'm happy.

Ranch13 · « **Reply #9 on:** August 22, 2011, 05:56:32 PM »

Might be a tad spendy, but you may want to go get a box of Remington and Winchester factory ammo ( not the CAS crap) and run those thru the gun. If either or both of those factory loads group well, then you have something to work your reloads towards.

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #10 on:** August 23, 2011, 04:18:45 AM »

Tacklebury, did Ruger pay the postage for you to return it to them? It cost me $81 to send my gun to Long Hunter; I might as well buy the Brownell reamer as to do that. Ranch, I want to shoot cast bullets with the gun, and I don't think I am gonna ever be happy with it with the undersized throats.

Anybody ever tried to ream them yourself like this guy did?

http://www.castbullet.com/misc/accrsa.htm

>>>>>I cut a slit in a piece of 3/8 dowel and wrapped a strip of 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper around it so it would fit snugly in the chamber throat. I attached the other end of the dowel to my hand drill, inserted the reamer through the chamber and ran the drill at a medium speed while moving the reamer in and out. I reamed each throat until it measured 0.4525" with my calipers. This not only opened up the throats, but polished them mirror-smooth, which made them much easier to clean. Note in the photo I reamed from the chamber end. This helped me to visually keep the reamer centered in the chamber ensuring I reamed the throats evenly.<<<<
I suspect this would be a pretty time consuming job with stainless steel and sandpaper.

And here is another article by a guy that did it a slightly different way. He said it took 2 hours to ream the throats.

http://www.beartoothbullets.com/tech_notes/archive_tech_notes.htm/59

Ranch13 · « **Reply #11 on:** August 23, 2011, 04:57:17 AM »

Do NOT go digging around inside a cylinder with a dowel and emery cloth. You think you have troubles now just wait until you get those cylinder throats shaped like a AA grade medium egg.That sort of thing is best left to folks with the proper machining tools and the ability and knowledge to run them.
If your gun is getting decent groups with the heavier bullets then take a clue from that and go to work on load developement.
I don't know how many countless times we've read about the bad cylinder throats on Rugers, yet I don't have a clue on what my nearly 40 year old blackhawk 45 measures, but it will handle bullets both cast and jacketed from .451-456 just fine, as will the new version Vaquero.
You might want to try a "poor" mans trigger job on your gun and see if a lighter trigger pull doesn't help things along some.
You haven't said what powder you're using, but if an accurate load with quality bullets can't be found with unique,2400 or bludot, then it may be time to have a professional look at your gun and fix what they find wrong with it, and if it's judged to be a factory defect then by all means ship it back to either Lipseys or Ruger and get it fixed proper.

tacklebury · « **Reply #12 on:** August 23, 2011, 01:01:09 PM »

Quote from: poorcountrypreacher on August 23, 2011, 04:18:45 AM

Tacklebury, did Ruger pay the postage for you to return it to them? It cost me $81 to send my gun to Long Hunter; I might as well buy the Brownell reamer as to do that. Ranch, I want to shoot cast bullets with the gun, and I don't think I am gonna ever be happy with it with the undersized throats.

Anybody ever tried to ream them yourself like this guy did?

http://www.castbullet.com/misc/accrsa.htm

>>>>>I cut a slit in a piece of 3/8 dowel and wrapped a strip of 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper around it so it would fit snugly in the chamber throat. I attached the other end of the dowel to my hand drill, inserted the reamer through the chamber and ran the drill at a medium speed while moving the reamer in and out. I reamed each throat until it measured 0.4525" with my calipers. This not only opened up the throats, but polished them mirror-smooth, which made them much easier to clean. Note in the photo I reamed from the chamber end. This helped me to visually keep the reamer centered in the chamber ensuring I reamed the throats evenly.<<<<
I suspect this would be a pretty time consuming job with stainless steel and sandpaper.

And here is another article by a guy that did it a slightly different way. He said it took 2 hours to ream the throats.

http://www.beartoothbullets.com/tech_notes/archive_tech_notes.htm/59

They did not. It cost me $70 some bucks and I was a bit peeved at that. I talked to my local dealer and he said next time bring it to me. Even if it's not a gun you purchased from me, I'll send it out for you and I don't have to pay express. So, if you have a local dealer that you are a regular with, you might do it that way. He said if it were one I did buy from him, he usually puts pressure on the right people and gets a free shipping tag. Easier to do though when you buy 100's of their firearms.

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #13 on:** August 23, 2011, 01:02:33 PM »

Thanks for the warning, Ranch. I wondered how hard it would be to get it perfectly round with that kind of equipment; the guy in the article made it sound simple. I found all the things he did to be very interesting, and quite honestly, I enjoy working with my guns myself. I've done a good bit of amateur gunsmithing, but am certainly a newbie with the single actions. I do think I could buy the tool from Brownells and do a good job with it, but it would probably be cheaper to send the cylinder somewhere to a gunsmith.

