At what range/speed does the Lee C452-300-RF fall apart!

[Changeling]

The Lee C452-300-RF has a great reputation here as a wonderful hunting bullet. I really believe it earned that reputation but at what range stabilized/ and speed . No one ever seems to say anything.

Personally I want a .45 projectile of this weight to be "accurate" out to at least 100 yd. This would be a function of bullet length "only". The meplat obviously comes into the equation at the acuracy level at that range (100)yd.

In regard to velocity, 1100 to 1200 fps is totally sufficant for a bullet of this weight.

Since the stability of the above bullet/meplat diameter can fall apart at 100 yard, what meplat diameter or rate of twist would be sufficient at these speeds. Considering the reduction in speed at 100yd.

I hope I made myself clear.

[MT Chambers]

Keith insisted that those designs became unstable at longer ranges just like a wadcutter does, and he preferred his design(Keith) because it was stable out to the ranges that he was shooting, now I don't pretend to speak for Mr. Keith, but I ain't gonna argue with him either!

[44man]

None of them fall apart at range as long as they are started with the most accurate load and spin.
Velocity from a Ruger is right at 1150 to 1200, just find the most accurate at 50 yards.
I shoot WLN, WFN and RNFP boolits to 500 (547 yards) meters from all of my revolvers.
You can't shoot them at 800 fps of course and if you have a .45 with a 1 in 24" twist you can't shoot them fast enough.
The 1 in 16" in the Ruger is perfect for heavy boolits.
It is not the velocity drop off at range. The spin is still up there where you need it.
That is a good boolit and deer at 100 is fine.

[RobS]

I would say that as long as you are running a minimum of 1000 fps out of the muzzle the Lee 452-300-RF will be pretty good out to 50 yards but falls out much past 75. It's one that needs a bit of speed or RPMs to stabilize and shoot accurately. I have run it down at 850-900 fps and it was doing decent groups at 25-30 yards (2" off a bench open sights) but not as well at 50 yards. As 44man mentioned this one really starts to shine from 1100 to 1200 fps but it will still have quite a bit of bullet drop out at 100 yards due to the wide meplat.

[DougGuy]

Well, ya heard it from a couple of the best now, and from what their consensus reads, if you have a levergun with the right twist in the barrel, 100yd 2" groups may be doable because you could then launch it at a suitable velocity to remain stable at that distance. I doubt I will even try those boolits in my pistols to 100yds. 35-40 or less is what I generally find myself shooting in the woods when deer want to go home with me so the short barreled Vaquero does adequate in that scenario.

One more thing to toss in here, and kinda important at that. I am finding that the alloy you cast these in has a lot to do with how well they group out of a particular gun. When I got this Lee RF boolit for my .44 some were cast in 50/50+2% and those just immediately grouped better than anything this SBH has ever shot. So.. I am awaiting a few hundred of the C452-300-RF cast also in 50/50+2% to try in the .45 Colt. My thinking being that the harder alloys might not be quite as accurate as a softer alloy which may be a better match to the velocity and twist rate of the Ruger barrels.

[Moonie]

I use 22gr of H110/W296 with this boolit in my 7 1/2" NMBH and get right at 1,200fps. Great load.