My very first batch of pistol reloads!

[Idaho45guy]

My cherry has been broken, so to speak. I've made reloads for my .45-70 competition rifle years ago, but this is my first foray into rolling my own pistol loads.

My lead pot has been back-ordered for a month and I saw a box of 100 Hornady 250gr XTP boolits in .452 at Walmart for $25, so I bought them.

Used 23.5grs of Lil' Gun, CCI LP primers, and the Hornady boolits to load up a tiny batch of 15 to see how my pistol liked them.

Not very much, I'm afraid...

First of all... OUCH!! My right hand feels like I got into a bar fight after the abuse of nearly full-power bear loads. Been shooting cowboy action shooting reloads my dad cooked up and having a blast plinking. They are super accurate in my BH Bisley with the 5.5" barrel. Best group with those has been 1.25" 5-shot group at 25yds. Commercial low-power loads have been in the 2.5" to 3" range.

My loads gave me 2.5" at 25yds but shot about 8" lower than the low power reloads and factory stuff.

Hornady says this load should be good for 1331fps. Didn't have a chrono available, so unknown what they did...

Accuracy is acceptable for self-defense but I was hoping for better performance. Can't wait to start casting my own 300gr hard-cast boolits and see how those do...

177940

25yd group from a rest:

177941

7yds off-hand:

177942


First five shot group was barely on the paper when sighting on the center of target:

177943

[Der Gebirgsjager]

But--aside from the sore hand, you had a good time, didn't you? You're in for a lifetime of reloading enjoyment.

[dtknowles]

Hey. you shot them and posted targets. That makes you the Man. Good going. More that 30 years ago I bought a used Blackhawk .357, dies and a mould. Made some reloads. They shot pretty good. Was out in the woods with my younger brother and he had my BH. We flushed a rabbit and he nailed it on the run at about 30 feet. He said that it was a nice Gun. I couldn't have been more proud. Keep it up and drop a bear for us.

Tim

[B. Lumpkin]

That 25 yard group is quite good. You may be able to tighten it up, but I'd just move the target out to 50 yards and see if dispersion is linear with distance.