45 Long Colt shell holders

[Alvin in AZ]

My RCBS #20 shell holder messed up the rim on 100 cases. I managed to save them but my hands hurt this morning. ;)

Looking at the shell holder charts everybody but Lee makes a different shell holder for 44Mag and 45Colt.

It's as if the 45Colt shell holders were made for the old balloon cases or something. :/

Anyway my Lee #11 shell holder for the AutoPrime has angled "lips" that reach inside of, and take advantage of, the little groove above the rim. It is actually getting ahold of the rim like it means-business instead of that "too small" of a rim the RCBS #20 has.

So my plan is to buy a Lee #11 for my RockChucker. :)

Am I the last one to figure this out? :)

Alvin in AZ

[454PB]

Strange, I've been using the RCBS #20 for .45 Colt and .454 Casull for many years and thousands of rounds with no trouble. Are you using carbide dies?

[Swagerman]

I've had very few fat rims on .45 Colt brass that got stuck in the #20 shellholder. The ones that did might have been old brass.

The Lee #11 shellholders work very well with either .44 special, .44 magnum, or .45 Colt brass.

Jim

[fourarmed]

I load Starline .45 Colt brass, and they did not work well at all in the press shell holder in my Lee set. I bought an RCBS, and it works fine.

[Bad Flynch]

Current RCBS #20 shellholders are likely made for the current runs of brass. If you have a deviant lot of brass or an older shellholder meant for cases without an extractor groove (semi-balloon head or balloon head) cases, then there may be a little slop. It is more likely that your lot of brass is at fault than the shellholder, but...

Do a little measuring with your calipers and compare with cartridge drawings, etc. That is likely to tell the story.

[Alvin in AZ]

Do a little measuring with your calipers and compare with cartridge drawings, etc. That is likely to tell the story.

Cool idea. :)
Book sez 45LC is .512" for the rim and .480" for the body.

My case dimensions are good and I have several brands and ages to choose from on that. The main lot is W-W and just happen to have a little larger rim than the others. So that's backwards to explain the trouble. :) It could be softer than usual tho.

Here are the deminsions of the shell holders...
RCBS #20 .515" and .485" is a difference of .030" divided by 2 equals a .015" lip to grab the case rim. But that isn't what's really available, since the case rims are only about .510". So the actual useable 'lip" is .002" to .003" less each side so it's .012" to .013" of brass max on each side of the case. But since it's usully one side that gets bull-dozed and ruined.

I had pretty good luck by stuffing some crap behind the shell holder so the rear of the shell holder gripped the case half way around. But that ain't how I usually put in my shell holders I usually use them sideways. Without being kooky and using them side ways, using them straight in without the crap stuffed behind the shell holder the RCBS #20 doesn't work that way either. :)

Compare those numbers with LEE's... A snug .512" for the rim and and an "under sized" .470" that will reach inside the groove above the rim.

Those numbers give at least a "real" .020" of lip to hold the brass rim.

It was suggested on LeverGunner that it could be manufacturing tolerances are messing with me but me and the gun show guy looked at several RCBS#20 shell holders and they all had such a tiny little lip we wondered how they ever would work in the first place. :)

Anyway that's my obseravtions and it might be part of my troulbe is a particularly soft batch of W-W brass but still I see no reason to buy a RCBS #20 when I can get a LEE #11.

What do you think? :)

Alvin in AZ

[hpdrifter]

Thats what I did for my Lee turret press. With the RCBS, I'd get off-center positions and crush my brass(if not careful and use my left hand for manual alignment). With the Lee, all went well.

[Bad Flynch]

>Anyway that's my obseravtions and it might be part of my troulbe is a particularly soft batch of W-W brass but still I see no reason to buy a RCBS #20 when I can get a LEE #11.<

Alvin,

The rim on RCBSs shellholder #20 is thin because the old-time .45 Colt cases had very thin rims (because of no extractor groove). This is not Lee bashing, but Lee uses the one-size-fits-all philosophy. Many of their shellholders are simply done on a "close enough" dimension, so that fewer items need to be manufactured. At any rate, as long as the Lee works, use it; I use many of them. An example is that RCBS has two shellholders for standard belted magnums as the European cases run a little different. Same for 7mm Mauser/6mm Rem/.257 Roberts; USA cases now use .30-'06 case heads and the European cases still use the old 7mm Mauser dimension.

[Swagerman]

In defense of the Lee #11 shellholder, it's looseness is not a detriment to the brass, it allows the case to be seated with the correct concintricity every time.

While the RCBS #20 sometimes gets a little cranky with some brass about seating in the rim slots, or wanting to stay there...stuck.

Jim

[fourarmed]

My problem with the Lee #11 SH was that it was too tight. The rim sizes on .44M and .45C are similar, but the "extraction" grooves are deeper on the 44, and that part of the SH was interfering. I have a .44M shell plate for my Hornady Pro Jector, which wouldn't work for .45 until I took the Dremel to it.

[RadioTech]

reloading the 45 LC 25 years ago. Pulled the rims off the cases. I went to a dealer that would let me sort through his shell holders and found that the RCBS #4 was a perfect fit for the 45 LC case. I think it was for some Japanese rifle case but it still fit a lot better than the recommended holder.
Just thought I'd toss that in.
It's been so long ago that this may not be relevant now, but maybe it will help.
Brian

[454PB]

RCBS #4 fits .300 Win. mag, .338 Win. mag, 7mm Rem. mag, etc.

[Dale53]

Elmer Keith complained about .45 Colt rims in his 1927 book (thought that they were pretty stingy and speculated that philosophy seemed to hold true for other Colt products(:>)).

The old cases had mighty slim rims as has been mentioned. I noticed the much better cartridge rims on .45 Colt after the Cowboy Shooting started (.45 Colt cases used to be near impossible in a lever action - suspect that is why they didn't make lever guns for .45 Colt until recent years).

The answer is as stated above - use what works. Many years ago I bought the full ass't of Lees and seldom find anything that doesn't work.

FWIW
Dale53

[floodgate]

Colt used just enough rim on the original .45 (Long) Colt (Suydam's "U. S. Cartridges and their Handguns" lists them at 0.502" to 0.509") to keep it from falling through the SAA (and later solid-frame DA) revolvers. When the New Service and the military M1909 side-swing revolvers came out, rim specs were beefed up a bit (by about 0.030", to 0.536" - 0.538"), as the old ones would sometimes not be caught by the "star" extractor. The S&W Schofield cases seem to have been in-between, ranging from 0.504" to 0.520", but with the tightly-fitted top-breaks, that was probably enough for reasonably reliable extraction. Then the varying depth of the cut above the rim with the true "solid-head" cases that came in in the late '30's adds further complications. The manufacturers of both cartridges and shell-holders seem to have made some pretty casual compromises over the years.

floodgate

[j4570]

I usually use a Dillon shellplate anymore.

If you do any amount of reloading, buy the LEE set of shellholders, they are like $15 and you get like 11 shellholders which covers many popular calibers.

I use the LEE's usually but have an RCBS for 45 Colt also as I had some funny rims once also.

[JRR]

A light coat of dry case lube, even with a carbide die, greatly reduces the pressure on the rim during extraction from the size die.
Jeff