.357 or .45 Colt for Cowboy Action?

[David2011]

Guys and Gals,

What’s your caliber preference for Cowboy Action shooting between .38/.357 and .45 Colt? I’m considering a change from USPSA to SASS due to aging knees. Brass, molds and reloading dies are already on hand for both and I’ll have to get different firearms so the options are open. If ego was a driving factor I would go with .45 but the preferred Trail Boss is hard to get on a reliable basis. I’ve been reloading since the late ‘70s but my experience with .45 Colt leans toward the high power end of the spectrum so I’m not well versed on light .45 Colt powder selections. There are plenty of powders that will produce light, reliable loads in .357 cartridges.

I have enough .38 and .357 brass to last a lifetime even if I was 20 years old. I have about 1000 pieces of .45 Colt brass so at least a good start. I have molds for several .357 boolits and at least 2 suitable to use in a tubular feed rifle in .45 rifle.

I understand that .357 will need more speed than .45 to knock down falling targets but I would be shooting 170 grain boolits.

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to shoot a full match with borrowed guns and leather. The revolvers and rifle were all in .45 Colt. The owner used 5 grains of Trail Boss under RNFP boolits. I'll have to check with him on the boolit weight. The rifle and pistols were all a hoot to shoot, unnoticeable recoil but plenty of power to knock down falling tombstones.

I’m not adverse to recoil but have shot enough steel plate matches to understand that low recoil leads to low times.

Input appreciated,
David

[NC_JEFF]

The 45 Colt is a lot of fun, you'll find that caliber is extremely popular at SASS events. My 45 is an older Vaquero that can handle the Ruger/Contender only pressures so I can go from mild to wild with it. With the 45, you can do a lot of swapping at most events and someone will always have what you need if anything ever breaks or you run out.
Of course you should buy a 38/357 too, especially since your well stocked in brass.
Hey!!! This is America, you can have both if you want them, don't limit yourself to just one.

[Bigslug]

I don't play the SASS game, but have dabbled around the fringes and made a lot of observations on it.

Mostly what I have seen at my club involves more dinger plates than falling ones, so the game is about fast time and low recoil. I would say applying the term "mouse fart" to the loads is a generous overstatement. Do mosquitoes fart? Maybe the off-gassing of a couple of a single yeast bacterium? At any rate, the .38 case lends itself better to the lower charge volumes, lower recoil, and lead/powder economy.

The .38 guns are also noticeably heavier, thanks to having the outward dimensions of a .40+ caliber Peacemaker with smaller holes drilled in the barrel and cylinder. Good for recoil management, but they don't FEEL like a Peacemaker. YMMV.

My take: I personally have some interest in the historical/practical/real 1880's gunfighter aspect of the sport and ZERO interest in the stopwatch-chasing gamer one, which would mean .40, .44, and .45 caliber bullets larger than 200 grains at velocities exceeding 800fps, and it would mean shooting the guns one handed. While I am not alone in these sentiments, and there are categories in the game that accommodate them, the question is to what degree do your local matches recognize it?

[alleyoop]

Don't know if it'll help, but I found this interesting as far as cowboy shooting goes. http://www.curtrich.com/captbaylorsrangercamp.html IMO38 is the new 22 once you start reloading and casting.

[Silver Jack Hammer]

The .38 Special is the best round for cowboy action shooting. Saying that I shoot the .44 Special in cowboy. The .38 Special does everything you need a round to do. I load the 150 gr. LRN .38 Special with Trail Boss for my son who also shoots cowboy with me. Stick with a full weight boolit like RCBS's 147 gr mould intended for the 9mm.

One thing about cowboy is you are loading ammo in bulk. The cavernous .45 Colt cartridge was not designed to have a light dusting of fast burning powder for mouse flatulance loads. I wonder about guys that top off the .45 Colt with light boolits and shoot charges that they have to set their chronograph to hours or days just to measure their boolit velocity.

