Help With Old Skool .45 Colt .456" Boolits, Dies, BP Maybe?

[DougGuy]

I acquired this rather seldom fired Uberti "Old West" model today, slugged the bore at .452" but the cylinder throats slug at .4565" so it may be dimensionally very close to the original 1873 SAA cylinder dimensions. Should I try and hunt up some hollow base .456" round nose or RF boolits for it? The barrel looks good, forcing cone is smooth and even but not very big, it may have to be recut to keep a .456" boolit from spitting, haven't fired it yet so won't do anything to it until it has had a range session.

What dies for this? Modern dies will probably be too tight, I can make a custom expander plug in the lathe no problem, can scare up an extra push through sizer and lap it to .456" but would need a crimp die that will handle a boolit of this size.

Not wanting to hotrod this sixgun, and would maybe like to load some BP for it and see how it does, or maybe some Cowboy loads with Trail Boss, what are your opinions and suggestions?

If anyone would like to help with some .456" sample boolits I would appreciate that too, can buy or trade cylinder or barrel work for some.

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Guns/DSC03689crop768_zpsjxidbq9a.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Guns/DSC03689crop768_zpsjxidbq9a.jpg.html)

[nicholst55]

If you can find any, Winchester at least used to offer their 255 grain FRNHB bullet in bulk for reloading. Those bullets mike at .456" IIRC. Midway used to carry them, but I just checked and they no longer list them.

[fg-machine]

i think before i got to over thinking it i would take it out and shoot it a bit and see what happens .

common sense does tell us that you need a bullet to fit the throats and all of that mumbo jumbo ,.. but it very well could shoot just fine with .452 or 454 dia bullets .
ignore your brain and let the revolver tell you what it wants .

[DougGuy]

If you can find any, Winchester at least used to offer their 255 grain FRNHB bullet in bulk for reloading. Those bullets mike at .456" IIRC. Midway used to carry them, but I just checked and they no longer list them.

That's close to the original 1873 boolit, would LOVE to find some!


i think before i got to over thinking it i would take it out and shoot it a bit and see what happens .

common sense does tell us that you need a bullet to fit the throats and all of that mumbo jumbo ,.. but it very well could shoot just fine with .452 or 454 dia bullets .
ignore your brain and let the revolver tell you what it wants .

Easy. It will go BANG! I have yet to see a sixgun that could not be greatly improved on by fitting throats to the boollit, or vice versa, but I can tell you from experience how well a Ruger Blackhawk convertible shoots .452" boolits with both cylinders having .456" throats, very poorly. VERY poorly.

I understand what you are saying about evaluating it -as is- and that's always a good thing to start with IF I wanted a baseline to document something but it don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that .0045" more throat than boolit won't be a very fun place to start.

[Texas Tinker]

I believe that I have a .456 mold in stock. If I can locate it this weekend I should be able to pour a few bullits.

Shoot me a PM and we'll get in contact.

[DougGuy]

Thank you sir, PM sent..

The more I think about it, a hollow base in soft lead, maybe not pure lead but soft enough to obturate, sized .454" would work too. I bet Colt put those cylinder throats the size they did to give the base of the boolits some room to grow in diameter when the cartridge was fired.

[fg-machine]

i got my first revolver when i was 19 a 1917 s-w , the funny thing about that revolver was that no one ever told it that the thousands of .451dia round nose bullets i put threw should have shot bad considering that the throats measured somewhat north of .457 .
but what did i know back then except .45 acp used either a .451 or .452 dia bullet . what made it even funnier was when 20 years later after i thought i knew what i was doing i tried feeding it a bullet that better matched the throat and surprise surprise surprise .. it shot like **** .
i went back to .451 bullets and left it alone .

i guess the moral of the story is , just because you think it has to have a larger dia bullet to better match the throats doesn't make it true .

one thing i have learned over the years is that each gun is an entity all of its own and you have to start somewhere ... why go off chasing a magic bullet when you very well might not need to

[Catshooter]

Doug,

I have a Lyman 454424 that drops boolits at .457 from my wheel weights. I sized them with a Lyman .456 die and shot them in my Smith 45 Colt that had .4555 throats and a .452 bore. Shot like a house afire.

