45 at the range.

[frkelly74]

It was a nice day and I had an hour to kill so I took my RIA 45 to the range to try out some loads. I am always looking for powder deals and the store I frequent has a corner where used and traded in components are offered for sale. Quite a few widowed ladies bring in their departed husbands left overs to get rid of and once in a while you can find a bargain. I got an unopened 3 lb can of Alcan # 5 there a while ago and wanted to use it in my 45. (If it is $10 per lb I will buy it and find a way to use it.) So the burn rate shows it in the Herco speed range and I had good luck with the Herco till it ran out. my data from the Lyman manual that I got in 1968 has loads for AL5 for a 240 gr boolit in the 45 auto rim section so I had good guidelines to work within. My TL230TC Lee mold habitually casts the alloy I use on the heavy side, up to 250 gr if I use pure lead. I tumble and size them in a 452 sizer and tumble lube them again. I have gotten the bugs worked out of using this boolit and am starting to like it a lot. 5.5 grains of AL5 gave good functioning and hit the target at about 50 feet all point on. I was able to recover some of the boolits from the snow and was pleased to see good strong rifling marks that were well defined and no blow by or smearing evidence. All in all the load was mild but reliable and showed mild pressures. The fired cases sized much easier that factory cases that I found and the primers were not flattened. They were steel cases by the way. No problems encountered, very satisfying outing.

[geargnasher]

Feels good when you nail it on the first try, doesn't it? And with bargain-buy powder, to boot!

Gear

[RobS]

Sounds great. I also have better cast boolit success in the 45 auto with powders that burn in the middle ground for suggested caliber use. Herco is one of my favorites too and RexIII works equally well should you ever find some of that is just begging to be bought. Never shot Alcan 5 but if given a good price on it I would also be finding a way to use it up. The 45 auto is a cartridge that can gobble up many different powders and work rather well with all of them.

[geargnasher]

So true, Rob. My latest kick for the .45 ACP has been Clays and slightly harder boolits (14-15 bhn), very accurate when loaded to 750-800 fps range (what I call "medium".). My FIL gave me a couple pounds of pull-down powder from some dud shotshell handloads, I found a good use for it in my .45s and the .38 Specials like it, too. Normally I prefer Universal or PP for the .45 ACP with 10-12 bhn boolits.

Gear

[frkelly74]

Did a memory check and found that the loads I was thinking of were in my Mid 1980's lyman cast handbook.