Revolver 460 S&W

[161]

I'm guessing paper patching something like a 460 S&W would not work with the jump from the cylinder to the forcing cone??? Anybody tried it??

[Nobade]

Never tried something that ran at such high pressure, but it works fine with full pop 44 mag loads. No better than regular boolits though, so I quit trying. But the 460 is an entirely different animal and should be interesting to play with.

[161]

Well I see they make the BFR in 45-70 also. I'm starting to think to much.

[pdawg_shooter]

I have patched for both 44mag and 357mag in handguns and both worked fine. But why? A properly cast, sized, and lubed "naked" bullet will do the same thing at handgun velocity.

[shotman4]

you been out in the sun too long. PP on a 460??? get you a 32

[161]

you been out in the sun too long. PP on a 460??? get you a 32

????????

[longbow]

I haven't done it with .460 or for revolver but when I got my 1894 Marlin long ago and wanted to paper patch, coincidentally, Peterson's Guns magazine ran an article on paper patching for .45 Long Colt and .44 mag in both revolvers and lever guns.

I worked up loads for heavy boolits in my .44 Marlin duplicating the loads from the article and they shot well.

In the article, the author got very good results from revolver as well so obviously it can be done and works which reflects the results of pdawg_shooter and Nobade. .44 mag runs at lower pressure than .460 but it is certainly worth a try even if you can reach top end loads.

I'd try it.

Longbow

[161]

I tried some 405 Lee sized .452, patched with graph paper and post sized back to .452 again. Ran 1200 FPS the patch held up. Accuracy was minute of deer. Hard to get to the range with the snow now but I'm going to keep tinkering.

[Whiterabbit]

161, keep trying, I'm watching with interest. I have a BFR and have been interested. Just not enough to start the lead pot up. I will be watching your conclusions closely. PLEASE keep reporting your progress!

:)

[161]

161, keep trying, I'm watching with interest. I have a BFR and have been interested. Just not enough to start the lead pot up. I will be watching your conclusions closely. PLEASE keep reporting your progress!

:)
The gun belongs to a friend. I just started playing with it out of winter boredom. I bought a BFR 45-70 off gunbroker today. But I'll shoot the 460 again Saturday.

[Whiterabbit]

the cartridge makes no difference. I'm jsut interested in the results of paper patching in the BFR.

[161]

5829058291

Went out today, could only get 70 yards and shot off the hood of the truck with sand bags. The first picture is of a 405 Lee paper patch .sized .452 8 shots. Second is 4 factory that the owner of the gun sent home with me. They were a pointed HP in start line brass. He said he didn't know who's or what the are. I'm not a great magnum shooter. Largest until now is the 44 mag. The gun is a Smith 460 with a cheap red dot. Looks like to me my reloads shoot about as good as factory. Except not near as fast. The shells he gave me ran 2250 FPS, mine are 1200 fps. Paper patch held up. Not the best shooting but the conditions weren't the best. I think a person could make this combination work with some time and effort. The 460 is made to shoot light boolits fast. Not what I'm trying to do with a 405 grain

[Whiterabbit]

FYI (and this is purely opinion, you know what that is worth), the 460 is NOT made to shoot light bullets fast.

The X-frame was made to shoot light bullets fast. And IMO excels at it.

The BFR shoots the same cartridge and rather than 100-20" gain twist, it's got a straight 16" twist. And (IMO) it does NOT shoot the light bullets so well. I think it was made for the heavies.

Nice shooting anyways. :)

[longbow]

Since PP works with hot loaded .44 mag. you should be able to crank the pressure up to about that level without problems. The worst that will happen anyway is that the patch won't survive and accuracy will be poor... and you might get some leading. You may even be able to take it all the way to full house .460 loads. If accuracy goes away while you are working up then just stop there and you shouldn't have too much lead to clean up.

I am not a handgunner so don't really know the ins and outs but I have to ask why the .460 seems to be intended to shoot light boolits fast. It has the case volume to handle quite heavy boolits and even .44 mag and .45 LC can handle quite heavy boolits. Even at 1200 FPS with a 405 gr. boolit you are duplicating the performance of several old BP RIFLE cartridges! If you can push them another 200 or 300 FPS at safe pressure that is nothing to sneeze at! Even 1200 FPS is nothing to sneeze at. Not shabby at all from a handgun.

Longbow

[Whiterabbit]

1300 fps with a 400 grain bullet is no where near dangerous pressure based on unscientific and therefore innaccurate methodologies (case slides out of the cylinder with ease)

In fact, 1350 fps is possible with a 500 grain bullet with enough barrel.

The tragedy is that S&W left the cylinder at 2.3". It's actually NOT enough case capacity once the bullets approach and surpass 400 grains. Fortunately us BFR owners do not have that problem :)

[161]

The gun I'm shooting is the XVR. Why is it so hard to find load data for anything over a 325gr.?? My Lyman 49 said XVR stood for Extreme Velocity Revolver.

