.45 Colt CAS loads

Does loading up some mellow 45 cal ammo for my .460 S&W mag categorize as "cowboy loads" ?? ;) Loading up about 12gr or WST using a 250 gr SWC hard cast bullet gets it done nicely ! It's nice taking a break from the brutal recoil smack of the 460 shooting cowboy loads !
 
Here's a brief follow up to my question with some load results. I loaded 5 rounds each and test fired over my RCBS chrono with my Uberti Cattleman, 4.75inch barrel.

200g HiTek coated Missouri Bullet Co, RNFP, 4.5g Trail Boss, .45 Colt Starline brass. Avg Velocity was 360fps, SD=22. This is below the 400fps min for CAS.

255g Hornady swaged RNFP "cowboy" bullets, 4.5g Trail Boss, .45 Colt Starline brass. Avg velocity was 450fps, SD=9

Will continue to tinker with Trail Boss to try to find a 500fps load for the 200g bullet.
 
That's an interesting conundrum. Seems counter-intuitive, I agree.

I'm no expert, but I believe it's due to more complete combustion/more energetic combustion due to a combination of factors.

Same OAL on both rounds, as well, so the 255g bullet reduced the case volume compared to the 200g bullet.

The 200g bullet was .452 dia, the 255g bullet, IIRC, was .455. I didn't mic them, that's just what was advertised.

Heavier bullet, less case volume, (same crimp), larger bullet diameter, all push pressure higher.

UncleNick or another Pro could probably provide a more technical rationale.
 
I was also looking at it from the powder coated aspect... those are supposed to seal better & keep from leading... but maybe there is more frictional drag, or ???
 
When a lead bullet and a coated/jacketed bullet of equal weight are fired from the same charge, the lead bullet will travel faster.

Here they are not the same weight, so the question being asnwered here is "how much faster?"
 
When a lead bullet and a coated/jacketed bullet of equal weight are fired from the same charge, the lead bullet will travel faster.
Click to expand...

I would assume that lead bullets would travel faster than jacketed, but not so sure that's true about coated. Seems Moly coating would be a good lubricant.
 
I've used between 6.8 and 7.5grs of Unique under some cheap store bought 200gr LSWs that I've just about shot up.
That huge case makes light Unique loads do strange things due to case position sensitivity. I greatly prefer heftier loads in my .45 Colts for their improved accuracy and consistency, but the local SASS group frowns on knocking their plates off of the hangers. :rolleyes:
 
I tried a couple more loads using Trail Boss in .45 Colt with a 200g HiTek coated bullet.

5.0g yielded avg about 450fps and 5.6g yielded avg. about 550fps. No real difference in perceived recoil, but the 5.6g load had a smaller SD of 22 vs 56 for the lighter 5.0g load.

(seemed like quite a variance in velocities for the 5.0g load--over 100fps extreme spread. I don't think this is due to charge weight variations, my press is dropping charges with repeatability to +/- 0.1g, same lot of cases, same crimp, etc. Not sure what is going on.)

I loaded up some more of the 5.6g load for further "testing" on an array of steel targets...
 
I have to say that I am impressed with such low SD's in such a huge case and such a slow bullet velocity. I would hope that you have tested a good number of these (and not just like five of each) because if that is how well Trail Boss works under lead bullets in .45 Colt, I can't imagine why -ANY- shooter competing in CAS would even try anything else.

That is impressive, IMO.
It would appear that they set out specifically to address this situation when they created Trail Boss... and they nailed it. (this powder hasn't been on the market for a long, long time)
 
Sevens, these SDs were both from 10 shot strings. The Trail Boss powder fills about half of the available case volume after the bullet is seated.
 
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