45 Colt loads, lots of soot

[hylander]

Shot my brand new flat top.
Loads were 200gr .452 SNS poly coated cast on top of 6.6 and 7.0 of HP-38. New Winchester brass.
The cases were almost completely black.
I have shot these loads in a couple of Uberti 1873's and never noticed this
Ideas?
Can my chambers be really bad oversized?
Not the throats but chambers.
The throats are under sized at .449

[BLAHUT]

Do a chamber cast and find out ? Creo Safe I believe it is called, get at Brownells.

[smkummer]

Possibly a couple of things. 7.1 grains with a 255 grain bullet is the Winchester factory loading. So your under max. but not that much. Almost all modern dies undersize 45 colt for .451-452 bullets, so the brass has a bit more expansion to do to seal. So most likely what your seeing is gas blow by as the case tries to seal. When I generally shot 45 colt out of only 1 handgun, I only partially sized the straight wall case and the black soot went away. You can also use a faster powder like red dot, bullseye or 700X ( what I use for reduced cowboy loads).
I can’t imagine a 45 colt cylinder throat at .449, that sounds like a poor quality control. That would be the first thing I would correct.

[Baltimoreed]

Nature of the beast, .45colt with light loads won’t seal the chamber very well. Guys shooting blackpowder will use guns chambered in .44-40 brass as its thin walls seal the chamber. It’s possible to carefully resize .44-40 to .45colt and then you get a good seal but the brass is fragile and easily wrecked during reloading. I use Clays, Clay Dot and Red Dot and have just a little amount of sooting.

[HWooldridge]

Do a chamber cast and find out ? Creo Safe I believe it is called, get at Brownells.

Cerro Safe...and yes, can buy from Brownell's.

You could also use gage pins to get close - if you have access to a set in that general range.

[Baltimoreed]

I would be more concerned with the throats being undersized. Swaging a .451-.452 bullet down to .449 to rattle down the barrel is not conducive to good accuracy. I remember there were a bunch of .44 Rugers that had bad throats.

[Castaway]

Your load is relatively light. You can do two things. Go up a bit in powder and/or anneal your brass

[hylander]

Thanks for the replies.
Bullets are sized .452 and can not be forced into any chamber.
Just did a thorough cleaning and polished the chambers and throats.
No pin gauges, I used calipers and then verified that with a Micrometer.
Throats measured .449 and chambers .4825
Wonder if the Win brass might be a bit hard. I have always used Starline before.
Also the Win brass had to be sized before I could use it, a bullet would just drop right in it.
The Cylinder will be going to Doug before I shoot it again.

[Soundguy]

Possibly a couple of things. 7.1 grains with a 255 grain bullet is the Winchester factory loading. So your under max. but not that much. Almost all modern dies undersize 45 colt for .451-452 bullets, so the brass has a bit more expansion to do to seal. So most likely what your seeing is gas blow by as the case tries to seal. When I generally shot 45 colt out of only 1 handgun, I only partially sized the straight wall case and the black soot went away. You can also use a faster powder like red dot, bullseye or 700X ( what I use for reduced cowboy loads).
I can’t imagine a 45 colt cylinder throat at .449, that sounds like a poor quality control. That would be the first thing I would correct.

Try tightgroup.

[stubshaft]

Anneal the necks so low pressure loads can seal the chamber.

[hylander]

Anneal the necks so low pressure loads can seal the chamber.

To lazy :lol:

[JoeJames]

A cousin asked me to load some 45 Colt rounds for him. I already had the dies, and figured I'd use fairly light loads of HP-38 for powder. That's when I learned about that great big old 45 Colt case, which after all was designed for black powder. It was a light load and when I fired them in my 10" TC Contender I was getting very, very odd results. Down in the 400-500 fps range. It was position sensitive. Only got decent results when I tilted the barrel up before I fired. It just was not completely detonating. I switched over to a standard load of Trail Boss and that solved the problem.

[gc45]

Pin gauges are best for what your trying to measure.

[Dusty Bannister]

The measurements shown in the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, 4th edition show the cartridge body to measure .480" so the chambers are not out of spec. It might be helpful to slug the barrel a few times to verify the groove diameter so Doug can enlarge the throat to match the groove. As long as you are going to send the cylinder, you might as well send a couple of slugs so he can verify exactly what you need as a minimum.

