45 colt/454 casull magnum or regular primers?

N

nhyrum

New member
I'm getting a Taurus raging judge as soon as my lgs gets it in. I have a question regarding the primers the 45 colt calls for large pistol primers(according to my hornady 9th) but the Speer manual I picked up at the shop, says magnums can be used. The 454 calls for small rifle. With that much powder (h110) I'm concerned about non magnum primers not getting a solid ignition. Should(can) I go magnum on both? Just the 454?Just the 45 lc?

Or maybe those Winchester all in one's. For regular or magnum?
 
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I've had a Freedom Arms .454 Casull for about 30 years - I don't remember when other than the original cases used large pistol primers. Then FA changed to small rifle primers and I have used CCI 400, Remington 7-1/2 Bench and Winchester SRP with a 300gr cast and Hornady XTP with 30.0gr of H110 without any problems whatsoever.
 
The Hornady 9th calls out a Federal 205 Small Rifle primer. My older Speer #12 calls for a CCI 400 small rifle primer. Neither manual calls out using a magnum primer which for Speer is unusual. The same #12 for other loads calls for magnum primers when using ball or spherical powders in rifle cartridges. My own opinion would be to use either a standard or magnum small rifle primer choosing one or the other and work up a load from what you use. That is how I have treated it with 45 Colt when using rifle primers. I have not loaded 454 Casull however.

Ron
 
For all of my 45 Colt I use standard LP primers, pick your choice of make. For the 454 I use standard SR primers with about the same exact load listed above for the Lee 300gr RF cast. I can't say that I would enjoy shooting that in something less than the 8 3/8' Raging Bull however it does get your attention when you touch it off.

That said however, if you look at the end of the load data for the 454 in the Speer manual, not sure which one but one of the latest, it does have some reduced loads for the RCBS 45-270 SAA cast bullet. To be totally honest if you want economy and fun to shoot with plenty of horsepower loads, I would give those loads with that bullet a REAL hard look. I shoot a ton of them out of my 45 Colt and they are accurate and penetrate like nobodies business. If you do a search for 45 270 SAA loads you will find a write up by Brian Pierce I beleive which list them out for the 45 Colt in three tiers. With the revolver your getting you should easily be able to find something that shoots well within that info. Also while your looking tings up you might search for "The 45 Colt Dissolving the Myth". You will find that you really don't need to go full bore magnum with them to be productive.

Hope that helps.
 
nhyrum said:
I'm getting a Taurus raging judge as soon as my lgs gets it in. I have a question regarding the primers the 45 colt calls for large pistol primers(according to my hornady 9th) but the Speer manual I picked up at the shop, says magnums can be used. The 454 calls for small rifle. With that much powder (h110) I'm concerned about non magnum primers not getting a solid ignition. Should(can) I go magnum on both? Just the 454?Just the 45 lc?

Or maybe those Winchester all in one's. For regular or magnum?
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The key to successfully loading with H110 (or it's equivalent W296) is the fact it need's to be loaded no less than 90% of case capacity. H110 ball powder likes to be close to max. Excessive air space within the casing can cause inconsistent burn. I load 460 S&W using H110 and standard CCI primers with zero issues. I get a consistent complete burn. My max charge when loading for the Hornady 200 gr FTX is 52.4 gr and I found my sweet spot to be slightly less at 50 gr. If you load under that 90% threshold then you may need to use mag primers.
 
The thing to remember about H110 is to never download it by more than 3%, as others will agree to, H110 is either all or nothing. In the 454 Casull H110 and 300+ grain bullets shine when it comes to full power loads. I never needed a magnum primer for positive ignition, small rifle primers always worked.

Having the ability to shoot .45 Colt out of your .454 is nice when you don't feel like beating up on people that want to try it out. Once they get a hang of shooting it or want to try out .454, load them up and have a go at it.
 
If we look at Hodgdon's site 45 Colt 300 gr starts at 21.8 gr H110 and 454 300gr ends at 30 gr. This is a range of 27% reduction

In a Uberti Cattleman 45Colt, I have gone lower than the published H110 data for 45 Colt.

CAUTION: The following post includes loading data beyond or not covered by currently published maximums for this cartridge. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Neither the writer, The Firing Line, nor the staff of TFL assume any liability for any damage or injury resulting from use of this information.
I a Stevens OEM single shot break action 410 I have gone higher than the published H110 for 454 Casull.

In going lower than published, I learned that a roll crimp is important to prevent misfires.
I going over published, I learned that H110 does not compress much at all, and the OAL increases, but still fits in a 3" 410 shotgun chamber.
 
Magnum primers have nothing whatever to do with the cartridge or its name. They're about the powder and nothing else. They can help in extreme cold weather shooting too though.
H110 doesn't need magnum primers. You'll note that Hodgdon, for some daft reason, use 'em with H110 in magnum cartridge loads, but not stuff like .30 Carbine. Standard small rifle primer for ALL .454 Casull loads too.
 
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