90%+ of what I shoot is .45 Colt. After 2008 I realized that I would have to reload or not shoot, especially in competition that requires 100-120 rounds without any practice. Reloading was worth it to me and do-able because I am old.
Chase - As I understand it, your first priority is to get your wife familiarized with firing your .45, and second to get out and practice. For that, IMO, you don't need to get into reloading.
1. Find a place, hopefully near you (easy if you are in a confederate state) that sells reloaded ammo. These cartridges will have lead bullets, instead of copper/jacketed ones, and will cost much less than factory ammo - generally about half. This is a good idea, on its own, for getting your wife familiar with the gun because the recoil will be pretty light light. If you see bags of reloaded cartridges labeled "Cowboy," I recommend you buy those, at least for the familiarization sessions. Blaze away, to the extent you can afford to. Save your empty cartridges, even if you do not plan to reload. Put them in zip-lok bags, for the day you will be glad that you did.
2. For reasons related to events of early November, you likely will not find much or any .45LC ammo at Wal-Mart. But you can buy ammo on-line and .45LC is not the most sought-after (though it is my personal favorite). Unless you are in California, in which case you have my sympathy, you should be able to find .45LC ammo online in many places. Take your time. Prices can vary widely. If you are buying brand-new ammo, I recommend you not buy Cowboy loads (which are what I shoot) because they are meant for competition and are wimpy loads re self-defense, but bought new online cost almost the same as stronger/self-defense loads. If you want self-defense loads, I recommend you search for Hornady Critical Defense, Speer Gold Dot or some of the other (more exotic, more expensive) loads out there.
Try Midway, Lucky Gunner, Graf, Buffalo Bore, Double Tap and others. Even Bass Pro Shops carries some of this stuff, IIRC. My personal preferences in .45Colt are Hornady Critical Defense and Speer Gold Dot. Expect to pay approx. $1 per round for these. For the purpose, that is a plenty OK price these days.
Before ever shooting "the good stuff," break the gun in with lots of cheap reloaded ammo, if possible. Try to shoot for groups, not bullseyes, at this stage. What you want is consistency, relative to the gun, the sight alignment and how you pull the trigger, and that is measured by how many inches apart your shots hit. Pls. forgive me if you already know this part.
Clean the gun well, particularly if you used reloads, because the bullets almost always are lead and there may be some lead fouling in the barrel. Then practice with better ammo (cheap copper or copper-clad bullets). Clean the gun well. Then practice (and adjust sights) with high-quality ammo, or in your case top-drawer self-defense ammo.
Last tip - unless you are a well-experienced shooter and already do so, have some oil with you at the range, such as a small squeeze bottle of Rem Oil. Revolvers tend to have far fewer friction problems than semi-autos, but being able to drop a bit of oil on the right place often can save a fair bit of range time.
