45 Colt Brass

[Johnch]

I have Starline 45 Colt brass that I use for most of my loading for a long time
But after reloading some of it a LOT of times
I have had to retire some of it

So till I can get another batch from Starline

Who makes good 45 Colt brass ?
This new batch of cases will mainly be used for lite to moderate loads out of the Redhawk and Blackhawk

As I have saved some new Starline 45 Colt brass for hunting loads

Thanks
John

[Tall]

Never used any Starline 45 Colt. Mine is either R-P, CCI or Winchester. I bought some range brass at a gun show and had to trim it to length because it was too long. Otherwise never retired any cases.

[LenH]

Most of what I have is Winchester. Some of that brass is over 30 years old.
I have a few Starline cases that is not very old.

I usually shoot them until they split. Most of my loads are 8 gr of Unique. But in the last couple of years are 7.2 gr of unique. I use them in a Redhawk and an old Blackhawk.

[contender1]

In general,, as noted,, unless the brass is splitting or separating,, I keep on using it for general purposes. And you've already mentioned keeping some aside for hunting & "serious" shooting.

When it comes to brands of brass,, I usually prefer to stay with well known brands, mostly American made,, for all of my handloading. A few top quality foreign brands are also very good.
But the "bargain ammo" brands are usually weeded out of my personal use bunch. Unless it's an odd caliber that brass is harder to find. Then I keep it until I find better brass & in a sufficient quantity for my purposes.

So,, Winchester, Federal, Remington, or CCI would be a good choice.

HOWEVER,,,,,,,,,, there is another brass manufacturer I've seen at SHOT,, that had/has .45 Colt brass. The company is "Top Brass" and I've seen some of their stuff out & about. It seems to be pretty good. But my experience is also very limited.

[HWooldridge]

Mine is either Winchester or R-P - I have zero Starline brass in 45 Colt (and probably no need to buy any in the future).

[P Flados]

To some extent, brass is brass. For "standard pressure" loadings where many uses is desired, annealing the neck region would likely do more for you than trying to pick a "good" selection based on brand.

[GL49]

Go check out Diamond K brass.

[Harter66]

RP didn't like the Ruger BH or either of 2 M92 Rossi . It's fine as warm 45 S&W trimmed to 1.105 .

FC I didn't ever have enough to form an opinion on.

Win was my first 250 from factory, 40 cycles no failures other than needing to have the mouths annealed about 20 cycles and they are down to 1.116 case length . I loaded most of those 40 cycles with 250-265 gr bullets and 1968 lot of Unique giving me 1050 fps in the 7.5" BH .

All of the above will eventually be shortened to 1.105 for 45 "Short Colts" as it lacks the full rim dia for S&W .

I have an even split on the new brass of Starline and Winchester procured circa 2015-16 .

[Froogal]

I occasionally have to toss a .45 Colt because it split. I talked to gunsmith who also does cowboy shooting so he is familiar with the .45 Colt. He said the splitting issue has more to do with the caliber than it does with any specific brand of brass. I usually have to scrap one or two pieces of brass after every match. I've lost track of how many times each batch has been reloaded, so I just let the brass tell me when it is done.

[Jeff Michel]

Pretty good advise above. Shoot it till it splits, if your running easy going loads that brass could out last all of us. Starline usually runs 45 Colt brass every few months. They are taking back orders now, get on the list and if they have a partial order, they'll send it to you.

[.429&H110]

This is near and dear to my thrifty heart!
How many times can brass be reloaded?
When I run out of primers maybe?

I have been retiring .44mag brass at 30 cycles.
(Good to keep a log so the boss knows you have been busy)
A hundred or so Starline have not stretched at all
Other brands have sometimes split necks but I don't flare them as much anymore.
I run middle of the road loads, wish I got out more...
A old guy at work had me hacksaw several cases lengthwise with a fine saw
buffed smooth micrometered, was a huge difference in thickness in the middles
like a lot of 0.0001's but I have never never say never split one.

How much is too much? When it's enough?
Now there's a poll for Wilco- how much is enough?

[rexherring]

I've had good luck with Federal brass. I have some old Winchester brass that I load light loads as it's getting thin. Federal is my hunting brass.

[Winger Ed.]

I've got a fair amount of RP, and it's OK.

I think the flare and roll crimp is hard on brass.
The more ya do it, the more work hardened the case mouth gets and more prone it is to splitting.
I don't bother with doing it for .38s, but more valuable ones like the .45 Colt,
ya might want to look into annealing them every so often like folks do for the expensive rifle cases.

[AlaskaMike]

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall a range of .45 Colt Blackhawks that had large chamber dimensions. I'm not talking about chamber mouth dimensions, but the actual chamber dimensions being a bit on the loose side. I could certainly be wrong here and I can't remember any specifics, so take this with a big grain of salt.

My point is that is that you may want to measure your chamber dimensions. Excessively large chambers will allow the brass to stretch out to seal the chamber more than they'd otherwise need to, and that brass would have significantly reduced life.

