45 Colt Carbine

[Tenbender]

I'm going to buy a mold to cast 45's for a Rossi 92 carbine. Should I buy a gas check mold or not ? I do want a little more speed from the carbine than my Blackhawk.

[Outpost75]

You will pick up more velocity from the carbine just by virtue of its longer barrel. Revolver loads which give about 1000-1050 fps will give about 1300-1350 fps from the rifle without changing anything. Below 1400 fps in a rifle you don't need a gascheck if the bullet fits, the alloy is correct and it is adequately lubed. If you are trying to turn your .45 Colt carbine into a miniature .45-70 shooting max. Ruger or TC style loads in it, then you will need a GC.

In my experience I have not found GC bullets beneficial in revolvers because they do not seal the gases behind the bullet during its transition from the cylinder, through the forcing one and info the barrel. If the GC becomes dislodged or deformed during this transition it produces an out of square base which degrades accuracy. Therefore I don't use GCs in my revolvers. I use the money saved by not buying GCs to buy good known alloy from Roto Metals.

If you have a rifle and revolver of the same caliber, I don't think it makes sense to develop specialized rifle loads which are not optimized for the revolver. If you want the rifle to shoot bears and buffalo, then get a .444 or .45-70. I use the same loads in my .44-40 and .44 Magnum rifles and revolvers and find them adequate. Plainbased bullets all and soft alloy, typically 1:30 tin/lead, handgun velocities around 1000 fps and rifle velocity with those loads is typically 1300-1350. I find them adequate for deer and hogs. If you need to shoot beyond 125 yards, then higher velocity from the rifle will flatten its trajectory usefully, and if longer hunting ranges are important for you, then the GC bullets and faster loads to around 1600 fps are worth a try, but I have never found them as accurate in my lever guns as milder loads approximating .44-40 blackpowder velocity.

If I lived in elk country I would get a bigger gun.

[DougGuy]

Might want to read up on some other threads that deal with the Rossi 92 in .45 Colt and correspond with some of the posters, apparently chamber dimensions can vary widely with this model and you may even need to cast your rifle's chamber and slug it's bore before deciding on not only which mold, but the size as well. GC is a good idea in this caliber and there are some mold designs that feed better than others in the Rossi because of their COA.

Although your rifle may chamber and shoot some of the same loads you use in a Blackhawk, it may have dimensions much larger than the Blackhawk and your boolit performance might suffer in the rifle from not being big enough.

[Mk42gunner]

Don't know about a Rossi carbine; but in my Marlin 1894CB rifle, I have no complaints with the Lyman 452424 with a fairly stiff charge of 2400. Not a max load but it does well from both the Ruger Vaquero and the Marlin.


I don't know the velocity, I never took a chronograph to the range when I was shooting a .45 Colt.

Robert

[bangerjim]

I shoot everything I can stuff in a 45LC case in my Rossi 45 Carbine! 160-300gn. I do not GC anything and get excellent results with standard loads. As said above, you will gain from the longer barrel. I shoot my revolver loads in the carbine all the time. Ecellent results at 90% max published loads every time.

I powder coat everything for no leading, no smoke, no sticky boolits.

banger-j

[runfiverun]

I don't own a 45 colt boolit mold with a gas check, but I do hunt with them.
a have taken my 24" ones up over 1600 fps, and have shot the same loads in the 20" carbine without issue.
I have never run the 20" gun over the chrono [hmm never thought to do that] but I ain't had a deer complain about me not doing it.

[Harter66]

The 92 I load for gains 300 fps over the 7.5 RBH load for load. They will share the 452-255 RNFP but not the 452 252 SWC . I am about the start the 454424 in both . I had hoped to get a 1600 fps load in the 16 in carb but so far it's not happening. Even at just 1200 fps the 252 did a through an through on a 145 lb 50 yd hog through the shield on both sides. At 17 paces it went through 22" of a 165# via shield rib vitals rib and shoulder meat.