I am no fan of 110 gr .38 boolits in cowboy either. Your Trail Boss is a great way to go if you go with the .45 Colt. Another consideration is Schofield brass. Starline makes it, it's very high quality and you can load 230 gr boolits and be fine but I wonder about it cycling in rifles.

We don't know why single action guns blow up, one respectable balstician's opinion is guys load two boolits in the case. This can happen at a progressive when loading 200 gr or 185 gr boolits in the .45 Colt. We've seen too many guns blow up which were loaded with such light loads that a double charge of the powder used would not be enough to blow the gun. Cowboys load lots of ammo so decide on a round that you can safely make lots of with concern.

i shoot 240 gr boolits at 800 fps in cowboy, some guys tell me to load my rounds down lighter. I get some lead splatter. But I shoot with a Clan that mandates the used of guns calibrated to something that begins with a "4". And I'm not competitive. I like the recoil and am glad to give up time to shoot a real gun that recoils a little. I shoot with a Clan that I have been shooting all forms of combat competition with for many decades and we are all done with competition and combat. We shoot cowboy for fun and we have more fun than anyone else. Our guns recoil and we don't even try to go fast. Ya, I suppose we kind of pick on the gamers, but we shoot cowboy using guns and gear somewhat authentic to the frontier.

[David2011]

Hey!!! This is America, you can have both if you want them, don't limit yourself to just one.

Now why didn't I think of that? Oh- SWMBO!


Mostly what I have seen at my club involves more dinger plates than falling ones, so the game is about fast time and low recoil. I would say applying the term "mouse fart" to the loads is a generous overstatement. Do mosquitoes fart? Maybe the off-gassing of a couple of a single yeast bacterium? At any rate, the .38 case lends itself better to the lower charge volumes, lower recoil, and lead/powder economy.

The .38 guns are also noticeably heavier, thanks to having the outward dimensions of a .40+ caliber Peacemaker with smaller holes drilled in the barrel and cylinder. Good for recoil management, but they don't FEEL like a Peacemaker. YMMV.

My take: I personally have some interest in the historical/practical/real 1880's gunfighter aspect of the sport and ZERO interest in the stopwatch-chasing gamer one, which would mean .40, .44, and .45 caliber bullets larger than 200 grains at velocities exceeding 800fps, and it would mean shooting the guns one handed. While I am not alone in these sentiments, and there are categories in the game that accommodate them, the question is to what degree do your local matches recognize it?

I believe the minimum power factor for SASS is 60 (boolit weight x velocity / 1000) which is easily exceeded by 2.5 gr of Bullseye behind a 158 grain .38 boolit. I saw a squib shot shell hit the popper with the plastic wad and it still counted as a hit. I hadn't thought about the weight of the smaller bore and cylinder. I shot a 7.5" Blackhawk in .30 Carbine years ago. That's the extreme example of that effect. The local clubs go by SASS rules and they do have classes where one revolver is shot with one hand only and the other revolver is shot with the other hand only. There's also a class where both revolvers are shot strong hand only. The low power factors still apply, though. The targets are as close as 7 yards so they don't want high velocity lead coming back toward the firing line. I have one each of the Blackhawks in .357 and .45 but neither is suitable for Cowboy IMO. The .357 is a 3 screw so I would rather not beat it up and the .45 is my carry pistol for hunting with a 7-1/2" barrel; kinda long for fast shooting. The .45 has dispensed many rounds of 230 gr RN at over 1200 fps and once a long time ago some 290 gr boolits at over 1100 fps when every magazine had a monthly article on the latest 'stoopid hot' loads for the .45 Blackhawk. That gave me tendonitis in my strong hand elbow that caused me to have to lay off of pistol shooting for a while.


Don't know if it'll help, but I found this interesting as far as cowboy shooting goes. http://www.curtrich.com/captbaylorsrangercamp.html IMO38 is the new 22 once you start reloading and casting.

