Reloading 45 Colt BP

[Blacky Montana]

Hey guys,
I've been watching a guy on YouTube by the name Murphy's Muskets, who seems to have his act together for loading 45 Colt BP. This is what he is using.

1. 35 gr GOEX fffg BP
2. 250 gr cast bullet

After loading case with with powder he follows with...
1. Nitro cardboard over powder wad.
2. Oxy Yoke lube wad that he also lubes with Mink Oil.
3. Topped off with Nitro plastic shot card.

He says those three steps can be skipped and the bullet loaded directly over the compressed powder, but stresses that the wads do a great job of swabbing the barrel and keeping fouling down to increase accuracy. This all makes perfect sense to me. What do you guys think?

Blacky

[Blacky Montana]

One other step I forgot.. After putting the 3 different wads over the powder, Murphy also clubbed the bullet with Oxy Yoke bullet lube..

Blacky

[Nobade]

I don't see why it wouldn't work, especially in a rifle. Lubed felt wads are good things in percussion revolvers.

[indian joe]

Hey guys,
I've been watching a guy on YouTube by the name Murphy's Muskets, who seems to have his act together for loading 45 Colt BP. This is what he is using.

1. 35 gr GOEX fffg BP
2. 250 gr cast bullet

After loading case with with powder he follows with...
1. Nitro cardboard over powder wad.
2. Oxy Yoke lube wad that he also lubes with Mink Oil.
3. Topped off with Nitro plastic shot card.

He says those three steps can be skipped and the bullet loaded directly over the compressed powder, but stresses that the wads do a great job of swabbing the barrel and keeping fouling down to increase accuracy. This all makes perfect sense to me. What do you guys think?

Blacky

Heck of a lot of trouble ! --------boolit with decent lube groove full of proper blackpowder lube, with a juice box wad over the powder should work.

[indian joe]

One other step I forgot.. After putting the 3 different wads over the powder, Murphy also clubbed the bullet with Oxy Yoke bullet lube..

Blacky

Complicated is only a good idea after simple cant be made to work

[country gent]

Loading BP isn't hard or magical.

Clean your deprimed 45 colt brass with the method you prefer. deburr and chamfer it if needed. I like to deburr flash holes but not needed here.
Prime cases with a good std pistol primer.
Drop charges in each case one charge per case should be straight forward here since 2 charges wont fit
Insert wads onto the powder charge a wad cut from playing cards that firs snug in the case will seal the powder from lubes
Compress powder charge do this seperatly from seating the force can distort bullets. compress to where the bullet sits on the wads, If you go with the lubed flet wad don't compress with it since the force will push the lube out where you don't want it.
Add any remaining wads and seat by hand onto stack. A cleaning jag with the point removed works good here
Seat bullets. Bullets can be lubed with the TC lube SPG or several home made versions like Emmerts.
Crimp as needed

Have fun.

[MaLar]

I used only a grease cookie at a cowboy match once. Got dirty looks from the other shooters when pasters wouldn't stick to the cut outs to cover my boolit holes. I should have told you the targets (cutouts of bad guys) were at about five feet and covered with grease cookie grease. And shot pretty well at cowboy match ranges.

[greenjoytj]

The following is a cut and paste of an old post I started ~a year ago:

Test fired my new SASS set of Ruger New Vaquero's in 45 Colt with 5.5" barrels.
My load recipe is:
Cases - Starline. Almost all the starline cases did not require trimming as they were already a few thou shorter than the trim to length of 1.275" as shown in my manuals.
Primers - CCI 350 Magnum primers were used because I read in a Mike Venturino book his tests proved this primer best for BP in his 45 Colt.
Powder - Goex 2fg charge of 35 grains weighed on a digital scale.
Bullet - 261 grain LRNFP soft cast BHN ~11 Bullets sized to .452" and lube with SPG bullet lube which added the 1 grain of bullet weight.
The powder was compressed with a powder compression plug installed in the expander die body.
Bullets were seated directly on the powder no wads were used and a roll crimp applied just over the forward drive band, for a COL of 1.565”.

