45 colt performance with a 250 WFN bullet

[West Creek Charlie]

Hey Loyd

just wonderin about yer statement regarding WFN bullets only shooting straight with higher velocity loads. I dont understand the reasoning behind it? maybe at longer distances at say 100 yards but I'm not sure about that yet either.

Alot of target shooters use a full wad cutter and shoot them very accurately out to 50 yards. My 45's shoot an LBT WFN 250 very accurately out past 50 yards. I am still working on longer ranges with it and am wondering if I am beating my head against the wall. So far I have only shot a few rounds at 75 or longer but I have noticed that the trajectory definately drops off at 75 yards. My current load os 5.6 grains of REd Dot and I havent chronographed it yet but I expect it is between 7-800 fps.

I am very happy with my red dot load for general plinking and shooting. It shoots extremely accurate out of my colt and my US SAA's. I am however wanting to develope a load that will bring out the best of performance with these guns for hunting and was wanting a higher velocity load to shoot at up to 100 yards. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

[frank405]

I agree with Lloyd that a number of bullet designs will not shoot at long range. Long range to me means 200 yards and beyond. The older designs(Keith and Barlow) will all shoot to as far as you can see. I load a full wadcutter in my 45 Colt to around a 1000. This is very accurate to about 225 yards, after that it goes wild. My everyday load is a 310 Keith at 1200 and this is accurate to as far as I can shoot. Of course the meplat on my 310 Keith is only .300 so all the new experts will tell you it won't kill anything because the meplat is too small and the first driving band is useless. Hmmmmmmmmm, there is a lot of critters around here and elsewhere that very dead from this old outdated bullet.

[Lloyd Smale]

youll find that a wadcutter is about all done at 50 yards and a wfn is at its limit at 100 sure there are going to be exceptions but not many. Part of the reason that the keiths and lfns fly better is that more of the weight is toward the front of the bullet. Short squat bullets have a poor ballistic coificeintcy shed velocity fast and need a lot more speed to stabilize and to keep stablized. Im not an expert on bullet design some others may have more tech. terms. But ive yet to find a wfn that flys good at range. I have a buddy in alaska that has a .45 wlfn that he claims does and hes sending me some to try. If it works beleive me ill have that mold. Veral Smith has some nice lfns that fly real well and i use them alot. But im a little more old school and still havent seen anything that improves in any way on a good old true keith bullet. There accurate at all ranges and hit as hard as anything. IVe killed game with lfns wfns and keiths and never could tell the difference they all kill and dead is dead.

[frank405]

Lloyd, when you come out this June we will shoot some of those wadcutters I make. My memory says they shot well to about two hundred yards and started to quit a little ways past that. Maybe I'm not remembering all that well though, I do shoot a lot. You should probably take some of those home for a test. I did push one through mule deer does chest and even found it in the sand just the other side. Expanded a little bit but sure put the quiet on her.

[Lloyd Smale]

Guys Frank knows what hes talking about and if hes says its so take it to the bank. Most of my experience in wadcutters not flying is related to .38s IVe shot alot of wfns in .44 45 41 475 and 512 and with the exception of the ballistic cast 420wfngc in the .475 never had any luck and that wfn is more of a cross between a wfn and a lfn.

[Lloyd Smale]

pm sent frank