[tsubaki]

I'm real interested to see what y'all come up with to hopefully make my decisions easier, so please do post the results. I have yet to come up with the companion pistol for my Winchester 1892 (1997 vintage) and have been playing some factory stuff and reloading some j words.
I'm mainly interested to use them for hunting purposes and am planning to cast something about 250gr.
Maybe what little I've found will help some.
I chronographed a factory lead 250gr RNFP round in a 5" Colt replica at 725fps, it exits my 24" rifle barrel at 980fps.
I've reloaded some 250gr XTP's with 18.0gr of 2400 and ended up with 1440fps out of the rifle. I have not tried this load in the replica as it is slightly into the Ruger/Contender pressure range.
Speer lists their 250gr Gold Dot HP with 18.0gr of 2400 doing 1058fps out of a 7.5" Blackhawk. If I didn't intend to cast for the rifle and future pistol this might be a load I'd be happy with.

[runfiverun]

I use the newer Blackhawk convertible and the 452664.
it gives me a place to crimp, and is what I use to hunt deer with.
but keeping the loads manageable in the revolver means I need to tame down the rifles rounds.
19 grs of 2400 under a 250gr boolit is not a pleasant afternoon even with Hogue grips installed on the revolver.

I have been shooting 9.0 grs of unique in both guns as my two-fer load.
it's potent enough to 100yds to hunt with, but manageable in the revolver and accurate enough.
if I want to take both guns hunting I just load the rifle up with the hunting loads and keep the two-fer's in the revolver and on the belt, as well as some 160 gr rnfp's loaded with 5 grs of clay's for plonking grouse.

[gwpercle]

If I were restricted to only one mould, it would be a gas check. You can get some impressive velocity with a rifle and a gas check will make load development easier and might help accuracy.
The truth is.....you can't just have one mould for a gun, that's against the caster's nature and may be illegal! It would be like having one pair of shoes.....how many pairs of shoes do you have? So , get two...one plain and one GC!
I have one 38 special and one 357 magnum but I got at least 9 moulds !
Gary

[Shooter6br]

Elmer Keith(you should know who he is) did not use gas checks. His alloy was 16-1 in his max 44 mag loads.

[Tenbender]

If I were restricted to only one mould, it would be a gas check. You can get some impressive velocity with a rifle and a gas check will make load development easier and might help accuracy.
The truth is.....you can't just have one mould for a gun, that's against the caster's nature and may be illegal! It would be like having one pair of shoes.....how many pairs of shoes do you have? So , get two...one plain and one GC!
I have one 38 special and one 357 magnum but I got at least 9 moulds !
Gary
LOL :razz: How true that is !!

[dubber123]

I've run up to 1,600 fps. with a plain base in a rifle with very good accuracy. I have run up over 2,150 fps. with a GC with very good accuracy. Years ago I had Veral Smith of LBT cut me a .44 mag mold. I told him if a GC would net me a noticeable increase in accuracy at long ranges, to make me one. If not, I would prefer plain base. The mold showed up as a GC. He may not know everything, but the man knows more than most. I guess it depends on what your goals are.

[Harter66]

Nonsense. ...........never mind I just realized I have 5 in 45 but only 3 in 38/9mm and 2 in 40 .
I guess when you find 1 that works well in everything you don't have to keep looking unless you need a fly weight and a heavy. That's probably why I have 5 in 7mm to feed 1 rifle.

[Harter66]

136687

Here are 4 I have at my disposal.
Left to right 452-255 ,454423 ,454424 ,430424 (the bottom bands are opened to .448 and works for paper patch but the load due to powder supplies has not come around. The boolits all work in variations of alloy from 1-20 blended to WW and will run up to 1350 with H110 and 1250 with Unique from the 16" 92' Rosschester and in the low 1000s from the 7.5 RBH. The longer 44 boolit requires special attention to length as it will hang up if it "creeps" just a little long. I abandoned the 452-252 because it would yaw above 1200 fps muzzle at 50 yd , below that it was fine and plenty for hogs up to at least 180. The 454424 is going to be "tested" in just shy of 3 weeks in the 92', RBH and 1917 on hogs as needed/made possible. Even at a paltry 800 fps it should be enough under 50 yd to wreck them.