Shooting Chrony results for my BP cartridges, 3 ten shot strings, velocity in feet per second:
String #1) Lo 803.7 Hi 832.2 Av 819.5 Es 28.51 Sd 8.77
String #2) Lo 809.5 Hi 835.2 AV 823.0 Es 25.70 Sd 9.05
String #3) Lo 776.1 Hi 834.0 Av 815.0 Es 57.92 Sd 17.11

3fg BP granulation would be show a higher MV, one day I’ll try some for comparison.

[BrentD]

Hey guys,
I've been watching a guy on YouTube by the name Murphy's Muskets, who seems to have his act together for loading 45 Colt BP. This is what he is using.

1. 35 gr GOEX fffg BP
2. 250 gr cast bullet

After loading case with with powder he follows with...
1. Nitro cardboard over powder wad.
2. Oxy Yoke lube wad that he also lubes with Mink Oil.
3. Topped off with Nitro plastic shot card.

He says those three steps can be skipped and the bullet loaded directly over the compressed powder, but stresses that the wads do a great job of swabbing the barrel and keeping fouling down to increase accuracy. This all makes perfect sense to me. What do you guys think?

Blacky

Doesn't make any sense to me. At least not the fouling part. The wads would do a great job of stopping gas cutting and leading (IF that was a problem).

But the powder is behind the wads. How do the wads control fouling that is laid down behind them? Something about closing the barn door after the horse is gone comes to mind.

Of course, there is the "scraper" theory of wads. But that doesn't hold water (much less fouling) either.

The lubed Ox Yoke wad might mitigate the "stickiness" of the fouling to the bore, but nothing more than that. However, keeping fouling soft might be good. If that's the case, then skip the nitro wad on the bottom as that would just remove any lube that the OY wad has left behind.

Just my two cents.

[jrmartin1964]

It's just my opinion, but the guy with the video is making loading BP a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

[BrentD]

It's just my opinion, but the guy with the video is making loading BP a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Agreed.

It is a common disease.

[Lead pot]

If I had to load my rounds like Murphy does I wouldn't have time to shoot
As far as scraper wads go, cards or fiber wads will not do the job, maybe slightly it will clean some left behind the last shot fired but like Brent said the shot just fired the fouling is behind the wads.
Here are some scraper wads that were used i the by years that do work but still the fouling is there from the last shot but the copper scrapers do a fine job cleaning lead and dry fouling and leaves the bore a little brighter after every shot fired.
These scrapers used with pure lead in a revolver shot under 900 fps with no lube work just fine.


Attachment 231001

[jaguarxk120]

Way back in the 1850's or 60's riflemen were issued scraper rounds, that is a bullet with a coper or zinc washer on the bottom.
That washer cleaned the fouling from the bore.
Then came the "Harvey Bullet" a pure lead cast bullet with a zinc washer cast to the base of the bullet. Those bullets could be driven at magnum velocities and no leading.
After that Dave Corbin came up with "Base Guard" bullets, same idea just a different way of putting the washer on the base.

I just shoot plain base bullets and brush with Ed's Red to clean the bore.

[Lead pot]

Your right. Those bullets I swage with the Corbin swage equipment. I use those bullets for my hunting loads. They have a shallow hollow point and are groove diameter. No patch needed with them.

[John Boy]

NAtional Bullet used to sell 45 Colt bullets with the zinc base - but they are now out of business

[Good Cheer]

Single shot .45 Colt lets you play with bore riders barely seated into the case.



Seems to me that a ring tail base boolit with a .45 case dropped in behind it could be just about right.
Well, unless I was to put the case in first and muzzle load the powder and boolit.

[Lead pot]

Here is a base guard before it gets swaged on the bullet base. I like using these in my .444 and .45-70 lever rifles. They let me shoot black powder as many as I want with out getting fouled out.
I put one of these wads I guess you can call them as long as they are not attached to the bullet base with the crown towards the over the powder wad. I use a .046" or .060" LPDE over the powder and the copper wad under the bullet. When the charge goes off that wad gets flattened out swaging it tight into the grooves and it scrapes the lead if any gets smeared off as well as the fouling from the previous shot fired.
These wads can be made using a die Corbin sells in your swage press or strong press like RCBS Big Max or Rock Chucker.

Attachment 231224