Low Cost .45 Colt Ammo?

N

Nightcrawler

New member
I'll probably (not nearly settled yet) be buying a .45 Colt revolver on or shortly after my 21st birthday this summer. My only handgun experience being with a 1911 I owned for about a year (yes, legal, private sale, but it was a junker), and lacking any ranges at all around here, muchless rental ranges, I've come to the conclusion that I like what I read about the .45 Colt cartridge. The only downside I see compared to .44 Magnum is ammo cost, especially the more powerful rounds. You can find .44 Mag, 240grn @ 1100 fps all over the place, but finding .45 Colt ammo with a velocity of over 900 feet per second can be a challenge, unless you've got the bucks to order a crate load of Cor-Bon ammo, which I don't. Now, when I'm first starting off, I want less recoil and lighter loads. Firing your first ten shots as full-house .44 Mag loads or Buffalo Bore .45 Colt loads is a good way to develop a flinch.

I don't know why I want a .45 Colt over a .44 Mag; I've never fired either. I think there's just something about .45 Colt that appeals to me. EVERYbody has .44 Mag, but .45 Colt is a little less seen these days (hence the higher ammo cost).

I suppose I could just get into reloading one of these days, but I currently can't, living in a college dorm.

At any rate, let's assume I follow my impulse and get a .45 Colt Ruger Redhawk 5.5" stainless revolver, and a Winchester 94 Trapper lever carbine to go with it. What's a good source of relatively inexpensive ammo? I like to buy in bulk, and though I don't hunt, I prefer to practice with more than what would be considered "cowboy" loads, just as if I had a .44 Mag carbine/revolver I wouldnt' want to do all of my practicing with .44 Special loads.
 
I bought my first loading tools when I was a teenager and got my first centerfire, which was a single action Ruger in .45 Colt BTW. I knew it was the only way I could afford to shoot. In retrospect it was the wise thing to do.

You could always just reload at home on breaks from school and take loaded ammo back to where your gun is.

If you don't choose to do that Blaser ammo is pretty cheap, but the cases cannot be reloaded. And military surplus ammunition makes calibers like 9mm very attractive because the ammo is so cheap it is hard to justify reloading even if you already own a progressive press.

If you don't absolutely have to have a .45 Colt but like western style guns, you could purchase a Ruger dual cylinder Blackhawk in 9mm/.357 and be able to shoot surplus 9mm ammo for practice and .357s in the woods.
 
I've been thinking. I think what it is is my fascination with the .45 Caliber. It's an American tradition, I think, in both the semiauto and revolver formats.

I'm also looking at the Dan Wesson 460 model. The more I talk to the good folks over at DW the more I like this revolver. It can fire .45 ACP, .45 ACP +P, .45 Super, .460 Rowland, and .45 Win Mag with moon clips (provided the .45 Win Mag is used with Staline brass, as Georgia Ammo's is), and .45 Auto Rim without (which Georgia Arms alos makes). That would make for plenty of cheap plinking PLUS all the power I could want out of a revolver (I understand some of Cor-Bon's .45 Win Mag loads are quite potent).

I would lose the lever carbine compatibility, but that's not really a big deal. I have no experience with moonclips whatsoever, but I hear that they're faster and cheaper than speedloaders. I hear that getting the spent cases out of them can be a pain sometimes, though. What exactly is a de-mooner? Would a screwdriver work for popping stubborn cases out of a moonclip?
 
I think the proper answer is an SA Ruger (Blackhawk or Vaquero) in .45ACP/.45LC dual-caliber convertible.

The factory double-caliber Vaquero (fixed sight) is less common, being produced in special off-catalog runs. But they turn up on Auctionarms, gunbroker and gunsamerica fairly regularly.

With the .45LC cylinder in, you've got big boomin' fun, or switch to the .45ACP to eat mil-surplus fodder or any number of defense loads.

There's good defense ammo out there in .45LC, much of it duplicating or slightly exceeding the .45ACP. Winchester Silvertips are good, Cor-Bon's 200grain defense-grade .45LC is good stuff, heck it's hard to go wrong with any .45 JHP. Silvertips in .45LC can sometimes be had from www.ammoman.com at prices that won't cause immediate heart attack :).

But the real choices involve reloading or doing double-caliber to eat .45ACP for at least practice.
 