I sold the sixgun and won't be replacing it. Would you like the mould/die set? PM me if so, I'll be reasonable.

Nice lookin' sixgun you got there.


Cat

[StrawHat]

If you are going to load black powder, you can get away with a smaller bullet diameter and the base will obturate to the size needed. Not an optimal solution but one used by the factories and the Armory. They used a bullet with a somewhat shallow cup in the base but it worked. Remington and Winchester both used a similar boolit in the factory loadings and it may be available as a component. I use the Lyman 454190 with black powder (and others) and it boots up fine.

Kevin

[DougGuy]

Thank you for the offer Catshooter, I thought it over, I think I would like to stick with a RF boolit like the 454190 or equivalent. I would also like to find some of the hollow base/cup base boolits to try, I think with soft alloy and hollow base in those big throats a .454" would bump up no prob. PB RF at .456" or a HB RF at .454" would do I guess.

[scattershot]

I have a Smith M25 with those chamber dimensions. It shoots fine with .454 bullets.

[GLL]

Doug:

I have an old 455190 LEE Group Buy mold (modified with crimp groove) that will give you the 0.456" you want.
If you like I can send you a few samples at the end of the month when my shop is "reassembled".

http://www.fototime.com/0F08FE412A9E849/orig.jpg

Jerry

[DougGuy]

Doug:

I have an old 455190 LEE Group Buy mold (modified with crimp groove) that will give you the 0.456" you want.
If you like I can send you a few samples at the end of the month when my shop is "reassembled".

http://www.fototime.com/0F08FE412A9E849/orig.jpg

Jerry

Oh man that sounds great! That boolit is exactly what I would choose for a PB RF too! PM sent sir, TY!

[Outpost75]

Saeco 230-grain #954 and 255-grain #955 both cast .455 in 1:30 tin/lead. I shoot 6.5 grains of Bullseye with either bullet in my Colt New Service M1909.133735133736

[bedbugbilly]

Doug and others who have 'em . . . A Uberti 45 Colt Cattlemen is going to be my next buy and your post brought up a question I have had. Just what throat size do these have when newly purchased? Do you think your's had the throats opened up or is this a common size throat on a Uberti?

I haven't cast or reloaded the 45 yet - will be ordering my Cattleman in a month or so. I picked up a Lyman 454190 SC mold thinking it would work O.K. since the bores are supposed to be in the .452 range. So . . . . do the Uberti 45s go overboard with their throat size as opposed to Rugers going undersize? I would think that a boolit from a Lyman 454190 that's .002 oversize than the bore (or possibly more depending on what they drop at would work fine. I was thinking of milder loads - smokeless and BP - and using soft lead with both 45 Colt brass and Schofield bras - but I have no experience with it and respect the thoughts and opinions of those that do.

Thanks!

BTW Doug - great looking pistola! Love the grips on it!

[DougGuy]

Bleh I HATE the grips! LOL..

The guy I got this from said it shot okay with .452" which I can believe that. But me, doing cylinder and barrel throats day in and day out and being very tuned to cylinder throat/bore dimensions, already know to get best results, you want to be close to throat diameter with the boolit to start with. That said, let's go back and look at WHERE the Uberti engineers got their information.

Black powder Colts, which is exactly what this 1873 Cattleman revolver is patterned after, had .454" groove diameters, .456" cylinder throats, and they had a soft lead hollow base round nose boolit .454" in diameter. This was it's original design specifications, and it was designed so that the pressure from firing would blow the skirt of the boolit outward and it would obturate in the bore forming a seal between the boolit and the bore and this worked.

Same design basically as a good air rifle, they use the same principle to seal the pellet in the bore and the rifled barrel guns shoot great. VERY accurate as a matter of fact, because they have a very low extreme spread between shots. This is what makes them shoot the **** off a fly at 40 yards like it's a piece of cake.

