This weekend a friend whose dad was a longtime Bullseye shooter offered up some of the old gentleman's shooting items that he had no interest in. In addition to a few boxes of shotgun shells and some cast H&G 185 .45 boolits, I also got a 1911 barrel and bushing plus two magazines marked ".38-45".
Here's what I do know. Back in the sixties or so a guy named Clerk devised a wildcat called the .38-45 that was simply a .45 ACP necked down to .38 caliber. The idea was to have an easy to shoot, light recoiling .38 for the centerfire stage of NRA Bullseye. Supposedly it only required a .38 Super barrel that was rechambered to the wildcat round (and that appears to be what I have,) a bushing, and a light spring. It was supposedly ultra reliable due to the bottle neck case shape. Apparently the same was not always true of the .38 Special conversions of the Govt. Model, which led to the great S&W Model 52. I don't know from personal experience, it's just what I've read.
According to Cartridges of the World, a 148 wadcutter over 3.5 of Bullseye was a fairly sedate target load. They also list a zippier jacketed load with Unique, but that's not what I'm interested in.
So now is where I need help. How do I proceed? I certainly need loading dies, but how about the cases? Is it as simple as running a .45 into the loading die, or are there other steps to forming the cases? Are there forming dies needed? I have no experience at all with wildcat rounds.
I was hoping someone here might have some actual experience with this round. I would love to tinker around with this little bit of "Bullseye from the Golden Era" memorabilia.
Can anyone help?