Unless you're ready to drop between $2.50 and $3.00 every time you fill that six shooter, then listen real close to what AC says.


*Jim,
This ain't the big one 'Lizabeth, :D but even Ammoman is around .$.45 per round on that .45 Colt. My most pricey handload is around $.21 per round and that's the extreme top end! My everyday stuff is around $.12 a round. I know people that buy in bulk and cast their own bullets that cut my low end almost in half,,,somewhere around $.08 a round.
 
YOU PAYS YOUR MONEYS...............

Get the 5.5" Redhawk; you'll love it (Pachmayr Decelerators, trust me).

Caliber.....hmmm......I have them in all four, but they make only 44 and 45 nowadays.......if you buy the 45 you will have more power......and the "penis factor".......but ammo costs MORE. www.georgia-arms.com for 'plinking', and one of the specialty makers for screw-SAAMI ammo.

You might reconsider your caliber choice if ammo cost is a big issue. The 44 is pretty hairy all by itself!

OH! It was discovered that HKS #29 speedloaders work with the Redhawk and 45 Colt! Yeehaaaw! I'm goin' IPSCing! with big holes.
 
Actually..

You can get to the 8 cent area with store bought bullets (good lead ones). For my LC I get Shooters Choice bullets $36 per 1000, use 8-10 grains of Unique (about 2 cents), and WLP's at 2 cents. Factory runs $18-25 for off-the-shelf and much higher for specialty. When you want Cor-Bon equivalents, put Linebaugh's heavy loads under lead or XTP's.

We have complete RCBS kits at the store for maybe $150-$200. These are good lifetime quality units. 8-12 boxes would pay for the reloader and I've easily shot that in a few week-ends. It's a LOT more fun to blast away a few boxes when you know they're $6-8 and not $50. I can go to the loader and whip up 50 or 100 light target loads, reset the measure, and put out one's that will take about anything that walks.

I understand about the dorm thing. Others there would freak out if you had ammo. Maybe you could find someone living off-campus and use their place. I have a friend that comes over and uses my Dillon. Doesn't cost me anything and helps him out. I just enjoy reloading so much that I think it's worth the effort.
 
Ruger Convertibles

The Ruger website only lists blue as the finish for Blackhawk 45 ACP/45 LC convertibles. I'm still waiting for my Ruger catalog. Anybody know if the Blackhawks come in SS finish, or SSG for the special edition Vaquero convertibles?
 
If I do go with .45 Colt...

...And I might, because I had a .357 Lever carbine that I gave to a friend to get her into shooting, and I loved it, and I think a .45 Colt lever carbine and revolver combo would be cool, I might take up reloading. I'll probably have an apartment next year, or could set up the stuff at home over the summer. A few questions from one who knows nothing of reloading.

-Is it hard?

-Does the equipment take up a lot of room?

-Does the equipment cost a lot of money?

-Is it extremely time-consuming?
 
Cheap 45 long colt ammo? - RELOAD!

There is no cheaper 45 caliber ammo than reloading your own. The speed of such depends on which press you buy a single stage or a progressive(a single stage is better to start off with)
A small reloading unit can be made eqsily from a black & decker workmate using it as a table mounting the press on a small piece of plywood bolted to a 2X4. I used a system like this for a couple of years till I got my house. Go to a local gun show and pick up a C oR O press used. Also your shell holders, powder(I recommend the new formula of Unique - great for 45 colt loads), priomers(std not magnum - large pistol for 45 lc) , dies (get carbide for handgun ammo, easer to work with)etc. Till you get set up georgia ammo is your best bet. If you send they your brass they will reload it for you at a price. Not as cheap as you could do it but not bad. Brass can be had from starline at about $100 per 1000. You will like the sixgun lever gun combo its a lot of fun and handy too. Hope this is some help
 
Nightcrawler, I got into reloading when I was in your situation . . . a college student living in the dorm.

I used a Lee Loader [http://www.leeprecision.com/catalog/browse.cgi?1007495725.4683=dies-p4.html#LeeLoader] that cost me about $15 (they're $20 list now).

I soon moved up to standard Lee Dies with a handheld single-stage press - I think it was about $35, including the dies (looks like it'd be about $53 list nowadays). The whole set-up fit in a 18"x4"x10" box on my bookshelf (so, no, it doesn't necessarily take up a lot of room), and no one was the wiser. I'd recommend bypassing the Lee Loader and just getting a hand press with the .45 Colt carbide dies. It should drop your ammo costs a ton, and get you shooting a lot more. It did for me.

