The 1911 pistol is a marvelous piece of machinery. It always seems to function no matter how badly it's treated and a good, solid hit with one of its 230 grain bullets will take a man right off his feet. It's the original "one shot fight stopper".
Against a snake however, your odds go down. Unless you are a crack pistol shot with nerves of steel, hitting a wiggling, writhing object the size of a short garden hose is pretty nerve rattling....especially if said object has fangs that he wishes to acquaint you with. Now, snake cartridges for revolvers are pretty common, easily loaded at home and will always function as the cylinder revolves for each shot. Designing a cartridge that will not only shoot in a 1911 but function the gun for another shot is a different ball of wax.
I found a video on Youtube demonstrating how the new RCBS .45 auto snake shot dies work. After the demonstration, the narrator went on to describe how the same process could be performed, but with dies already on hand. Pretty good idea, since the RCBS dies are $180 or so! I followed his lead, but made some changes to the process which resulted in 10 loaded cartridges that look as good as the ones he made and here's how I did it.
Remove the barrel from your 1911 and lay it on the bench......you'll use it as a gauge for the cases.
First of all, the parent cartridge case will be the venerable 30-06, since it shares the same base size as the .45 auto. The cases were first checked for uniform depth, from the case mouth to the base inside (this will become important later). Next, all 10 were trimmed to a length of 1.195. The maximum length is 1.20, but anything slightly below that is fine as long as all of them end up the same length. The cases were then run through a .45 auto sizing die for the sake of uniformity.
Now comes the fun part. Since a shoulder has to be formed on the case, I found it best to anneal the brass first which made the job much easier. I set the deprimed cases in a shallow pan of water, so only the top third of the case is above the surface. I used an ordinary propane torch to heat each case neck, until the water inside the case was bubbling, then tipped it over with a screwdriver into the water. This anneals, or softens, that last third of the case while the base remains normal.
I removed the entire decapping pin assembly from a .41 magnum die and replaced it with one I turned on my lathe. It's nothing fancy....just a large, straight pin the same size as the inside diameter of the 30-06 case. The cartridge case is now lubricated with heavy duty sizing wax and run into the .41 magnum die, which takes a bit of effort. Now, pay attention to this next part:
The case is run into the die in short stages, removing it each time and attempting to chamber it in the barrel of a 1911. When the rear of the case is even with the edge of the barrel "hood", that's it.....your perfect length. The shoulder you're forming serves the same function as the case mouth on a normal .45 auto cartridge. Now that you have that dimension, run the case back into the die until it stops at the shoulder. Screw the home made pin in the die down until it contacts the bottom of the case inside and lock it. You now have two things: a pin that will keep the case centered so the shoulder comes out uniform and not lop sided, AND it serves as a depth stop so all the shoulders end up at the same place.
Prime the cases and charge them with 6 grains of Unique powder. Cut "over powder wads" from VERY light cardboard, such as an old primer box. A .44 special or magnum case with a sharpened edge is about the right size. Push the wad down over the powder with the eraser end of a lead pencil until it seats firmly on the charge. Fill the case with your favorite small shot (I used #6, simply because it was on hand). Place a second cardboard wad over the shot.
Now comes the hard part.....in the video, the narrator used a .45 auto round nose seating die which formed a nice roll crimp on the brass case, over the shot wad. I don't know how in the Hell he did it though, since the die plug is the same outside diameter as the case mouth. In other words, rather than forming a nice crimp it just crushed one of my cases. I went down and bought a piece of 7/8 x 14 tpi all thread and cut off 3 3/4" in my saw. I placed it in the lathe, drilled it with a 7/16" drill just until the point entered the metal. I then ground a lathe bit to a curved shape and formed the cavity into a rounded shape. I screwed the "die" in my press and ran one of the cartridges up. THIS time it formed a nice, curved "roll crimp" over the wad, and that curve should feed through the pistol magazine just fine.
I put a small line of ordinary household glue around the perimeter of each over shot wad as a matter of security. That should keep the wad in place during its bumpy ride through the gun and provide some moisture protection to boot.
I haven't shot these yet but plan to tomorrow sometime. I have some ideas about a better over powder wad, such as a 410 shotgun shot cup which should be easier to install than the cardboard wad and probably give better performance. Only a few things can happen at the range though. They'll either:
1. not go off (doubtful)
2. go off weakly (cardboard powder wad too weak)
3. go off with authority, but fail to feed (might need more of a roll crimp)
4 go off, hit the target and operate the pistol normally for follow up shots.
#4 will spell the doom of any fanged "buzz worms" that come within range.
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