.45 Colt for Buick season?

[Rick R]

Having great luck with my new NOE .460" 360gr mold in the .45-70. But now I'm having bad thoughts...
If I size them progressively down to .452" can I safely shoot them in my .45 Colt Redhawk?

http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i343/RickRose1/photo_zps6e951793.jpg[/URL]

The top boolit is a MP version of the .45 270SAA lubed with BAC, the middle is an NOE WQWW loobed with BAC sized to .452" and the bottom of course is the same loaded in some RP brass. I tried that dummy in my Redhawk's cylinder and it chambers easily with room to spare at the end of the chamber.

I'm thinking about trying the data on Hodgdon's site for the Cast Performance 360 grain with H110. Hoping I can get around 1,000 fps from the 4" tube.

Probably too light for a Cadi Escalade but plenty for anything made by Buick. :D

[ratboy]

i dont know.....
those 3.8L buicks are hard to stop.
shouldn't have any problems stopping a nailhead.
:kidding:
the aluminum v8s would just die at the sight of those

[BCRider]

Here I was all over the idea of bringing up the "Buick" bit thinking that your Iphone or whatever had auto completed or autocorrected "buck" for "Buick" only to find that you're actually serious about hunting for cars..... :D

Thanks for the good chuckle... :D

[RickinTN]

Yes a good chuckle. I had an old friend who dreamed often of building a "dump truck rifle".

[Hunter]

Are Buicks good eating?

[gray wolf]

Are Buicks good eating?
You got to steam the helll out of em

[Rick R]

Are Buicks good eating?

I understand they're tough to skin and the big ole things are hard to drag outta the woods.

I can kill anything in the Eastern US with the 270SAA but it would be fun to see what the pistol is really capable of. Who knows I may win a trip to Alaska where the bear are big as mid sized sedans. :)

[Gray Fox]

Even on the Caddys you can cheat a little by aiming a little high on the engine. Many of the intake manifolds are now made of plastic and your boolit will down one easily by destroying the whole assembly. Might not stop one as quickly as an angling shot that takes out a CV joint, but with no air coming in it's a goner for sure. I have no recipes for that critter so don't ask. GF

[Whiterabbit]

you can probably size the bullets down to 452 in one shot, unless they are particularly hard. When soft, I can do .460 to .453 in one shot. Otherwise, I go to .454 first.

[376Steyr]

Back in the good old days we would market hunt Cadillacs for their tail fins. Alas, we got greedy, over-hunted the herds, and killed all the bulls with tail fins. That is why you can't find a tail fin on a Cadillac today.

[markinalpine]

The Box O' Truth - The Buick O' Truth
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/thebuickotruth.htm
Here's everything you need to know!
Mark [smilie=s:

[Rick R]

you can probably size the bullets down to 452 in one shot, unless they are particularly hard. When soft, I can do .460 to .453 in one shot. Otherwise, I go to .454 first.

The boolits in the photo went from .460" to .459" lubed and checked then on down to .452". I just haven't gotten brave enough to load any yet.

[nagantguy]

What a good post, most of my early ballistic knowledge came from shooting an old Buick in the dump be hind the farm I grew up on. Was always impressed how well .22 mags did against the doors. And I remember a old .36 navy cap an ball would punch through the radiator. Now matter how we cooked it though it always had a funny after taste.

[Whiterabbit]

all kidding aside, if H110 seems too fast, you can slow it down with 4198 or a 4759. At least, I think 4759 is slower than H110, right? 4198 surely is. Though in my experience with a very different but similar cartridge, H110 was pretty good up to about 550 grains.

[white eagle]

taste like eagle

[dmize]

Don't know about Buicks but a brand new 44 Mag Redhawk and a 76 Maverick debunked a lot of myths.

[Jammersix]

I'm beginning to understand why everyone gets so wrapped around the axle in the Ford-Chevy-Buick war.

It's about taste.

[Rick R]

LoL! I've been in law enforcement for 30+ years. It's always interesting to shoot up old cars. Glad everyone else is enjoying this thread. :D

Whiterabbit,
I've got Unique, 2400 and W296 on hand. I'm hoping that the W296 isn't too slow in my 4" barrel. It seems to generate a huge fireball in my 4" S&W 629.