Thanks. I found and read Curt's website. "38 is the new 22" That was my opinion when I cast my first 148 gr Saeco wadcutters in 1982 or so and loaded them with 2.3 grains of Bullseye. Wheelweights were free back then and primers were 69 cents/100 and much more fun to shoot than .22.

Thanks, guys. All input is appreciated. If Trail Boss wasn't so spotty right now this would be a no-brainer for the 45 Colt. That and the versatility of the .38/357 is what's causing the heartburn.

David

[sundog]

"What’s your caliber preference for Cowboy Action shooting between .38/.357 and .45 Colt? I’m considering a change from USPSA to SASS due to aging knees."

Doesn't make any difference. Go and have fun - which is supposed to be what it's about. Switch off for a change of pace.

Unless you are competing to be End of Trail all around champion, it makes no difference. Use everything you have and enjoy the comaraderie!

Unless you

[ReloaderFred]

My wife and I both shoot SASS, and have shot all over the western U.S. in both local and state matches. We've also shot with the Hammer Clan at a couple of matches (Pinky finger!).

We chose to shoot .38 Special for several reasons. For one thing, it's cheaper, especially when you're shooting 8 to 10 thousand rounds per year, which we were doing for awhile. I cast all the bullets we shoot, so we get more bullets per pound of alloy shooting .38's, and I do cast 105 gr. for the revolvers and 125 gr. for the Marlin rifles. I've yet to hit a knockdown target that didn't go down with a good solid hit, but I'm loading them with enough Bullseye to ensure they're going to knock them down. For the .45 Colt, I cast the 200 gr. RNFP for both revolvers and rifles.

Another reason for .38's is the price of brass and the availability. I buy the scrap brass from our club, and I routinely get about 500 rounds of .38 brass out of the buckets with each purchase, but I've probably only gotten a couple of hundred .45 Colt brass in the past 8 or 9 years I've been buying their brass. If buying once fired, you can get at least double the number of .38 brass for what you pay for .45 Colt brass.

Primers are also easier to come by in small pistol. Powder charges are smaller, and I get way more loads per pound of powder shooting .38's than I do when shooting .45 Colt. I have revolvers in both .38 Spl. and .45 Colt, plus rifles in both calibers, but about 90% of my SASS shooting is done with .38 Special.

SASS mandates lower power loads for several reasons. One is the damage done to expensive steel targets with full power loads, and the other is the splash back effect. Every SASS shooter has taken more hits than John Kerry ever did from lead splatter, so you want to minimize that as much as possible. Those who advocate full power loads for SASS aren't the ones buying the targets.

SASS was designed strictly for fun. Some criticize it for not being "training", but it was never designed to be training for anything, just for people of like interests to gather and have fun. One of the founders of SASS, Boyd Davis, was a close personal friend until he passed away a little over a year ago, and he always said it was about the fun of the game, period.

Shoot what you want, and have fun doing it. I've listed the reasons my wife and I chose the .38 for our shooting, which was the question, and some have chosen the .45 for their own reasons. Whatever you choose, it will be fun to shoot.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Vann]

I'm not going to go into great detail because most of everything has been covered. One thing to take into account is that some categories require you to use certain guns, so that is a starting point. After you know what category your going to shoot then you need to look into what guns you want.

If you're shooting just to shoot and not worried about first place the 45 is just as good as the 38. If you want to be in the top 5 overall rankings you may want to look at the 38's.

Usually 45's are cheaper when bought used, everyone wants the big 45 then they want to go fast and trade them off for 38's.

I shoot 45's loaded with black power and normally come in somewhere in the top 10, most of the time around 6th or 7th. Today I shot smokeless and came in at number 3. So the 45's really are not that much slower until you get into short strokes and the like.

My powder of choice is either titegroup or red dot, both go a long way. My bullet of choice is a 175 gr not much difference from the 200 gr I just use it to stretch my lead a bit. At around 800fps it hits the target hard enough the spotters can hear it.