[Whiterabbit]

Because of S&W's and Hornady's intentions for the cartridge, coupled with a short cylinder that really eats into case capacity when larger bullets are used. Finally coupled with the fact that there are really NO .452 cal bullets over 400 grains. Very boutique. If not for cast performance and one other supplier I can't recall at the moment, no real selection for .452 bullets over 350 grains would exist at all.

[bigted]

and therefore ...in my humble opinion ...comes the reasson to paperpatch. i have shot .375 h&h loads with 270gr and 300gr boolits that i coudnt tell the diff in recoil between them and factory loads. runnin a 300 grain boolit wrapped in paper at a velocity of somewhere in the 2400 fps range with NO leading and very clean inside for the cleanup after. my 458 win mag has some loaded 650 grain boolits that are patched and the snot really flys with them bear loads for sure. i also have done so with 45-70 loads in my ruger #1 that raised the hair on me...[yep everywhere]...and they were stepping rite along. i shoot patched boolits at the speeds and charges that the book calls for with jacketed bullets. that is my reasson to patch the smokless rounds to begin with...who wants to pay 20 or 30 bucks for 50 bullets when i can turn that amount of cash into a pile of cast boolits and with a bit of messin round...[its what i do best]...have high velocity boolits that will suffice for target or hunting. im just now doin testing with my 308 winchester and the results so far are very promising to say the least. then there is the very reasson stated above...may not be able to find bullets at the rite diameter in the weight wanted/needed for a custom application...the reassons roll on and on...[smilie=1:

[161]

Right now I been using 2400, with the limited data for 405 gr. I'm not comfortable trying to push any harder.And 1200 fps out of a handgun I think is pretty impressive. I tried to buy some H110 locally but the scare has everything pretty well picked over. I have RL 7 and 4759, any thoughts?? I bought the 4759 for the 45-70 and have never shot any of it.

[Whiterabbit]

I've used 4759 for heavies. it works. Mention 4759 to 44man. He'll tell you everything you could want to know about it then a bunch of stuff you don't. good resource.

comfortable or not lets be honest. At the range you can hit something with with a 400 grain bullet at a MV of 1200, what's not gonna keel over and die?

[pipehand]

I haven't done it with .460 or for revolver but when I got my 1894 Marlin long ago and wanted to paper patch, coincidentally, Peterson's Guns magazine ran an article on paper patching for .45 Long Colt and .44 mag in both revolvers and lever guns.

I worked up loads for heavy boolits in my .44 Marlin duplicating the loads from the article and they shot well.

In the article, the author got very good results from revolver as well so obviously it can be done and works which reflects the results of pdawg_shooter and Nobade. .44 mag runs at lower pressure than .460 but it is certainly worth a try even if you can reach top end loads.

I'd try it.

Longbow

Longbow, I think I remember that article. Sometime around 1989 or '90, wasn't it?

[longbow]

More like 1987 or 1988 I think as I was living in Yellowknife NWT at the time. I had the machine shop in the plant I worked at bore me a cylindrical push out mould at 0.421" (cast boolit is 0.421"). I don't actually recall what spec I gave them but that is what I got. Unfortunately they decided to do me a favour and bore a chunk of stainless shafting. From the toughness I suspect it was a duplex stainless.

Regardless, stainless is a poor mould material. After I moved I bought a small lathe and bored my own cylindrical moulds from plain old cold rolled steel 1018/1020 which work fine.

The mould I had made was for my 1894 Marlin in .44 mag. I had them make a TC nose for it and paper patched up to 0.432". While well under bore size it worked quite well except my goal was heavy .44 boolits of around 300 grs. Problem was that I have the 1:38" twist microgroove barrel and it would not stabilize the heavy boolits.

Anyway, I worked up to 21 grs. H110 under a 300 gr. boolit before primers tarted to flatten noticeably. I had good accuracy to about 50 yards and it deteriorated from there. Lighter boolits shot well. I stick to about 270 gr. max weight now in that gun.

So I was running to "J" bullet pressures... or at least powder charge though pressures might have been slightly less with PP boolits. Not to .460 S&W pressures but pretty high. No cylinder gap in a Marlin though so one less hurdle for me.

I try not to paper patch or use gas checks if I don't have to. I am lazy! I figure that paper patching is about the same amount of work that making and installing gas checks and sizing/lubing is though... and maybe even less work overall. So if I have to do one I am leaning to paper patching.

I don't think the pressure of a .460 S&W will be a problem though especially with long/heavy boolits. The cylinder gap may present a bit of a problem but I suspect that sharp edges and misalignment of cylinder to forcing cone will be bigger issues if they exist. Just my thoughts.

I am actually a little amazed at the relatively recent BIG advances in handgun performance. Many of the newer cartridges are meeting or even exceeding old BP rifle performance. Let's face it .45-70 factory rounds are loaded to BP equivalent pressures for old BP guns and the 330 gr. Gould was a favourite game getter and here we are with handguns shooting boolits of 400, 500 and even 700 grs. at velocities that put some rifles to shame.

Longbow

[161]

Here's what's been going on with my new BFR 45-70.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?180096-Bfr-45-70