Heavy .45 cal Pistol Hunting Bullet

[rodwha]

I am working on having Tom at Accurate Molds design me a wide flat nosed bullet for my ROA that will be for bigger or more dangerous critters, so penetration is important.

Kaido had Lee redesign their 255 grn FN 45 Colt bullet for use in the ROA, but I think I'd prefer a heavier bullet as in this role it will likely be a secondary weapon in case some tracking is in order for potentially large hogs or even black bears.

I don't want to take up too much powder capacity, though I do intend on eventually buying a Classic Ballistix cylinder or two. I see that for Mike Beliveau's testing of Kaido's bullet with a reduced (~16%) charge of 3F Triple 7 netted him 920 fps with 479 ft/lbs of energy. I don't believe a ROA needs any reduction of powder, and I might likely be using 3F Olde Eynsford anyway. Kaido's bullet measures 0.638" OAL. Judging by the similar bullet designs I'm thinking I can take up the room of the powder reduction by an additional 25 grns of lead giving me a 280 grn bullet. But I kinda think I'd want to get closer to 300 grns if bears may be trying to eat my leg off!

So would you go for a 280 grn projectile or reduce your charge for a 300 grn bullet? I'm trying to achieve 500 ft/lbs or more, and I'm concerned that dropping the charge for a 300 grn bullet would likely drop my velocity/energy too levels not good enough. But would the penetration levels exceed that of what that 280 grn bullet would likely do at 25 yds or less? I wish I understood where the threshold for performance lay.

I notice that you don't generally see any standard pressure 45 Colt loads using 300 grn bullets. Those I'm aware of are the hotter loads. I'd assume there's a good reason for that.

Out of curiosity are any of you with a Classic Ballistix cylinder or a Dragoon/Walker using heavy bullets to good effect?

To draw a clearer picture I'd likely be hunting with a .50 cal rifle with a PRB unless I was specifically hunting bears that I knew to average a good size in which I'd likely use a 320 grn REAL. I'd only use my pistol upon tracking.

So what say you?

[rodwha]

Another consideration is that I may decide to use these bullets with a sabot through a rifle. The one I have has a 1:48" twist, and from the length calculations I had made a 255 grn bullet was ideal. I do intend on, one of these days, to have a barrel/rifle specifically for hunting longer ranges that may have a 48" or faster twist. With that in mind a 300 grn bullet may not work so well through a rifle with a 48" twist, where as maybe a 270-280 grn might work well.

[johnson1942]

rodwha, your right, a 1/48 twist shoots very well with a 230 to 255 short nose bullet but not bigger. in the thompson 1/48 twist renagade i found that you could shoot 100 grains of real black behind a sabot and a 250 .451 pistol bullet in a tight group at 100 yards. i also had a .45 thompson hawken and i downsized these bullets to .440 and used number nine paper and paperpatched them. they shot flawlessly accurate useing real black 2f and a poly wad between powder and bullet. ive since rebarreled both guns and a broker is selling the thompson barrels for me some where on the internet. im not selling them because they didnt shoot but because i wanted to go even bigger bullet with a longer barrel. for those of you who have a thompson hawken in 1/48 twist .45 cal and want to make it a step up in power and longer distance accracy contact me and i go into detail for a paperpatch bullet for it. the barrel is made for it. its not rocket science. mine shot to minute of angle. the gun now has a 36 inch oregon barrel co. barrel on it in 1/28 twist .50 cal. it shoots a 533 grains castbullet very well and is a real sleeper. no one would suspect the power of that gun. a good elk gun and even bigger game.

[rodwha]

I may find myself in Oregon, and around even brown bears, though I wouldn't shoot them since I don't have the proper means to track one were it wounded, and I wouldn't trust my .50 cal with a conical anyway, but I just wouldn't feel very comfortable tracking a large black bear with six 255 grn bullets in my pistol with a mere 500 ft/lbs each. I want more. Way more. And overkill is OK with me in this instance!

Having this bullet work in a 1:48" twist is just something to consider and far down the line. But I must say I read of a 300 grn .45 cal bullet with a boattail design working very well in 3 different 1:48" twist rifles. Less than a 3/4" group @ 100 yds. I'm a fair shot with a good rest, but I'm no marksman. It did, however, give me the idea of giving it a boattail design.

