Why not wadcutters for .45 Colt?

[shooting on a shoestring]

My revolver shooting is mostly .357/.38spl or .45 Colt. My .357s and .38s get feed mostly wadcutters, either 358091 or 358087. I really like the fact the wadcutters take up some of the case volume in these cavernous old black powder based cases (I know .357 was not a BP case, but it is 0.100" even more cavernous than its parent). I rarely load slow powders to top velocities, generally I run .38s around 800 fps, .357s around 1100, and .45 Colt about 1000. So I use some of the fast powders, but mostly Unique, Herco, Power Pistol. These give smaller velocity SDEVs when the powder charge is given less room to roam.

I also like the full caliber holes wadcutters make in targets, critters and vermon.

There seems to be lots of wadcutter moulds for .357, a few for .429 and none for .45. The closest I have come is 454424 SWC and Lee .45 300 RF (has a meplat about the same as 454424). Why is .45 Colt left out of the wadcutter arena?

[Bass Ackward]

SOS,

If you were what your name implies you would realize that a 454424 is a boat tail wadcutter. Please don't tell me that you have been shooting them backwards all this time. :grin:

[shooting on a shoestring]

I'll turn the gun around....No wait! I'll turn the boolit around...but then with the boolit going backwards, will I be unshooting??? I don't want an unshootable gun...Hmm.. let my htink about htis...

[KCSO]

Wad cutter bullets are a fairly recent invention that have pretty much the sole function of making a paper target easy to score. When targets were scored if the line is cut it is in the wad cutter made points for the serious target shooter. By that time The 45 Colt round was not considered a target round and very little was done in designing target bullets for the gun. The bullet you are looking for would be a copy of the old Ideal Gallery special in 45 instead of 44. This was a 110 gran bullet with a deep hollow base and an almost flat nose. Not a collar button, but a really good working wadcutter style. This was produced around 1895 or so. By the time real wadcutters came out , say 1920 or so, the 45 Colt was established as a military/man stopper round and the 38's and the 44's were the target pistols. By the 1940's the 38 and the 45 auto were the guns to use and so they got all the development. It was not possible to use a full wadcutter in the ACP so the various semi wadcutters got all the play in the 45 caliber. I have a 185 semi wadcutter ideal mould marked Al Dineen Special and it is one of the most accurate 45 bullets I have ever used, but a semi auto has to be set up just so to get it to work.

Now to the problem at hand, why not take a Lee 185 semi wadcutter mould for the 45 acp and simply have the nose section turned to a flat full wadcutter bore ride nose of say 220 grains. (just guessing) It shouldn't take that much work and might just be what you need. Since you are not getting fancy you could either make a one shot reamer or just center the blocks and use a boring bar to make it up. BUCKSHOT WHERE ARE YOU!!!

[MT Gianni]

I have a Lee 235 gr button nose WC that is a copy of the Lyman mold long out of production. I am away from my literature now but it is a good 25 yd grouper from my 45. Gianni

[Glen]

There are .45 wadcutters out there. I own moulds for 2 or 3 of them. They shoot quite well and they hit like a ton of bricks!

[Dale53]

NEI has a couple of wadcutters:
.451-185-WC and .451-225-BBWC

http://www.neihandtools.com/catalog/index.html

Dale53

[9.3X62AL]

One of my sister's PPC partners had a Model 25-5 built out with slab barrel and Aristocrat sight rib for 45 Colt WC shooting. He cast with an unknown-make mold, solid base WC's about 225-230 grains, and ran them about 750 FPS. He concluded after a couple seasons that recoil fatigue defeated the purpose of the wider bullet (line cutting, as above). If I see him, I try to talk him out of it. He avoids me.

[BustemAgain]

Has anyone mentioned the Saeco #453? I have recently acquired one and it is quite accurate and sure seems to rock raccoon and porcupine size vermin.

[onceabull]

I have a Modern Bond "B-454" (can be seen at the Castpics site) an odd looking sort of a wadcutter..It's leased out to a NW Nevada pistolero until NCBS '07.. Then I collect lease payments in boolits and start having fun,(Hopefully) ..This fine fella has been known to share the fruits of his labors,with little or no compensation,so if the products have been doing decent work for him,perhaps he will listen to your plea(s) once he's finished cavorting at BRGS.. :roll: Onceabull

[fivegunner]

I too have a saeco #453 4 cavity wadcutter mold for my 45 's .it's a good looking bullet and when the weather gets better I`ll see how accrate it is. I `am thinking of getting a mold from Veral Smith, one of his Ogival wadcutter molds. it weighs @260gr. has a short ogive, the reason for this is that you have some of the bullet extending out of the case giving you more room for powder. I would like to see a group buy on one of these design's maybe one with a gc and one a plain base. what do you think.?:Fire: :-D

[arkypete]

Have a look at Lyman #454309.
Does well.
Jim

[monadnock#5]

The boolit on the left is a Lyman 452389 @ 185 grains, and on the right is a Lyman 454309 @ 235 grains. Both fell out of their molds at .457. I haven't done much testing with the 185 grainer, but the 454309 is a real corker.
I purchased both of these from Ebay before mold prices went sky high.