And I have by no means already decided to do anything to it; will certainly take your advice and shoot it a lot first. However, there is no denying that there is a big difference in the dimensions of this gun and my SAA. I'd sure like to have loads that work equally well in each gun. All the loads I've shot in the Ruger were based on Unique. I tried Blue Dot in the SAA, but got better results with Unique. I'm gonna load up some ammo and set up sand bags and see what it will do as soon as I have time.

edit: Tacklebury, thanks for the info!

Thanks again for all the help.

Ranch13 · « **Reply #14 on:** August 23, 2011, 01:13:00 PM »

Preacher hang in there. You may or may not find a load that will work in both guns, but the old standby of 9 grs of unique with a 250 gr bullet has sure worked in alot of different guns for me, but as always each gun may show a preference for it's own bullet.
That's one thing that sorta nice about the Remington bulk bullets, they've been around forever, and while they're on the fat side they'll still shoot well, I'm thinking because of the "hollow" base.

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #15 on:** August 23, 2011, 05:59:33 PM »

One thing I've noticed about the Ruger is that even though its built on their so-called medium frame, it sure seems to be a lot stronger gun than the Colt. I haven't really tested enough to prove that, but it sure seems that way. 8.5g of Unique under a 250 or 255g bullet was as far as I need to go with the Colt. At 9g, the pressure ring expansion seemed to be excessive, and I had started getting erratic velocities too. 8.5 was giving me a velocity over 900; that oughta be plenty for shooting a deer with a hard cast bullet. And I may get by with just 8g.

Tacklebury, the load that the Ruger was spraying everywhere was a 200g round-nosed cast bullet over 6.5g Unique. The Colt shot them pretty well and close to POA, but they were all over the place with the Ruger. I think those tight throats are to blame for this, but its just a guess.

Graybeard · « **Reply #16 on:** August 23, 2011, 06:39:44 PM »

You'd think a big outfit like Ruger could at least be consistent in the size of the cylinder throats for their various calibers but apparently they can't. It is better tho they be undersize than grossly over size as they can always be opened up but they sure can't be closed back down.

I don't have proper pin gages to do really accurate measurements of the throats on mine but as best as I can measure them with my caliper the .45 Colt is .452" and the .44 Special is .431". I can live with those numbers and don't see any reason why the guns shouldn't do well if I ever get my round tuit to get out and shoot them.

I don't deal with the heat very well anymore and these days have just been too hot to get out and shoot for me. I'm ready for fall. My friend Barry up in PA says they are expecting low 40s tonight. It's still mid to high 70s in north Bama and hotter still in LA that's lower Alabama fur you folks not in Bama.

Lloyd Smale · « **Reply #17 on:** August 24, 2011, 01:54:01 AM »

only 45 colt ruger ive ever gotten that was right out of the box was my montado. As to shipping dont you have a dealer you use often. He can ship it in a flat rate mail box for 12 bucks. Throw in a 20 for his trouble.

ratdog · « **Reply #18 on:** August 24, 2011, 09:26:51 PM »

graybeard i have been waiting to here how your rugers are shooting cooler weather is comingi did not shoot for the same reason to hot today might go early tomorrow.

Racer X · « **Reply #19 on:** August 25, 2011, 02:56:47 PM »

I would not send it back to Ruger or do the wooden dowel Beartooth Bullets fix.

If you send it back to Ruger, they might replace the cylinder with one that has oversized throats or throats that are still not all the same size.

If it were my gun, I would just assume the throats need opening and send the cylinder to Cylindersmith.com. It will cost around $30 plus shipping and you will have the cylinder back in about a week. At least then, you know the cylinder is right.

44 Man · « **Reply #20 on:** August 26, 2011, 02:17:32 PM »

Just for info, my local 'smith has never charged me over $15 to ship ANY gun out. I think he uses the postal service, not sure. He's on vacation right now or I'd ask him. Yup, I agree with Racer X, send the cylinder out and have the throats set to the size you would like. I'd recommend .452, but that's up to you and what you wish to shoot. Hope you can get her fixed soon and get back shooting. 44 Man

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #21 on:** August 26, 2011, 03:57:50 PM »

Quote from: Racer X on August 25, 2011, 02:56:47 PM

I would not send it back to Ruger or do the wooden dowel Beartooth Bullets fix.

If you send it back to Ruger, they might replace the cylinder with one that has oversized throats or throats that are still not all the same size.