You asked if it's difficult: nothing can be simpler than reloading for revolvers with a basic Lee system. Reloading is so boring you can hardly stand it, though. Some parts are so mindless that you can do them while watching TV - like depriming and resizing - but you need to pay attention during most of it. A good excuse to listen to a new CD, I guess (not that we had CDs, back when I went to college, just a drum made out of a hollowed-out log). Even with a single-stage press you will probably be able to reload 100 rounds in an hour, once you get accustomed to it (not terribly time-consuming, but not exactly fast with the single-stage press . . . more expensive/larger presses would save you a bunch of time).

As I indicated, the equipment isn't too expensive (other folks have talked about the price of components). These guys [http://www.fmreloading.com/] look like they can save you some money on the list prices I quoted above. Happy reloading . . . well, happy shooting!
 
-Is it hard?
No. It does require a lot of attention though. The basics are extremely simple. Pop old primer out, squeeze case back into shape, put new primer in, add powder, add bullet, crimp bullet in place. That's the real skinny on reloading. Handloading is even simpler. Put powder in a new primed case, put bullet in open end, crimp bullet in place. There's a wealth of predetermined data that lists the amount of powder to use for a general velocity desired with a general bullet type ie 700-900 fps w/a cast lead SWC 255 gr. The hard part comes in working up the most accurate or highest velocity load at a safe level for the specific gun you use. Even that isn't reall "hard" it's more of a challange than anything else. Once you find that load, you file it away as a "pet load" and move on to another idea to work on, like getting the same results with a cleaner burning powder or something.

-Does the equipment take up a lot of room?
It all depends on how involved you want it to be. A basic setup only takes up a few square feet of table top space. My old style Lee truuet press came with a wooden carry case that converts into a table top mount. I can set it up on the kitchen table and start loading in about 15 min, or C-clamp it to a workbench for a semi permanent setup. Right now, I'm between rooms so to speak, and I have it setup on the floor of a spare bedroom. Understadably, with this type of Rube Goldberg setup, my handloading and reloading is a lot slower and the sessions are a lot shorter. (my fat ole carcass doesn't do the crossed leg sit down on the floor like it used to ;))

-Does the equipment cost a lot of money?
Anywhere from an initial cost of around $50.00 for a very basic Lee and powder, cases, primers, bullets to somewhere around $1000.00 for a complete progressive like a Dillon and a lot of the frills. I started with a $15.00 Lee pound em in, pound em out in .38 special for around $15.00. My first runs were not reloads because I didn't resize fired brass, I used new primed cases. All I did was scoop a dipper of Unique into the case, put a bullet(Speer JHP's cause that was all the gun store carried) in the open end and crimped it in place. I could load some real basic plinker loads for about 2/3 the cost of factory ammo. I bought a 500 round box of cast lead bullets for something like $9.00 from a fella that cast his own, and my price per round went way down. Not only that, but the cast lead shot a lot better too.

-Is it extremely time-consuming?
Time and money spent on equipment are inverse. More expensive equipment usually results in less time. Less expensive equipment usually measn more time. A progressive setup can turn out something on the order of a few hundred rounds to several hundred rounds per hour. A basic setup like my Lee turret turns out a leisurely 50-100 rounds an hour.

My present equipment costs for the very basics I need:
Lee Turret- $89.00
Set of Lee carbide dies in .45LC- $25.00(?)
Scale- Hornady -$59.00
Lee perfect(yeah right ;))powder measure- $25.00
Check weight for the scale- $5.00 at a flea market.

Necessary other stuff-
Manuals- prolly a couple hunderd bucks in total- The one I use most is a Lyman 47th edition (lots of cast lead data, and I prefer cast lead bullets over jacketed). IIRC, I paid less than $25.00 for it. Safe everyday data is plentiful via spec sheets from the powder mfg's and some of the bullet mfg's, as well as internet sites and online forums like here. If in doubt, post a question over on the reloading forum. Wait a few days to make sure someone catches any goofball type responses or an honest slip of the keyboard by someone.(very, very, very very, very, very, seldom here on TFL does that happen,,Johnny runs a tight board, and the participants are quick to point out any overloads or other anomolies--other sites aren't as well covered)
 
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