Ken

[Bret4207]

I think there is a Lee 45 wadcutter on Ebay right now. Of course it WILL be undersize...

[Lloyd Smale]

I had a lbt wad cutter mold and shot it a little in ppc matches out of a 25. I never did get it to shoot that well (maybe 2 inch at 25) I did some testing between it and a round nosed bullet that shot one inch groups but made a smaller hole in the target and hands down the more accurate bullet more then made up for the larger cleaner hole. Now when i shoot any gun in ppc i shoot the most accurate load that will reliably funtion in the gun. Both my .38 ppc clark made gun and my sti trojan 9mm that ive been using lately shoot there best with jacketed hornady tap bullets and that what i use. You guys will have to crucify me for using jacketed in them but that bullet just plain shoots. I do do all my practicing with cast though. I figure for the 2 or 300 i use in a day of competition the cost is worth it. Another thing a full wadcutter really blows at is fast reloads in a revolver. I know someone will pipe up and say that you have all the time in the world in ppc shooting to reload and its probably true. But i find that the smoother i am with a reload the smoother i recover and the calmer i stay on the line and it drastically improves my scores.

[shooting on a shoestring]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know there were any Lyman .45 WCs out there. I'll keep and eye open and hope to catch one someday. I doubt I'll invest in and NEI or even Saeco, new at least. But I will experiment working up some loads with 454424 in the boat tail wadcutter orientation.

[Tenbender]

http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product_info.php?cPath=41&products_id=63

[jmort]

If I still owned .45 Colts, I would have a couple wadcutter molds from Tom/Accurate. He has some good examples in his catalog.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Has anyone mentioned the Saeco #453? I have recently acquired one and it is quite accurate and sure seems to rock raccoon and porcupine size vermin.


Got 1 of these too, `flying trashcan` describes it.Robert

[Ural Driver]

Got 1 of these too, `flying trashcan` describes it.Robert

Is this the one?

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/644781/saeco-1-cavity-magnum-bullet-mold-453-45-caliber-452-diameter-225-grain-wadcutter

[bangerjim]

You will not find 45 WC's in Lee's stable, but all the custom mold makers have them in pretty much all the popular cals.

Just do a search for the websites and read on. NOE has them last time I looked.

banger

[PS Paul]

The 452389 mentioned above is the boolit in my avatar. The target is offhand at 50' using 20 gr 4227 in a flat-top small-frame Blachawk convertible with the 45 Colt cylinder I reamed to 452". I have it in a 4-cav and had a 2-cav which I gave to another member here. It is truly one of my most-favored molds I own in 45 caliber. Works in 45 ACP as well.....

[LenH]

I have an old Lyman 454-309 235 gr WC mold. That has seen a ton of use over the last 40 years. Very accurate in an old Blackhawk.

[Dale53]

If I wanted a full wadcutter for the .45 Colt, this what I would get:

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=45-225W-D.png

FWIW
Dale53

[MT Gianni]

This should be close to a record. 16 days short of 9 years between posts.

[bigboredad]

As Dale did head over to accurate molds.com and Tom will fix you up with what ever your heart desires if you don't see it tell him what you want and he'll make it. He is quick his molds are a pleasure to cast with and did I say he is quick and a true one off custom mold maker and he is quick

[GREYGHOST]

Dale, I just ordered some Saeco # 453 bullets to try in my 625. Do you think the bevel base in Tom@Accurate molds wadcutter would make much difference?

[country gent]

I beleive saeco has a 225 grn wadcutter mould in 45 cal. I have used the 225 grn wadcutter in my 625, several kimper 1911s and para ordanaces. The bullet works great in the 625 and in the 1911s and semi autos overall length is critical to feeding but in a decent 1911 the do feed reliably. I used these for light target loads and also had a bowling pin load for the 1911s. The larger flat face really transfered energy to pins. It also cut very nice full sized holes in paper targets. They do work and work well finding the mould can be tricky and saecos are expensive. Maybe with enough calls to Lee asking one could be added to their line up.

[GREYGHOST]

Country Gent,

I also would like to use the Saeco cast wadcutters in a couple of my 1911's. Do you recall what the C.O.A.L. was for your 45ACP with them?. Did you have to do anything to the feed ramp on the 1911 to get them to feed reliably?