[Harry O]

I use a 41 Long Colt for my handgun calibers. A 38-40 for rifle. And black powder. I am not anywhere near the speed of the people with the "mouse-fart" .38 Specials, but I don't really care. What do you care about?

[hp246]

I've been shooting CAS for two years. I started with the .45 Colt. A lot of the real fast folks are shooting all kinds of weird stuff, including custom stuff that barely makes a ding when it hits the target. Not the fastest, but I hold my own. The other thing about .45 is that if you decide to move to Wild Bunch, you will need a .40 caliber or larger rifle. So I use the same rifle for both CAS and WB. In addition, I only load one bullet, a 230 gr TC for all of my .45 Colts and my .45 acps. Makes life a bit simpler when casting and reloading. Now if you want to go to the dark side, I'd recommend .44-40. But that's another story altogether.

[David2011]

. . . more bullets per pound of alloy shooting .38's, and I do cast 105 gr. for the revolvers and 125 gr. for the Marlin rifles. I've yet to hit a knockdown target that didn't go down with a good solid hit, but I'm loading them with enough Bullseye to ensure they're going to knock them down. For the .45 Colt, I cast the 200 gr. RNFP for both revolvers and rifles.

Another reason for .38's is the price of brass and the availability.

Primers are also easier to come by in small pistol. Powder charges are smaller, and I get way more loads per pound of powder shooting .38's than I do when shooting .45 Colt. I have revolvers in both .38 Spl. and .45 Colt, plus rifles in both calibers, but about 90% of my SASS shooting is done with .38 Special.

Every SASS shooter has taken more hits than John Kerry ever did from lead splatter, so you want to minimize that as much as possible. Those who advocate full power loads for SASS aren't the ones buying the targets.

SASS was designed strictly for fun. Some criticize it for not being "training", but it was never designed to be training for anything, just for people of like interests to gather and have fun. One of the founders of SASS, Boyd Davis, was a close personal friend until he passed away a little over a year ago, and he always said it was about the fun of the game, period.

Shoot what you want, and have fun doing it. I've listed the reasons my wife and I chose the .38 for our shooting, which was the question, and some have chosen the .45 for their own reasons. Whatever you choose, it will be fun to shoot.

Hope this helps.

Fred

Fred, it does help. Several have expressed to me that they shoot .45 because .38 is for wimps and women. I end enough heavy loads down range out of my Blackhawk in .45 Colt and TC Contender in .44 Mag for hunting that I don't need to prove anything to myself the rest of the year. You bring up some significant issues. I have about 7 gallons of .38 brass and several hundred .357 cases on hand along with a year's worth of small pistol primers from when I was shooting 7-10 matches a month using .40 S&W. Worst case now is that's several years worth of primers. I only have about 1000 .45 Colt cases and 1/4 as many large pistol primers. I would most likely use molds already on hand for .357 bore. I have a 6 hole H&G RN (but it's REALLY heavy!) and not my favorite to use but a really nice boolit, the Lee 170 grain RNFP. It has a huge meplat and enough mass to knock steel down at moderate velocities.


What do you care about?

What I really care about is being happy with the first choice I make because changing calibers later would be costly. I also care about being able to shoot when I want to and think the smaller cartridge offers much more flexibility with light load powders than the .45.



I only load one bullet, a 230 gr TC for all of my .45 Colts and my .45 acps. Makes life a bit simpler when casting and reloading. Now if you want to go to the dark side, I'd recommend .44-40. But that's another story altogether.

I have a .45 TC mold as well. It is versatile. I have too much stuff in .357 and .45 to start messing with .44-40 but thanks for the suggestion.

Lots of good info in the replies.