Just a thought.

[nicholst55]

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall a range of .45 Colt Blackhawks that had large chamber dimensions. I'm not talking about chamber mouth dimensions, but the actual chamber dimensions being a bit on the loose side. I could certainly be wrong here and I can't remember any specifics, so take this with a big grain of salt.

My point is that is that you may want to measure your chamber dimensions. Excessively large chambers will allow the brass to stretch out to seal the chamber more than they'd otherwise need to, and that brass would have significantly reduced life.

Just a thought.

Also old Colts (and probably S&Ws, too). I think that a lot of the issues that people experience with .45 Colt revolvers stem from oversize chambers. Custom revolversmiths wouldn't be rechambering .44 Mag cylinders to .45 Colt, otherwise.

[David2011]

This is near and dear to my thrifty heart!
How many times can brass be reloaded?
When I run out of primers maybe?

I have been retiring .44mag brass at 30 cycles.
(Good to keep a log so the boss knows you have been busy)
A hundred or so Starline have not stretched at all
Other brands have sometimes split necks but I don't flare them as much anymore.
I run middle of the road loads, wish I got out more...
A old guy at work had me hacksaw several cases lengthwise with a fine saw
buffed smooth micrometered, was a huge difference in thickness in the middles
like a lot of 0.0001's but I have never never say never split one.

How much is too much? When it's enough?
Now there's a poll for Wilco- how much is enough?

As others have said, it's good until it splits. That's how I determine the life of .40 S&W. Nothing bad happens at .40 pressure levels when the brass splits. It usually splits in the middle of the case rather than at the mouth. I have .45 ACP that has been loaded so many times that the headstamps are battered beyond reading but those were never loaded hot. There is no set number of times that straight walled pistol brass can be reloaded.

[HWooldridge]

I have some Federal 44 mag brass that dates to 1977, when I bought my first Ruger Super Blackhawk. I lost a few pieces (less than 5) to poor collection methods, but have never split one of those cases. I have no idea how many times they have been reloaded with mid-range loads holding a fairly hefty charge of Blue Dot under a 250 Keith SWC.

45 Colt does seem to split down the side more than anything else - for whatever reason, the cracks don't generally extend to the mouth.

[Winger Ed.]

If it splits in the middle rather than the mouth, I'd think that tells of a fat cylinder, or sizing it down too much.
Years ago, I had some .45ACPs & a few .357s do that.
From the bulge where the boolit was at the top/middle of the case, I figured that was my problem.
I got a little less 'aggressive' with the sizing die and the issue went away.

[DocSavage]

Starline brass is probably the best brass you can buy.
My experience with 45 Colt revolvers is the chamber dimensions in some cylinders tend to be generous. Some of my brass in my Bisley come out looking like a pilsner glass.
If I stick to standard or slight hot reloads brass life is very good and as others have said shoot the brass till it splits.

[FLINTNFIRE]

Wolffs western traders has some winchester 45 colt for sale , shows as in stock for 29.95 bag of 100 , if I did not have enough I would order from there .



https://the4570book.com/shop/ols/products/45-colt-unprimed-brass---100-per-bag

[jdgabbard]

Something you may consider, if it's just the necks that are getting split, and the brass is otherwise in good shape, trim them down to Schofield or 45 Auto Rim (Cowboy Special) length, and load them accordingly. Might as well keep using them if you can.

[jimb16]

This is an interesting discussion for me. I have 3 firearms in .45 Colt; a Uberti cattleman revolver, a Uberti 1873 lever action and a Contender single shot. I've had them for years and have been using the same brass in all three. I load both target loads and hunting loads in the same cases. Of the hundreds of cases that I have, I've had only 3 case failures over the years. One of them was a failure of the base in a very old balloon head case. The other two were splits starting at the case mouth and going about 1/3 of the length down the case. I guess all three of my .45 Colts have similar chamber dimensions that are very close to what my dies resize to.

[Bass Ackward]

45 brass, particularly the Colt, are victimized by the most expansion variance in straight cases because of the taper in the chambers vs what carbide dies do to the case. Here is a link to a site with both cartridge and chamber specs. Then comes the manufacturers separate issue of production. It’s amazing the brass does as well as it does really and why high pressures are so hard on brass. https://www.theballisticassistant.com/saami-pistol-cartridge-catalog/

[TNsailorman]

I only use steel sizing dies for the .45 Colt. I cannot prove that carbide sizers ruin brass but I chose to err on the side of caution. I only know that it works for me. james

[shooting on a shoestring]

Starline has 45 Colt brass in stock, no limit. I suggest you buy what you need now. I doubt it’ll be in stock very long.

[Johnch]

Thanks everyone
I have not been to the site in over a week with migraines

John

[Johnch]

Also Thanks
I got some 1X fired 45 Colt brass at the gun club
But it was posted that Starline had 45 Colt brass again
So I ordered some

Now I am set for 45 Colt brass for a while again

Thanks
John