Thanks for everyone’s help loading for my 45 colt vaquero!

[Tripplebeards]

I finally took it with trout fishing today to test my purple PC 255 lee grain boolits I loaded with trailboss. I loaded them long to basically rest on where the forcing cone starts to restrict. I sized them so I can push them through my forcing cones with my finger with little force. I’ll have to check my data but I think I was some at starting loads with the powder. I set a 20 oz. power aid bottle at 25 yards and let the first six fly. I shot an inch left of the bottle with the first four shots all in one dirt hole about the size of a silver dollar! I readjusted my aim to about 2” to the right of the bottle and nailed it with the last two shots. Next twelve all it the bottle! That is one accurate little Ruger. Those trailboss loads recoil like a 22 mag with a little more jump. I figured the boolits wouldn’t have went into the clay ground very deep so I tried to dig some out. I gave up after I dug about a foot deep and the holes kept going. I was impressed with the penetration with this light load. Glad I never sent my pistol in to do any forcing cone boring as it accurate as can be the way it sits. So loaded long, at the bottom crimp groove, and 5.2 grains of trailboss...I just checked, is one accurate load! I know it’s a light load but at 25 yards I will guarantee it will pass through a deer after I saw how deep the boolit penetrated the heavy, wet clay. Not going to be a lot of knock down power but I’d be shocked if the boolit didn’t exit a whitetail.

[Tripplebeards]

I checked my Lyman cast boolit load book. It says the 255 grain boolit approx FPS is 796 FPS out of a 7.5” barrel. I would guess I’m around 750 FPS or so out of a 5.5” barrel?

From the lack of recoil I would have thought closer to 600 FPS? I will have to chrony the loads.

[Tripplebeards]

Didn’t realize I was shooting mixed heads stamped brass. I’ll retest with all the same cases.

Realistically how far should average pistol with fixed sights shoot accurately? 50, 75, 100 yards max? I would expect 25 yards to be dead center yet as most do. I still plan on trying to shoot it from my cheap plastic pistol rest and have a friend shoot it as well with the same loads I tried before I send it in. But as tight of a a group I shot i would think it’s the sights and not myself. I own a few 44 mags, 9 mm, and 22 lr pistols with red dots mounted on them that I’ve shot quite regularly since the early 80’s so I’m pretty confident in my capabilities. I haven’t been practicing for a while so I’ll check out the hold chart as stated above. Where can I find the chart referred to?