.45 Colt

[Hank45]

Does anybody have a drawing of the original 1873 Colt bullet with dimentions? Thanks for your answer, Hank

[Guesser]

The Lyman 454190 is a very close copy, today. I use it and it looks very good and performs well. I have one old round, probably pre WWII and my 454190 when seated duplicates the old round.

[OS OK]

160965

[bedbugbilly]

Guesser says it well! I also use the Ideal/Lyman 454190 RNFP and as he says, when seated I think you'd have a hard time telling yours from an original. They shoot exceptionally well out of my Uberti 7 1/2" Cattleman. The reason I chose that mold was because it was a close clone of what they used originally. As far as a drawing though, check Accurate or NOE - I'm not sure if they make a clone or not as I have never looked - I had the 454190 mold so didn't need to.

[sirgknight]

Does anybody have a drawing of the original 1873 Colt bullet with dimentions? Thanks for your answer, Hank

Maybe these will help:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45_Colt

[Outpost75]

Accurate has several versions of 454190 with and without crimp groove, including hollow-base (pin must be outsourced) depending upon whether you intend to use smokeless or black powder. A crimp groove is not required when loading black powder, because the compressed powder charge provides base support for the bullet. If loading smokeless powder, especially for use in a lever-action rifle, a crimp groove is necessary to prevent the bullet from telescoping back into the case from compression of the magazine spring, and to prevent inertial dislodgement when fired with heavy revolver loads.

While original service bullets had a small meplat and more streamlined shape to enhance penetration, Keith and others commented that they were less effective on game, and this has been my experience also, using factory lead conicals from both Remington an d Winchester over many years.

For hunting use I would much prefer that the bullet have a meplat of not less than 1/2 of bullet diameter, or 0.227" for a .454" bullet. This also happens to be a bit larger than the .210" diameter of a large pistol primer, which is an important consideration if you intend to use your .45 Colt rounds in a tubular magazine rifle!

In my opinion the very best bullet of traditional shape for the .45 Colt is the John Kort design based upon his well proven match winning black powder bullet 43-215C, which has been extensively proven in both original and modern rifles and revolvers for the .44-40. Like the .44s, the .45 bullet has the correct traditional nose shape, but additionally has one large flat-bottomed grease groove of correct lube capacity to prevent fouling out in rifle length barrels, when using Goex black powder, which I can say from experience the Ideal 454190 and 42798 are wholly inadequate with today's black powder.

Its meplat is small enough to give good ranging characteristics from rifles to 200 yards or more, yet is much more effective on game than sharp-nosed factory conicals. Some examples of the Accurate traditionally-shaped .45 Colt molds for comparison.

You need to decide whether to choose a bullet for nostalgia, good looks or proven performance.

160973160974160972160975160976

Of these I prefer the John Kort design because of its larger meplat, which improves hunting performance while maintaining a traditional profile suitable for tube magazine rifles, useable with either smokeless or black powder. I also have his 230-grain design 43-230EB for the .44 and use it in the .44-40 and .44 Magnum in both rifles and revolvers with either smokeless or black.

[GoodOlBoy]

160979

160980

160981

Does that help?

GoodOlBoy

[w30wcf]

Hank,
I don't have an actual drawing buy you can see from the photo of an early b.p. bullet, the 454190 pics above follows the same profile.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o25/w30wcf/Collector%20Cartridges/UMC45ColtBP.jpg
Ed, thank you for the kind words.

w30wcf