Thanks to everyone who has taken time to answer. --David

[David2011]

The .38 Special is the best round for cowboy action shooting. Saying that I shoot the .44 Special in cowboy. The .38 Special does everything you need a round to do. I load the 150 gr. LRN .38 Special with Trail Boss for my son who also shoots cowboy with me. Stick with a full weight boolit like RCBS's 147 gr mould intended for the 9mm.

One thing about cowboy is you are loading ammo in bulk. The cavernous .45 Colt cartridge was not designed to have a light dusting of fast burning powder for mouse flatulance loads.

Another consideration is Schofield brass. Starline makes it, it's very high quality and you can load 230 gr boolits and be fine but I wonder about it cycling in rifles.

Compared to my USPSA days, the volume will be much lower and I cast about 80% of the boolits I used back then. I would cast 100% of my own for SASS. The gentlemen that fixed me up with firearms last weekend had some Schofield brass but cautioned me to only put them in the revolvers because they wouldn't feed in his 1873 Winchester repro.


My powder of choice is either titegroup or red dot, both go a long way. My bullet of choice is a 175 gr not much difference from the 200 gr I just use it to stretch my lead a bit. At around 800fps it hits the target hard enough the spotters can hear it.

Are you using Red Dot and TG for .45 Colt? If so, that's good news. I have a good supply of Titegroup. Thanks!

David

[rondog]

I don't know nothin' 'bout no Cowboy Action shootin, but I'm perty sure they didn't have no .357 Magnums back then. Just sayin'.....

[ReloaderFred]

They didn't have .357 Magnums, but Bill Hickock did pretty well with his .36 caliber revolvers......... And so did a lot of others of the period.

Just sayin'.........

Fred

[M-Tecs]

I don't know nothin' 'bout no Cowboy Action shootin, but I'm perty sure they didn't have no .357 Magnums back then. Just sayin'.....

They didn't have cars to drive to the match either. Just sayin'

[44MAG#1]

Why is it called "Cowboy Action Shooting" when no self respecting "Cowboy" probably ever used the cream puff loads that are used in the sport that should be called "Cream Puff Action Shooting"?
But fun is fun no matter what one wants to call it.
To me minimum power should be a 250 grain at a minimum of 800 FPS. And that from a 5.5 inch barrel.

[contender1]

ReloaderFred has given some excellent guidelines as to why choose one over the other.
I've shot SASS,,, and I had enough different Rugers to choose, 38/357's, 41's, 44's, or 45's. I started with my 44's as I had the rifle already. But I chose to move to 38/357's for many of the very same reasons Fred has listed. I now have both a 357 & a 44 cal rifle if I choose to shoot any SASS matches.

(You should see the "oohh's & aahh's" I get when I break out a true set of early OM Flattop 357's at a SASS match. One is a Ross variation.)

[Vann]

Yes, Titegroup is an awesome powder in the 45 colt. The downside is the case will hold about 4 normal charges, so I tend to use reddot more for practice loads. I have found Titegroup to be very consistent when shot across the chronograph.

I agree that there should be a minimum velocity limit, in fact my club is trying to bring the targets in even closer than they are now. For the gamers, if anything I'd rather see the targets moved out.

[David2011]

I don't know nothin' 'bout no Cowboy Action shootin, but I'm perty sure they didn't have no .357 Magnums back then. Just sayin'.....

The .38 Special was introduced in 1898. SASS rules require that revolvers be original or reproductions of revolvers available in 1899 or earlier. You have to shoot a lever action rifle in a pistol caliber. It's a game; not a historical re-enactment. Cowboy Action rules span a period of time that includes the 1911. There is a class know as "The Wild Bunch" where the handgun is a 1911 (must be of the original design, not 1911a1 or modern variants).


Yes, Titegroup is an awesome powder in the 45 colt. The downside is the case will hold about 4 normal charges, so I tend to use reddot more for practice loads. I have found Titegroup to be very consistent when shot across the chronograph.

I agree that there should be a minimum velocity limit, in fact my club is trying to bring the targets in even closer than they are now. For the gamers, if anything I'd rather see the targets moved out.

