I am glad to see the side conversation on black powder loads, and the side channel on light hitting as well.
My opinion, the 1873 45 Colt load of 250-255 grain bullet at 800-1000fps muzzle, is, among all handgun cartridges before during or since a heavy hitting handgun load.
I think of "light" 45Colt loads as the sort of stuff I have to load to go shoot at steel plates with the 1911 owners, ~230gr at ~750fps depending on your local range rules.
I think the 270SAA bullet is a great bullet and a legitimate heavy load in any .45Colt. I own a Vaquero and a Redhawk, both in .45 Colt and though I can go where other .45 Colts fear to tread, I personally don't need anything more powerful than the 270SAA at about 900fps unless I am climbing mountains out of interior Alaska into white bear or brown bear country.
Someone here has the signature quote, slow heavy bullet/dead bug/windshield, with which I agree.
As far as black powder loading .45Colt, please bring it. I loaded up about 30 rounds using a substitute (Pyrodex I think?).
Of all the fun things I can think of to do with my clothes still on, burning black powder in .45 Colt cases is in my top five lifetime. If you aren't feeling it just yet, go try it on July fourth.
Last time, the first time, my bullet diameter was a poor fit with my bore diameter, but I got that taken care of.
My plan is to use fire formed brass neck sized just enough to get good bullet pull, but still fat enough at the head end to minimize blowby.
Though I have a more BP friendly lube now, I am going to make lube cookies anyway. I have been using a homemade mix of 45-45-10% by weight beeswax-Crisco-oliveoil this winter. I find it works great down to -30dF, even when I leave my Redhawk and some loaded ammunition in the tool box in my truck bed outdoors for several days. Below -30dF, I am not hunting; so I haven't done much testing below that.
Last time I made a batch of lube I poured the hot liquid into a cookie sheet lined with tin foil. Once it cooled I have dozens and dozens of cookies ready to be cut out if I need them- but they aren't all "exactly" the same thickness.
I am a little squeamish on cookie thickness v- charge density. I am going to run these through the Redhawk, so I got some safety margin, but I am thinking about picking up an SAA clone, so I kinda want to get it right.
The BP substitute I have is one of the Hodgdon line, I remember they wanted somewhere between zero air space between bullet and powder, down to 10% compression on the powder once the bullet was seated.
I figure if I use all the same brass trimmed all the same length and the same bullet and the same powder charge I am still going to have some variation in powder compression since my cookies are home made.
Part of me is saying I might be overthinking this.
I will say if you decide to try it, load up 50 or 100 of them, you wont regret it. The chore of cleaning the gun will be the same pain in the neck if you light off one or light off 75. I bet $20 the first time you see that spark shot cloud and that luxuriously thick black plume of smoke coming out both the muzzle and the freshly emptied cylinder your going to feel a connection to a different time. In a good way I mean, this is cool.
. Since the Linebaugh BH cylinder tested blew at 60,000CUP. Absolute safety margin then is around 30,000CUP. I believe Linebaugh said 32,000CUP was his estimated limit. How that 'exactly' translates back to PSI is another question... I like to stick around 20,000PSI (Tier 2 loads and given by Brian Pearce). Enough for this man and what I need done or ever need to do....