[Outpost75]

Modern .45 Colt dies size the cases excessively to provide sufficient bullet pull to hold .451-.452 jacketed bullets. This results in cartridges being about 0.005" smaller than chamber diameter and low pressure loads are inadequate to provide a good gas seal in the larger chambers. Most modern users prefer to have cylinder throats uniformed to .452, but doing so generally requires using fast-burning powders in charges which slightly exceed SAAMI MAP, to produce an effective gas seal for clean brass. I use 7.5 grains of Bullseye with 260-grain, .452 bullets in my Rugers and .454 in my Colt New Service, Ubertis and Piettas.

The expander plug should be not more than 0.002" smaller than bullet diameter. I prefer older steel RCBS dies, rather than carbide, as they size the brass less.

[Texas Gun]

my guss is it is all do to the .449 open that up and it will stop blowing gas back down the chamber

[Walks]

I used an old set of Lyman steel dies from the 1960's to load .45Colt to make up Black Powder loads for Cowboy Shooting. I shot these loads in a pair of OM Vaqueros using .454dia cast and pan lubed #454190 unsized bullets. Cases were blackened due to the BP.

I believe Winchester new .45Colt brass is still made the same way it was. Designed for .454 soft lead factory bullets. It does need to be sized for .452dia bullets.
As Outpost75 says, Carbide sizers are a poor choice.

[nicholst55]

Contact member DougGuy and have him open your chamber throats to .4525". Also check for thread choke where the barrel screws into the cylinder frame. Your chambers are a tad large, but not terribly so. You may want to increase the pressure of your loads a bit to reduce the soot.

[DougGuy]

Have the throats honed first. Then work on a load. Your flattop is safe to 23,000psi so no problem about having to stay with standard pressure 45 Colt loads.

[Harter66]

Had an old BH throats were .451-.4545 . 2 leaded 3 cleaned up and one generated disproportionately high recoil .

I see you have contacted Doug Guy that or fixing the .449 throats myself would be the first step before I were to worry about a .4825 chamber . I have a carbine that's .496 body with a .484 mouth I just keep the brass separated by HS . All 7 chambers handle .454 fine .

I didn't have any trouble with Win brass , even with the carbide dies , smoking cases with 8-9.5 gr of Unique until I was over 16 cycles . It took me to 20 to figure it out . I annealed the cases then and will probably have to again soon although changing to "neck" sizing then to steel dies helped stretch that out I'm over 40 cycles gross on that brass . I lost 5 and cracked one up the side .

[smkummer]

How about contacting Ruger about just sending them the cylinder? Why should someone pay someone else to correct this?

[DougGuy]

How about contacting Ruger about just sending them the cylinder? Why should someone pay someone else to correct this?

Ruger will NOT address issues like cylinder throat sizes, they won't even fix a cylinder that has undersized chambers in it that were reamed with a worn out reamer.

Neither will they accept any gun parts, you have to jump through the hoops and send them the whole firearm, via common carrier, they will shoot factory ammo through it, if it groups for them, they send it back without doing anything to it and may charge you for shipping being there was nothing wrong with the gun.

[Texas Gun]

Never once had a gun sent in come back, correct Sometimes they were worse than when they were sent in

[jonp]

Up your load

[derek45]

I shoot 7.5gr win231/HP38 with a 250gr.

solid ROLL crimp

813fps

https://i.imgur.com/0nBRwgk.jpg

[Kosh75287]

Things to try at the loading bench are:
1.) Increase the charge weight slightly (data allowing).
2.) Switch to a heavier projectile (230 gr. LRN or 250 gr. RNFP), keeping charge weights as is.
3.) Increase the amount of crimp you use. I find that turning the seating die 1/8 to 1/4 turn can make a difference.

Though you MAY find that you use all three measures, DO NOT attempt them all at one time. Employ each measure separately, while checking for pressure signs. I doubt that the three measures, combined at once, would cause any seriously high pressures, but let's not test the notion.
I recall 7.1/W231/250 gr. RNFP being pretty "middlin", in terms of performance, pretty close to factory. With lighter projectiles, charge weights under that may not generate sufficient pressure to seal the brass to the chamber.