So.. To use a plain base cast boolit, which doesn't have that hollow base to fill out to the diameter of the cylinder throats, I would want to size them at .456" since my throats slug at .4565" and I would want no harder than 20:1 alloy, and soft lube as well.

To use a hollow base boolit, and rely on the same principle as Sam Colt relied on when the gun was designed, I could use a .454" sized hollow based boolit and let it obturate to fill the cylinder throats and the bore.

With soft alloy, bhn 12 which is I think what 20:1 is, I think there is enough pressure with standard .45 Colt smokeless powder loads to seal in the bore okay as long as the boolit is close to or exactly the same as bore diameter. Could a .456" in the same exact style boolit shoot better than a .454" in the same gun? The difference between the two might only be less than 1" in 25 yards, or it may be 2" or more, won't know that until you actually shoot both, side by side, then you will know. The odds are in favor of the .456" being the better shooter if the gun already has .456+" throats, that much I can tell you to be a fact. Doesn't mean that it will, it just means the odds are in favor of the boolit that fits the throats closest.

The flip side of this, is what the barrel itself does to the boolit once in the bore. It may not like swaging all the lead from .456" to groove diameter. It may show a preference for .454" or .452" once you get to shooting it.

You may find smaller throats in different Uberti models, but in the faithful copy of the 1873, I think you will find they copied the old Colts about as close as they could, and so the cylinder throats would need to be accommodated much the same way as if you were developing loads for an early smokeless powder Colt SAA.

I think the 454190 in softer alloy would be a real good place to start at least, I wouldn't go any smaller than .454"

[Char-Gar]

I have a Colt New Service and a U.S.Pat.F.A. in 45 Colt, both with large throats. I used as cast (.456) 454190 over 6.2 grains of Bulleye and I am very happy with the performance in both guns.

[Silver Jack Hammer]

DougGuy, I've got 4 Colt .45 SAA's, the measurements of 3 of them are before me, all have .456" cylinder throats. 2 of them have groove diameters of .453" and 1 has a groove of .452".

My Lyman 4 cavity 454190 drops boolits at 457" when I cast out of my mix of wheelweight and whatother scrap lead I have around. My system of casting has evolved into using a large deep skillet over a propane turkey roster flame so the pot of alloy tends to vary a little over time. But then I only use this large pot for fixed sighted pistol boolits which I cast in high quantity.

1:20 is bit soft, 1:16 is preferred. All you need is the base of the boolit to upset and form a gas seal which it will do. When I'm shooting my Colt's I'm just shooting up lead as cheap as I can get it so I don't cast store bought lead in my fixed sighted Colt's pistols like I do in my Sharps rifle.

I size to .454" because this size seems to give me the best sizing and lubing on my boolits.

I've found great improvement in accuracy when heat treating my boolits but the more time I put into making accurate boolits the more time I'm wasting because I'm just shooting high volume at relatively close range. Also, my accurate heat treated boolits hit a significantly different point of impact on the target which is very apparant at 50 yards, and my Colt's have fixed sights, with a fixed sighted pistol your zeroed to one load.

So I don't bother with store bought lead or heat treating. I have been considering getting a New Frontier so I can shoot a more different variety of boolits, but I have an accurate long range Colt 7 1/2" .44 Special zeroed in with hot loads at 100 yards and I probably wouldn't shoot the New Frontier all that much. I can hit a 12 inch steel plate at 50 yards off hand with all Colt's using junk alloy boolits.

The thing about the Colt's, and I've spent decades shooting 5 shot groups at 25 yards with them looking for the sweet spot, is Colt's are best shot off hand relatively quickly at relatively short range. Since I've taken to shoot the Colt's as they were originally intended to be shot I've enjoyed them more.