[RickinTN]

I was a mere pup when I was given my first handgun, a Super Blackhawk 7 1/2 barreled 44 magnum. My older cousin had quite a collection of what I thought were "Junk" Studebakers and such on the back forty of the family farm. No telling how many collector dollars worth of fenders, doors, interiors, headlight and tailight assemblies and engine parts I ruined in an afternoon or two. Seemed like good targets to me.
Don't remember which model it was but one had a nice "bullet" target on both ends, chrome and all. Brings back fond memories, at least for me. The "hunting" was no challenge as they seemed already dead but although I never tried I suspect they would have been quite crunchy as well.

[crawfobj]

taste like eagle

I've never had eagle. Does it taste like spotted owl?

[Jammersix]

Don't Buicks leave a metallic aftertaste?

[white eagle]

I've never had eagle. Does it taste like spotted owl?nah more on the line of condor but not quite as stringy

[crawfobj]

Yuck. Never acquired a taste for condor. Whooping crane, on the other hand...

[linotype]

I'm new to this. When you hunt Buicks, is it done under decoys like Ford Fiesta or Vega, or from a blind like an old car hop joint?
Is there a call, like a flopping flat tie? Can you use high octane leaded gas as bait?

[leeggen]

Studybakers smell like buzzards. GMC's taste like buzzard.
CD

[Lefty SRH]

If you are serious about shooting that heavy weight in a sixgun, I suggest you read this article by John Linebaugh. I regularly shoot a 330gr LFN in my .45 colt with great results.

Post some results after the try that boolit.

http://www.customsixguns.com/writings/dissolving_the_myth.htm

[Rick R]

Lefty,

That article is one of the reasons I'm thinking about it, along with some opinions I've read from folks that have shot way more game than I'll ever see. Linebaugh says that the heaviest practical boolit in the .45 Colt is 350gr so this one at 360gr shouldn't be too outrageous. I also have the option of using the hollowpoint pins and making it weigh 330gr but that boolit will intrude just as deeply into the case and have the same amout of engraving surface as the 360gr version. I just checked and I don't have any magnum large pistol primers but I do have a brand new can of W296. Launch time should be sometime this weekend.

I don't have a real reason for shooting genuine heavy weights as I'm in the Eastern U.S. but I don't need a car that will go faster than 70mph either. ;) If I lived somewhere that I actually needed to worry about big furries I'd probably spring for a dedicated .452" heavy boolit mold. Who knows, if this goes well I may just do that anyway.

[9.3X62AL]

No Buick hunting to date here. I've only owned one such vehicle, a 70 LeSabre. Great car, and that 350 CID make it move nicely. Drove it for 4 years, and sold it in 1986 for more than I paid for it.

I've resized the RCBS 45 rifle 325 grain FN down from .458" as-cast to .454" to fit my Bisley Blackhawk. It shot quite well, but the revo needs a taller front sight to make best use of this heavier boolit. Even with the rear sight bottomed out, the boolits still hit kinda high at 25 and 50 yards.

[Whiterabbit]

the solution to that is to shoot to 100 yards. :)

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I'm new to this. When you hunt Buicks, is it done under decoys like Ford Fiesta or Vega, or from a blind like an old car hop joint?
Is there a call, like a flopping flat tie? Can you use high octane leaded gas as bait?

On one safari to LA...we loaded up the S&W 500 for Hummer Limo.

We used a bubblegum machine (http://img.alibaba.com/photo/11962156/Police_Light_Bar.jpg) for a decoy

[Rick R]

Well I made it to the range yesterday with fifteen rounds loaded with the 360gr boolit and W296 and didn't blow myself up :)

Loads ranged from 18.0 to 21.0 grains and the upper loads showed pretty good accuracy without any pressure signs. I forgot to pack the Chrony so now the plan is to cast some more and load enough to assess how well they actually make sense compared to the 270SAA loads.

[9.3X62AL]

Well I made it to the range yesterday with fifteen rounds loaded with the 360gr boolit and W296 and didn't blow myself up :)

I call that a Good Day, much like the airman's old saying that 'any landing you walk away from was a good one'. :)

[TXGunNut]

Glad it worked, conventional wisdom is that those heavies don't stabilize well in most handguns. I have a boolit that just might work for that but a 300 grainer is all I need these days. If they still had Buick Duece & a Quatta's with 455's under the hood I might give it more serious thought. Don't let the game warden catch you hunting Buicks overlooking a Popeye's drive-thru, that's hunting over bait and illegal in some states.
I may be getting older but these new Buicks are looking better to me every year, try to limit yourself to junkyard specimens.