[Messy bear]

Couple guys have the easiest solution-
Neck size!! Don’t fart with anything else except throats. Then if neck size doesn’t help go up with load. You are in such low pressure with that load that even annealed brass may not seal. If you want poopy loads go with Trail boss. Other wise add powder and get it working in the right pressure range.

[hylander]

Couple guys have the easiest solution-
Neck size!! Don’t fart with anything else except throats. Then if neck size doesn’t help go up with load. You are in such low pressure with that load that even annealed brass may not seal. If you want poopy loads go with Trail boss. Other wise add powder and get it working in the right pressure range.

In Hogdons: Minimum is 5.9 and max 8.0
So at 7.0 pressure should be fine.
Also 6.6 has been my go to load in several other 45's without any issues.
Cylinder will be going to Doug today or tomorrow. Also will be switching to Starline brass.

[Messy bear]

Hope ya get it working. Soot isn’t the worst thing but is messy after awhile. Let us know if you get it fixed.

[hylander]

Hope ya get it working. Soot isn’t the worst thing but is messy after awhile. Let us know if you get it fixed.

Cylinder is on the way to Doug to be honed to .4525
Will load a few of my regular load and will bump it up as well.
Also will load up some 250gr. with Unique

[justindad]

Unique is sooty in my Uberti when the charge is under 8.0 grains with a 255 grain SWC.

[hylander]

Got the Cylinder back from Doug.
Looks perfect, the Boolits snugly drop right through now.
Hopefully I will get to shoot it this week.

[nhithaca]

I know this is a pistol thread but in my 16" Marlin 1894 45 Colt, at low pressure the cases are very sooty and black. Cases also are slightly bulged which is because as I understand it the chambers on these Marlins tend to run oversize. As I increase the pressure the soot goes away but the bulge remains. Just have to fully resize all cases when shot through this gun. Full house Ruger pressure loads are a real handful in this little carbine!!! But it does shoot well.

[fn1889m]

Never once had a gun sent in come back, correct Sometimes they were worse than when they were sent in

About 50/50. I had a new barrel and cylinder put on a .45 Vaquero that I had purchased used. Good job all around.

Sent in a .45 Blackhawk, which had a visibly bad barrel. The new barrel had the forcing cone off center, and the entire pistol was over buffed (with a sanding wheel?). I had carefully blended all the fit parts and removed the “sanded” look with steel wool, etc. before I sent it in. I still have it and will rebarrel it myself.

It’s really a crap shoot.

[hylander]

Got out to shoot it.
SOooooo much better.
Groups are 1/3 the size they were and actually groups now.
No leading, still.more soot than I like but much cleaner than before.

[smkummer]

Outstanding! I read where you ordered some new Starline brass. A friend of mine did that and notice his first sizing using more force than used brass. Starline boasts its 45 LC brass will stand high pressures, like 44 mag pressure, most of us don’t need that. I have very little Starline brass in 45 colt, mostly W-W and R-P.
My suggestion if it’s new brass and dropping into the chamber as is, just flare, seat and crimp. Again, when I was loading just for 1 45 colt, I only sized a little over 1/3 the way with modern dies and that ammo all went back into the same gun.

[Carrier]

I get more soot on cases when using Starline than I do using Winchester brass or Federal in 45 Colt Also more split case mouths with Starline than Winchester or Federal brass especially in .357.

[littlejack]

It's an "Old wives tale" about 45 Colt brass being "weak" and not holding up. The brass wasn't/isn't the problem. Unless the brass has been reloaded over and over again and lost its elasticity, and IS wore out, there shouldn't be any problems. It was/is the oversize chambers that causes the split cases. Chambers so oversize, that when fired stretched the cases beyond the limits of the brass. I load for my Uberti 45 Colt "Evil Roy" and Winchester Trapper carbine. Fortunately I can partial size my brass to hold the boolit, and the cartridges will fit in either chamber. My standard load is 9 grains of Herco under a 255 - 265 grain boolit. Doesn't seem to overly soot the cases. Burns real clean and bright shiny bores.

[Kosh75287]

That's about the minimum "non-sooty" load in most .45 Colts I've shot.

[Kosh75287]

Unique is sooty in my Uberti when the charge is under 8.0 grains with a 255 grain SWC.
That's about the minimum "non-sooty" load for most .45 Colts that I've shot.

[doc1876]

IMR 4227 is my go to for the colts. You will find that most other powders soot badly, especially W231.