Thanks,

[country gent]

I dont recall what the overall length was but due to nose shape it was much shorter than the round balls overall length. My 1911s fed it with out modifications very well. If I remeber (This was 20 + years ago) I think they were lightly crimped on the front band close to the edge. My Kimbers and paras all fed this bullet good. My 3" ultra kimber shines with it. Loads are lighter due to so much bullet in the case.

[GREYGHOST]

I dont recall what the overall length was but due to nose shape it was much shorter than the round balls overall length. My 1911s fed it with out modifications very well. If I remeber (This was 20 + years ago) I think they were lightly crimped on the front band close to the edge. My Kimbers and paras all fed this bullet good. My 3" ultra kimber shines with it. Loads are lighter due to so much bullet in the case.

Thanks kindly for the info. I plan on using this bullet in my 625 as well as Springfield R/O out to 25 yds., maybe a little more depending on accuracy.

[country gent]

I had a very light load worked up with bullseye at around 600-650 for plinking in my 625 that was very accurate. But it wouldnt function the 5" kimbers. I was going to drop a lighter spring in one to test and see what they did there but never got around to it. The 18 lb springs were to much for that load. If you go this route with the light loading strictly for target use cast them on the softer side. Let me know how they work for you.

[Good Cheer]

Inspired by the .455 Webley Manstopper...
To shoot in an Army 1909, had a Lyman 450229 hollow base modified in the early eighties to replace the round nose with a straight sided cylinder and extra grooves cut in the base pin for adjustable length.
Works very well when loaded hollow forwards despite the less the perfect lathe work on the mold modification.
At fifty yards it did fine rolling an armadillo and sounded about like somebody whacked a tarp with a canoe paddle.

[GREYGHOST]

I had a very light load worked up with bullseye at around 600-650 for plinking in my 625 that was very accurate. But it wouldnt function the 5" kimbers. I was going to drop a lighter spring in one to test and see what they did there but never got around to it. The 18 lb springs were to much for that load. If you go this route with the light loading strictly for target use cast them on the softer side. Let me know how they work for you.

I will, it will be a week or so before I receive the bullets from Montana Bullet Works. I had a 625JM that I pulled the 4" barrel and replaced with a 5" barrel. Like a dummy, I traded it off. As I recall it shot some pretty decent groups with the Saeco wadcutter and a Fastfire II mounted on it. These eyes ain't what they used to be.

[Shiloh]

Either Ideal or Lyman made a WC for both .45 Colt and .45 ACP.
Long out of production for sure.

Siloh

[Hardcast416taylor]

Is this the one?

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/644781/saeco-1-cavity-magnum-bullet-mold-453-45-caliber-452-diameter-225-grain-wadcutter

That`s the mold, although mine is a 2 cavity.Robert

[gewing]

I have a Lee 235 gr button nose WC that is a copy of the Lyman mold long out of production. I am away from my literature now but it is a good 25 yd grouper from my 45. Gianni

I was just at the Lee website and they didn't list a mold like that under 45 I'll keep looking I guess. I have this strange idea..

[Geezer in NH]

That you opened a post from long ago????

[Good Cheer]

My solution for .45 Colt D/A shooting was to alter Lyman #450229 to a wadcutter nose and then load it backwards with the hollow base forwards. That way the boolit with a long bearing length wasn't too heavy, the powder space was greatly reduced and armadillos sounded like wet blankets hit with a baseball bat.

[Thin Man]

I love the design of the flying trashcans. They can be loaded to target or recreational shooting levels for pure enjoyment but provide enough powder space in the cases to allow for stiffer hunting or carry powder charges. Given this interest in these designs I would love to have a pair of Accurate's molds for their 45-230U design and also their 45-250W pattern. The lighter one should hit to the sights of the family of 1917 revolvers we have while the heavier boolit would be a more natural fit for the 45 Colt cartridge. Now I just have to find some more retirement work to allow the purchase of these molds.

[gewing]

That you opened a post from long ago????

Looks like it. Some topics are harder to find information on than others.

[Finnmike]

No love for Penn Thunderheads? ;-)
http://www.pennbullets.com/45/45-caliber.html

[rbuck351]

I have used 200gr SWCs backwards in a 45acp and they worked very well.

[fjruple]

I have numerous .45 Colt Revolvers and load the MP Mold 453395 HBWC bullets into them. The bullet is a true HBWC and is accurate in most of my .45 Colt revolvers. I have used this bullet in a S&W 25-5 with a 6 1/2 barrel with great effect.

--fjruple

[Ickisrulz]

A year or so ago, I sent an e-mail to Accurate molds asking about a 45 cal wadcutter made for tumble lubing. A little while later it was designed and on the website. I bought a 5 cavity mold and use it in 45 ACP in a Blackhawk. It works just fine.