[johnson1942]

i think and may stand corrected, the boat tail releases from a sabot better than a bullet with a sharp square base. if they are getting the groups you cant dipute that. i wish i could bend the rules of science but so far i havent been able to. their has to be a sound reason behind the 300 grain getting groups like that, wish i knew what it was. maybe velocity, can some one give a reason here?

[rodwha]

I understand this isn't a layman's ordeal as what I'm asking isn't easy. I certainly wish I understood this much better, though I'm glad that I know that I don't know, and ought to ask before I jump into it!

You obviously have some insight, and maybe I ought to give you another call and pick your brain a bit again...

[rodwha]

Hmmm.... Looking at a range map you seem to be correct. I thought I had seen a small dip into the northern edge of Oregon. I would still like to keep that in mind as there's been a trend of bears moving into new territories in the last several years. Northern WA isn't that far away.

I wonder if your experience with the .458" 300 grn bullets had anything to do with the sabots. I've heard that the thin walled .458" sabots often give poor results. This is one reason why I've considered buying a Lee handheld press and a resizing die to make my bullets fit a .45 pistol sabot instead.

I'm following your line of thought on the bullet weight. I'm thinking 270-280 grns would likely be better as I'm afraid the velocity would taper off a bit sharply, and that I may not get as good of penetration. Not to mention a slight increase in recoil.

[rodwha]

I was shown a link to heavy bullets for use in sabots that also incorporated the boattail design. I like that idea, and so I think I'd have these made with a slight boattail to the base.

[rodwha]

Hmmmm... Could very well be the length then. Having calculated a 1:48" twist showed the kaido 255 grn FN to about the perfect length.

[rodwha]

Kaido had Lee modify that bullet for the ROA. It's what I've based my idea off of. As is it's too thin though (.452"). My chambers are .453-.454".

My cylinder (with a .457" RB) will take a max load of 45 grns of 3F Triple 7 or ~41 grns of 3F Olde Eynsford, which is similar to Swiss in performance.

[rodwha]

Not having a recessed base can make it hard to seat straight. I've tried some cast 200 grn SWC's and it was hit or miss. I ended up loading them backwards like a WC.

You said you were able to load in excess of 35 grns and a RB. Could it have been as much as 40? Any wads? I've always thought the volume of the ROA, '58, and '60 were roughly the same at 40 grns and a ball.

[rodwha]

I've been considering a cheap Lee press as I've heard of people resizing just the base to work as you suggested. That, and that i could then resize the whole thing if I were to want to test them in sabots through my rifle, which is one reason I've leaned towards the hand held press so that it can be done in the field.

If not had to clean my pistol off after about that many shots, but it's a Ruger. We'll see how well my Pietta '58 behaves once they backfill orders and get it to me! I've always heard that the Remington's seize up fairly quickly.

[rodwha]

I'm having Accurate design 3 .45 cal bullets. Though there's a few minor tweaks left, one will be slightly shorter (~.400") than a RB but weigh about 165 grns. Another will be just slightly longer than a ball (.460") and likely weigh 200-210 grns. I'll eventually send the mold out to be given HP pins that are reversible so I can choose a HP or WFN design. Those weights could decrease by maybe 15 grns that way. I'd think these ought to work quite well, and generate more pressure as they'll have much more contact with the walls/bore.

It would be nice if the heavy bullet would work in them, but seeing the slooooow twist I doubt they'd do very well. If they could print well enough at 15 yds I'd be happy though. But this bullet is designed for my hunting arm, the Ruger.

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=45-160B-D.png

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=45-180S-D.png

[Omnivore]

rodwha; Those bullets look really interesting, but I'd like to see a little more bearing surface on them.

I really want to find out how this works out for you, because I want something very much like it (which is why I'm following you around).

[rodwha]

I was vague when I asked him to create the original designs, and still wasn't certain of exactly what I wanted after he revised them to what you see now.

That is one of the changes I want made. I figure a band of 0.10" would be better. I'd also reduce the seating band to 0.445" to work in my Pietta '58 that's on the way if I don't bore the chambers to .450-.453".

For the lighter bullet I want a meplat of .350" and I want the OAL kept at .400". For the mid sized bullet a meplat of .375" and an OAL of .460" which will increase the weight.

