45 Colt in the Uberti Lightning Rifle

[Baron von Trollwhack]

I'm beginning to plan my coming years shooting efforts to develop a close range deer load for use out to 75 yards with a .452 RNFP boolit. I want to work towards shooting my 45 Colt Uberti Lightning at approximately 950/1050 fps.

Mine is a fair shooting rifle but so far it has been shot only with modest pistol loads with mixed results. I understand that many of the pistol deer hunters here suggest that the effectiveness of the Colt is pretty good at the 1000 fps velocity level for deer. A rifle should provide a little more velocity than the pistol.

Can anyone recommend a pet load for a rifle with the 250 grain boolit along these lines?

BvT

[knifemaker]

Just about any pistol load around 800 fps will give you 1000-1100 fps in a rifle.

[Reaper]

Baron. 8.5 grains of Unique or 6.0 grains of 700X should give at or pretty close to the velocity that you're looking for. Both loads are from Lyman's 47th reloading handbook rifle data for the .45 Colt. I fire these in the Taurus copy of your rifle. At 50 meters, accuracy is excellent and damage to water filled milk jugs is impressive. Overall length is critical in my rifle, so I would advise making up some dummy rounds to check function.

[GoodOlBoy]

Also look up the Trail Boss load for the 45 long colt as well. Good accurate load in my rifles just don't remember what it is off hand. (Which is why I keep a notebook on my load bench :p )

GoodOlBoy

[DougGuy]

Brian Pearce's data covers 3 tiers of power in the .45 Colt, can your rifle handle Tier 2 pressures to 20,000psi?

http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/PDF/HL%20246partial.pdf

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Ah ! such luck....I have those two powders mentioned (700X & Unique) although I haven't used them yet.....and have already established the smooth feed cartridge length for the boolits with my other loads. Since I figure the 75 yard range is an outer limit I would take a shot at, I'm going to try to bump up the velocity a little as advised....just not sure of pushing the rifles pressure limit. I guess if a load will do 800/850 in an old colt it ought to be nearly on the money in my rifle. I'll try for that 14 K pressure level with the 250 grain.

Thanks to all for the advice and the links.


BvT

[Duckdog]

The loads with Unique will give you what you are looking for. I use that very load in my NEF 45 LC barrel and it gives excellent results and accuracy out to 100 yards. You should be just fine as far as pressure goes as well.