If it were my gun, I would just assume the throats need opening and send the cylinder to Cylindersmith.com. It will cost around $30 plus shipping and you will have the cylinder back in about a week. At least then, you know the cylinder is right.

I'm sure that's good advice. I never really considered sending it back to Ruger. One of the articles above said that Ruger said that a .448 gun was "within specs," so I'm pretty sure that's the answer I'd get. It seems like from reading on the web that most of their .45 throats are undersized. I'm glad to hear more recs for the cylindersmith guy. He says on his website that he is not a gunsmith; just somebody that bought a reamer to do his own guns and it grew into a hobby business. I don't think that matters; this seems like a very simple job if you have the right tool.

44 Man, I'm still shooting the gun and plan to set up sand bags and test it tomorrow. But no matter how it shoots, I'm probably not gonna be happy until I get the throats the way they are supposed to be. I couldn't even chamber many of the popular .45 bullets the way it is now. I'll either send the cylinder to somebody or buy the reamer and do it myself.

gcrank1 · « **Reply #22 on:** August 26, 2011, 04:15:56 PM »

As much as I 'like' to have my own tools and do it myself, he has already gone through the learning curve.

44 Man · « **Reply #23 on:** August 27, 2011, 04:29:11 AM »

Gcrank1 makes a good point......

texagun · « **Reply #24 on:** August 27, 2011, 02:49:54 PM »

poorcountrypreacher,
I'm wondering how you measured your cylinder throats? It is true the older Blackhawks and Vaqueros were known to have tight cylinder throats but from what I have read, the New Model guns have been coming out with pretty consistent cylinder throats very close to the ideal .4525. I have sent several older cylinders to CAS at www.cylindersmith.com to have the throats reamed out to .4525 and was very pleased with the work and the results. I just bought a New Model Vaquero in .45 Colt and all the throats measure .452-.453, right on the button. Pin gauges are probably the most accurate way of measuring the throats, followed by slugging the throats and measuring the bullets. I use a digital caliper, then slug the cylinders to confirm what the calipers read. Just wondering what method you used.

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #25 on:** August 27, 2011, 05:31:43 PM »

I don't have any pin gauges. I just used my caliper, and according to it, each cylinder is between .448 and .449. I also have an outside mic and a bullet that measures .450 with it will not enter the throats. I realize the caliper is not ideal for taking such a measurement, but there is no doubt that it is undersize. The same caliper says the throats on the Colt are .455.

I too, have read of others getting recent Ruger .45s with properly sized throats and was hoping I'd be lucky. It was the first thing I checked when I got the gun home. Oh well.

Didn't get to shoot it today. Maybe the first of next week. A good evening to all.

gcrank1 · « **Reply #26 on:** August 28, 2011, 05:14:59 AM »

Sometimes 'ignorance is bliss'........

.
If the thought of this is more than you can bear you will have to 'send it in', but I would play more first.

poorcountrypreacher · « **Reply #27 on:** August 28, 2011, 03:44:58 PM »

Quote from: gcrank1 on August 28, 2011, 05:14:59 AM

Sometimes 'ignorance is bliss'........ .
If the thought of this is more than you can bear you will have to 'send it in', but I would play more first.

LOL - Exactly right! If it weren't for the danged old internet and the chance to read so much about Ruger revolvers, I probably wouldn't have even known about the problem of undersized throats. Still, I would have wondered what was wrong with my gun when it wouldn't chamber the wadcutters I intend to eventually load. Or the WFN bullets. So I guess I would have eventually realized there was something wrong with my gun.

In most areas of life, "good enough" is plenty to satisfy me. My yard doesn't even reach "good enough" status, but I ain't worried about it.

I'm just something of a perfectionist when it comes to my guns. At least, I am until I get them to the point that I am satisfied with them, and then I hardly use them anymore. I haven't shot my Contenders a single time this year, and I spent many, many hours working on them. Now I know they will shoot where I aim, so I don't have much interest in them.

I guess the challenge of getting a gun to shoot well is what I really enjoy. A good evening to all.

Keith L · « **Reply #28 on:** August 28, 2011, 04:27:29 PM »

I can't forget the guy on TC Handguns that had a new Contender that he had never fired who had to buy all the stuff to "make it accurate" when he didn't even know what it would do. He cut the "ears" off of the forend and then complained that the hinge pin moved out. Spending money and mods are for fine tuning when you get the best out of simple things and loading in my world. Most of the time I get it to the point where the limiting factor is me and not the equipment long before it is time to buy lots of stuff.

Graybeard · « **Reply #29 on:** August 29, 2011, 06:35:44 AM »

Yup these days I know I'm the limiting factor in how well my guns shoot especially with iron sights.