So far for the heavier bullet I'm wanting a weight around 270-280 grns, a .445" seating base that has a .10-.15" boattail, 0.15" driving bands, a meplat of .375", and an OAL not to exceed .70", which is more that the distance from the top of the seating band to the tip of the nose to be more than .550" as I'm fairly certain it'll fit in my ROA's loading gate area. I think I have just a slight more amount of width and height to make it work.

[rodwha]

The idea behind the large meplat is a larger wound from the git go. A little extra weight ought to give it a little better penetrating ability. Hollow pointing of course reduces the penetrating since it increases the wound, but that's why I'm wanting reversible HP pins so I can convert it back to a FN if I find I don't care for it.

Supposedly the Cor-Bon 160 grn HP works well for the 45 ACP.

I'm hoping the two lighter bullets will work universally, especially the lightest one. The idea for that one is it's short length allows for more powder, if necessary, though I generally load a ball with 30 or 35 grns of 3F, for the home. I load after cleaning.

[Omnivore]

I was just measuring the wall thickness between chambers. Dang-- 'Tis less than 50 thousandths. If I were to ream my Uberti chambers to three over groove (=.461) I'd be taking out nine or ten thou of wall thickness, leaving about .040" or a bit less. Pietta would be a better candidate for an over-groove chamber. The walls are about the same, or very slightly thinner than those of the Uberti, but the groove diameter is around .450".

[rodwha]

I'd say if you could get within a few thousandths of groove diameter obturation may very well do the rest.

I've read how someone has reamed the chambers of their Pietta Remington 1863 pocket, which has horribly undersized chambers, to about .319" and got much better results than before, despite the lands being a little large than that, much less the grooves.

[rodwha]

This is what I had Tom design me:

http://accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=45-285C-D.png

[robertmcw]

And how well did it work?

Robert

[rodwha]

I hadn't taken into consideration the taper of the loading window. Though the length works the nose was too wide to fit. I had to modify my Ruger as I had my Remington, but I've yet to get to the range.

I hated to modify my Ruger, but I also hated to have a $200 mold that I couldn't use. Since my job on my Remington looked fairly good for an amateur I decided to try it on my Ruger, and if I didn't do so hot then I could take it to a smith to fix.

[robertmcw]

Why not just remove the cylinder use load it and use a loading stand ?

Then if you need to reload it again in a hurry, just load with the gun with round balls?

I am trying to contact Kaido Ojamaa for a mold but he has not contacted me back.

RM

[rodwha]

My range box is full and too heavy for a loading tool, and I didn't want to need one for the field either. I may find myself backpack hunting.

Kaido doesn't seem very good at responding. But that is his "side job."

He has to get a number of molds on order before Lee will make a run of his custom molds, which was a big reason for me going to Accurate. His molds are/were reasonably priced at $85 + shipping for the 6 cavity mold.

But I also wanted a wider nose and heavier weight.

[swathdiver]

Kaido is down here in Florida hunting. On Saturday he bagged two big hogs with his Uberti Remington NMA and his 240 grain conical. Picks are up at his yahoo forum. By now he's either still with Hovey Smith or on his way back home with coolers full of bacon!

[robertmcw]

Kaido is down here in Florida hunting. On Saturday he bagged two big hogs with his Uberti Remington NMA and his 240 grain conical. Picks are up at his yahoo forum. By now he's either still with Hovey Smith or on his way back home with coolers full of bacon!



Then perhaps I can speak him about the molds after his bacon is put away in his freezer.

[swathdiver]

Then perhaps I can speak him about the molds after his bacon is put away in his freezer.

I am very pleased with the .36 caliber conical, put many of them through our Remington Belt Revolver. Last week we shot six of the 240 grain conicals through the 8" NMA and they were quite accurate. Since my focus was on the kids, I didn't retrieve the targets or even walk out to them. Next week or two I plan to really check them out. But I'll tell you this, they all went into the black at 50 feet with a B-2 target. Same as round ball. Maybe I can help answer some questions?

[robertmcw]

Yes - is Kaido still selling the molds for the 1858 Remington and the Old Army?
If, can you contact me about them?
txlawyer@texas.net

RM