I'll have to try Titegroup in .45 Colt just for grins and giggles. I have a 1911 that functions 100% reliably shooting 200 gr SWCs at 645 fps. I built it before the Steel Challenge rules declared a minimum velocity of 800 fps but my boolits still fragment when they hit the plates. Yes, loads that take only 1/4 of the volume do require extreme attention. If I go that route it may be worthwhile to get a .45 Colt conversion for the Dillon 650. It's pretty hard to double charge on that press; much more so than the 550. Fortunately, many CAS level .38 loads even if doubled would still be safe .357 loads. Speculating a load of around 3.7 grains of Titegroup for 200 gr .45, a double of that is still within the Hodgdon safe load specs for factory pressures. It would be pretty difficult to over-charge if using Trail Boss. Just thinking "out loud" about safety issues.

The minimum power factor of 60 must be to accommodate the .32 shooters. A 200 grain boolit at a PF of 60 is blazing along at 300 fps. A 100 grain .32 would be doing 600 fps at a PF of 60.

I'll load up some mild loads for my .45 Colt and get a feel for it.

David

[Vann]

I hate giving out load data but if you check Hodgdon's load data you'll see that they recommend for the 45 Colt, 6.5 grs of Titegroup with a 200 gr lead bullet for 933 fps and 9,300 cup.

My load is 6.0 gr with my 175 gr bullet which gives me a very nice load out of my 45 Ruger Bisley Vaquario's and rifle.

I'm not sure what 3.7 grains would do, that's usually the charge weight I use for silent R.B. loads. 3.7 grains of reddot with a bit of polyfill is very quiet under a round ball out of a 45 Colt rifle.

[johnson1942]

i shoot a 45 long colt and love it and my load is way diff than any stated her. it drives tacks for me and is very comfortable to shoot. 18 grains by weight of blackhorn 209 powder. two 60 thousands thick hard fiber wads. a .454 round ball on top of that and roll crimped over the end of the round ball. havent found any thing more accurate in my 45 long colt and more fun to shoot. loading up another 400 rounds so i can do it all over again. try it, you may like it also. also do the same thing in my two cowboy 38 specials. i reduce a .38 roundball to .358 and use blackhorn 209 powder and only one hard fiber wad between bullet and powder. also shoots holes in holes and very very comfortable to shoot. love my cowboy guns, more accurate that any other handguns ive shot except of course my model 17 .22 smith.

[Alvarez Kelly]

There has been lots of good advice already given.

I shoot 38 Special 105gr Boolits in my 357 Magnum Rugers. I shoot 38 Special 159gr Boolits in my 357 Magnum chambered Italian 1873 clone. It's more fun than I can even describe. Cheap brass. Cheap Boolits. The 38s are frugal with my powder supplies.

One more thing. I use Clays. For eveything, including the 12 gauge rounds.

[David2011]

There has been lots of good advice already given.

I shoot 38 Special 105gr Boolits in my 357 Magnum Rugers. I shoot 38 Special 159gr Boolits in my 357 Magnum chambered Italian 1873 clone. It's more fun than I can even describe. Cheap brass. Cheap Boolits. The 38s are frugal with my powder supplies.

One more thing. I use Clays. For eveything, including the 12 gauge rounds.

AK, with Clays going back into full production that makes as much sense as anything anyone has said. I'm definitely leaning toward .357s as much as I love my Blackhawk in .45 Colt. I know the smaller bore will be faster and shooting only one powder would be a dream. I recently got a Ponsness Warren shot shell press so just one powder would work perfectly.

In USPSA my scores from stages that required a lot of movement while shooting were exactly average among all shooters. When I had a stage where I stood still I shot with the best of them so I have great hopes for CAS. I might as well start with the most competitive caliber. I compete for fun but have never entered any kind of competition to come in last.

Thanks!
David