Hard hitting .45 Colt Loads

M

mtrvl

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I am looking for some powerful, hard hitting .45 Colt loads for my Ruger Bisley Blackhawk. I would greatly apreciate hearing from shooters with this info. Thank you in advance.
 
Lots of good Ruger ONLY loads available in reloading manuels. One of my favorites is 24.0 gr of H110 under a 250gr XTP. I've also shot up to 25.5 gr under the same bullet, but the increase in velocity wasn't that great. My SBH Hunter shoots best at 25.0 and 24.0 gr. I've taken deer with this load the last 3 years. All were 1 shot kills (28 to 59 yards). They are a LOT different from the factory 45C stuff (most of it anyway).
 
I like H110 for bullets weighing more than 250gr..one of my pet loads was 22gr under a 300gr hard cast flat nose....you should expect about 1200 fps. This is a mazimum load and very hot.

296 is a good powder for lighter bullets in the 225 range. try about 26 grains, which will give you about 1450 fps ...also a handfull
 
These H110 (296) loads are spot on. I run similar loads in my big Vaquero and my Super Redhawk.
I hope your grips fit you well because these loads will beat you mercilessly. The gun will demonstrate that it is more of a man than you.
Bisley and Super grips are much easier on the shooter.
 
21grs. of H110 & a 250gr. Speer GoldDot.
23grs. of H110 & a 300gr. Speer or Sierra SoftPoint,FlatPoint.
21grs. of H110 & a 360gr. Cast Bullet.
 
12 grains of Herco or 16.5 grains of Blue Dot w/ 255 grain cast bullets and any old large pistol primers. Do not shoot these in a SAA or a Ruger New Vaquero (etc), they are Blackhawk and Redhawk and original large-frame Vaquero loads.

You can load hotter using 2400 or AA#9 or 296 (and a few others) but they take a lot more powder for a small increase in performance.
 
That article by John Linebaugh is good on the basics, but has a couple of "myths" of its own. The back pressure on a cartridge is not the chamber pressure times the area of the exterior base of the case, it is the chamber pressure times the rearward component of the internal base. For a .45 case, that is about 1/10th square inch, so a chamber pressure of 50k psi will have a backthrust of about 5000 pounds absolute. Not a tiny amount to be sure, but not 50k, either.

The second is his sneering at Elmer Keith's caution on .45 Colt cases. He seems to be ignorant of the fact that at the time Keith was writing, many factory cartridge cases were still of the "balloon head" type, which was a lot weaker than the true solid head case made in the U.S. today. (Some cases made in other countries still use a balloon head or modified balloon head to save brass. They are perfectly OK for factory loads, but caution is needed for hot handloads.)

Jim
 
I shoot a lee cast gas checked bullet that drops around 325grains and I load it with 22 grains of H110. No high pressure signs, very accurate but it does kick.
 
I don't know a whole lot, but I do know for a fact that a cast 255 grain SWC ahead of 10 grains of Unique powder from a 7.5" Ruger Blackhawk at 50 yards will hole a 150 lb Georgia Whitetail through and through, dropping him where he stands nine times out of ten.
 
After some expirmentation with heavier loads, I settled on the 250 SWC and 10gr Unique. Hits as hard as I've ever needed,and isn't painful to shoot.

Clocks just a hair under 1100fps from my 7.5" Blackhawk, and will consistantly ring the 200yd gong on the rifle range too!:D

Been using that load as my GP load in my Rugers for 30 years, no complaints at all.

ITs max in the old loading books for the Colt gun, so you could even use it in them, although for general shooting with a Colt/clone or anything besides the Blackhawk (or similar class gun) I'd just load 8gr Unique and enjoy!
 
Speaking of personal 'hot' loads... I like 13.0g of HS-6 under 255g SWC for 1100fps. As hot as I like to load .45 Colt.
 
Hot Loads

You also might wanna consider using those "Ruger Only" handloads in moderation, or avoid the very top-end of the data. Ain't been that long ago, an old friend of mine who ignored that caveat brought his Blackhawk to me to see why the empty cases were stuck in their chambers. I drove'em out with a rod, and they were bulged for about 3/4ths of the circumference of the cases just forward of the head. They'd swaged themselves into the corresponding bulges in the chambers. Scratch one Blackhawk cylinder. Back to Ruger she went.

Found the same situation in a Model 19 Smith about a year later on all chambers...but not quite as bad...after I'd bought it.

There aren't many critters that you can kill with a .45 Colt firing a 250-270 grain bullet at 1400 fps that you can't kill just as dead with the same bullet at 1100-1200 fps. Much beyond that, and more velocity mainly serves to flatten trajectory without adding much to the lethality at reasonable ranges.
 
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I would just like to point out from spacecoast's two data charts above why so many experienced shooters prefer cast bullets over jacketed. In both 45 Colt and 44 Mag, compare the charge weights, pressure and velocity between the 300 gr jacketed and the 325 gr cast bullets. In both cartridges, the heavier cast bullet takes more powder and gives higher velocities at lower pressure than the lighter jacketed slug.

The cast bullet provides more power while at the same time being easier on the gun (and the wallet!).
 
Tons of info

I thank you all for the wealth of info on heavy loads for my Ruger Bisley .45 Colt. Some of them look like good, heavy bear loads. Can hardly wait to try them. Aparently the old .45 Colt round is alive and well.:D
 
i have different gun/calibers for different things. my 45 lc loadings are mostly cowboy loadings. i figure for protection, 25 feet or less a 250 grain bullet at 8 or 900 fps will do the job quite nicely for self defense.the wild west was tamed by loads like this.
 
I load 18.2 grains of Accurate 4100 under the Matt's Bullets 315 gr WFN-GC and Starline Nickel cases.

bullets.jpg


Gives just under 1150 fps in my 5-1/2" stainless Bisley BH with very controllable recoil.
 
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