I've had a custom cylinder cut for one of my Colt's with the proper throat diameter in .44 Special and have spent time and treasure trying to get a custom barrel cut to .453" or .454" with deep grooves and thin lands mounted without any frame choke, I'd still like to have a Colt's in .45 with all the dimensions correct, I really don't know if I'd shoot it any better shooting the way I shoot them. I have a Colt's .44 Special with .429" bore and .430" cylinder throats and I don't really shoot it any better than I do my other Colt .44 Special with .427" bore with it's .434" cylinder, or it's custom .430" or it's .44-40 cylinder.

You fixed my Ruger 3 Screw SBH cylinder and now it shoots and chambers much better, but the cylinder throats of that Ruger had all kinds of different problems, and it's a .44 Mag which I shoot differently. Usually from a sitting position with my back against a tree and my legs drawn up with the gun resting between my knees and I shoot it at much longer distances at slower more deliberate rate.

What is important to me is a good trigger, the Colt I shoot the most is an old beater I did not steal because the seller agreed on the price I paid for it. It's ugly and probably not worth much but I shoot it far better than my other Colt's because of the trigger pull.

Another thing that I found necessary is to neck re-size .45 brass in the Colt. If I full length re-size in the .45 Colt then I split brass lengthwise in the middle of the case, even brand new Starline brass. The .44 Special I full length re-size and I have to full length re-size for my Ruger BH .45 Colt.

Dave Scovill talks highly of getting Remington .45 250 gr swaged lead boolits and running them through your luber without sizing them but they have been out of stock for some time now.

I used RCBS dies and can't get a good crimp with the Dillon shellplate thickness so I had to get the shorter RCBS Cowboy crimping die. A .45 AR roll crimp die or the Schofield crimp die should work just as well.

I've got some very good groups with J boolits in my Colt's but I fear being struck dead for 1-using the J word and 2-using the J word in a Colt's.

For powder I use Unique, 8 to 8.5 gr. I've loaded and shot Trail Boss, it's a popular powder but it's top listed load is rather mild, I know people who load over published max and their loads seem pretty tame.

Colt will not tighten the dimentions of their cylinder throats in spite of consumer demand, they are of the opinion that tighening the cylinder throats will increase chamber pressures inspite of tests that indicate the contrary. Colt's makes their bores run a little tight because they think tight bore and more accurate. Sound silly to me but it's their ballgame because they own the ball. The Italians make their copies like the Colt's with .456 cylinder throats. Maybe we should put consumer pressure on the Italians.

[scattershot]

I have shot .454 boolits through a properly sized .4525 chamber with good results. Anyone with the larger chamber throats ever try a .458 45/70 Boolit?

[NoAngel]

Hollow base and soft lead?

[Silver Jack Hammer]

"I have shot .454 boolits through a properly sized .4525 chamber with good results. Anyone with the larger chamber throats ever try a .458 45/70 Boolit?"

Elmer Keith did.

[bedbugbilly]

Thanks everyone . . . interesting information and it certainly gives a person a lot to ponder on.

Doug - As much as I looked (I didn't call Uberti) I couldn't come up with a reliable answer on what the throats on a Uberti actually measure to - what you say makes sense though. I haven't decided on which Uberti - I'm thinking the Cattleman but am also considering a Bisley possibly. I purchased a Uberti Bisley in 357 last spring and love it - a great shooting revolver. I figured if the cylinder throats weren't kosher, I'd be sending it to you for opening up anyway.

I would imagine that in my case, it's best to start off trying the 454190 boolit and see what the results are. I'll know more when I get a chance to cast some up in another month to see what the mold drops at. Actually, I have two of them - both single cavities so we'll see what each one produces.

Actually, I recently began thinking about coming up with a hollow base RN boolit to use in 38s. This seems to make even more sense in regards to the 45 Colt/Schofield in terms to what is being discussed. My primary thinking was in regards to BP loads. Same basis as the Minie Ball in a rifled musket. I've shot thousands of those over the last 50+ years - primarily whenI was shooting N-SSA.

My thoughts on a HB RN for the 45 Colt was that in a BP cartridge, the hollow base could be lubed just as we did the minie ball bases with BP lube. Then it could be loaded over a thin cardboard wad to keep it separated form the BP and potential infiltration in to the powder. However, a pistol is a whole lot different than a rifle in terms of a HB boolit. In a rifle barrel, there is longer exit time for the lube to disperse (melt or whatever) than from a pistol chamber and a 4 3/4" barrel. Upon firing, will the lube in the HB allow enough expansion of the skirt to the throat dimension and then squeeze back down to fit the bore? Just asking as I would imagine it would just have to be tried.

At any rate, I can see the potential for a HB lead slug which is basically what was required in the various conversions (Richards & Mason, etc.) of the '51 Navies and '60 Armies.

So . . the next natural question is . . . who makes such a mold in a 200ish and 250ish grain weight traditional flat nose round nose boolit? I don't do SASS or CAS so am not that familiar with those who cater to the "cowboy loads" such as for the Kirst conversions, etc. that might use a boolit of this design.

Silver Jack Hammer - I fully agree with your comment on shooting the Colts offhand in a fairly quick manner. I've been shooting SA revolvers (C & B) for fifty years plus and a couple of years ago, stopped "concentrating" (for want of a better word) on taking such a long aim time - shooting more like they were originally shot. The maximum range I shoot is 25 yards and usually shorter distances - and I just "plink".

The problem is, I have too many 38s - like 10 or so of different species. I'm now down to just my Uberti '51 Navy and a 357 Ruger NV and the Uberti Bisley as far as SA. We get so carried away and end up trying to shoot so many that we forget the old saying . . "bewared of the man who shoots one gun". With my '51 Navy and the Bisley - once I started shooting them more and actually took the time to "learn" how they shoot (and I've shot '51 Navies for many years and have probably owned 6 or 8 different ones) - my accuracy improved greatly.

I find that I am gravitating more and more to using my single actions only (other than my Smith Model 36) and as a result, am more comfortable with doing snap shooting as opposed to taking forever to aim . . and as they say . . "practice makes perfect" . . well, not perfect in my case but a noticeable difference in my accuracy . . . so an old dog can learn new tricks.

Doug - i'm looking forward to hearing more once you start shooting that fine looking revolver and what you discover works the best out of it. The 45 Colt has been on my "to do list" for a long time and I'm sure I'm going to experience a long learning curve with it!

[scattershot]

Bedbug.... I have two Ubertis in .45 Colt, and I have reamed them to .4525. They were obviously smaller than that to begin with. I also have a .45 Colt cylinder which has never been in a gun, and it measures .451, as best I can measure it. It may or may not be a Uberti. Hope that helps.

[scattershot]

Elmer Keith did.

I have some 300 grainers, I may give it a try.

[DougGuy]

I have at least settled on powder, brass, and primers. I have Starline brass, WLP primers, and Herco. 9.0gr Herco under a 255gr seems like a common load, lots of people use it in .45 Colt but it may be just a tad over the 14,000psi SAAMI spec. I think I will start at 8.5gr, now all I need are some boolits! Sent a couple of PMs and I may come up with some 454190 samples.

Does anyone cast the original style 255gr hollow base RN in 20:1 sized .454" or thereabouts? A handful of these would get me to seriously wanting to try them over a case full of black powder.

[GLL]

Doug:

I have cast up a few out of 20:1 for you to experiment with.
PM to you about your shipping information.
Enjoy ! :)

Jerry

[DougGuy]

PM indeed answered sir! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

[Mitch]

I have a Colt Anaconda with the same dimentions.I also have an LBT mold made for it.it drops at .457 265 gr wide flat nose.and I size to .4565 and lube with white lable carnuba red.the boolits I cast check 11 to 12 bhn on my lbt harednedd tester. if you would lien to try some drop me a pm and ill send you some GougGuy.thie was the Boolit Vearl At Lbt recommended.the colt did about the same as your ruger without the boolits fiiting the cylinder.