45 Colt Load development

[philthephlier]

I have a work in process of developing great loads for my NM Blackhawk in 45 Colt, 5-1/2" bbl. I've tried the 6.5 gr of Red Dot a number of shooters have had good luck with shooting the RCBS 255 gr. Keith bullet. I also tried W-231, 6.7 gr. The Red Dot was decent but nothing to write home about from my gun. The 231 was horrible. Then I tried 10 gr of HS-6 and fired a shot at 50 feet over sandbags. The shot was close to the center of the black. Fired #2 and couldn't see a different hole. Same thing with shots 3 & 4. # 5 was about 3/4" away and #6 didn't make a new hole.
I think I found one good load. Anybody else have a pet load for this or similar bullets I can try?

[bbs70]

I've used 7 g of Universal and my 45 new vaquero 5 1/2 barrel seems happy with it.
As of late I've been using 7 g of vv n-340 ,my new vaquero really likes that, but at 30 a lb, I don't like it.:bigsmyl2:
I settled on a 255 g boolit that seems to work better than the lighter boolits.
I also just got a blackhawk 45 with a 4 1/2 in barrel and it doesn't like either one of those powders.

I've tried
231
Herco
Unique.
And some other powders in the new vaquero and they don't perform the way I want, plus some being dirty.

From looking at your results, I think I'm going to give hs-6 a try.

[runfiverun]

sr-4756 is a good powder for the 45 colt also.
10-12 grs with a 250.
but would duplicate what you have now.
800-x is a bulky powder that fills a case pretty well and is in the burn range your revolver seems to like.
10 grs is a pretty good load.
and 12 grs of steel is fair too.
these are not poof loads. but work pretty well with a lyman keith copy.

[leftiye]

Try blue dot. Gives high velocity for pressure at the lower pressures - with good accuracy. 16 grs is more than I'm talking about. That gives 1250 fps out of a 6" barrel and will split some cases if you have the usual loose .45 Colt SAAMI spec. chambers. This even though your blackhog will take the pressure well enough. But the powder burns very well at the low .45 Colt normal pressures.

[StarMetal]

My all time favorite is 9.0 grains of Unique and 255 SWC . This is above a Colt load so don't use in Colts. Load for Colt would be 8 grains.

Joe

[Cherokee]

I have several good loads with 231 and WST, but you already tried 231. Blue Dot is also good.

[John Boy]

Anybody else have a pet load for this or similar bullets I can try?
Titegroup:
230gr LC - 6.0gr
250gr LC - 5.3gr

[fredj338]

My all time favorite is 9.0 grains of Unique and 255 SWC . This is above a Colt load so don't use in Colts. Load for Colt would be 8 grains.

Joe
Yep, 8-9gr of Unique is a classic load under a 250-255grLSWC.

[BoolitBill]

Philthephlier,
Are you kidding? Heck, I am going to try your load!

[jforwel]

I use the same Unique load as starmetal with a RNFP and a softer boolit with 5.5gr of Trailboss for a really nice shootin' mild load from my 4 5/8" BH.

[Hunter]

My favorite is Lyman mold 452651, a 325gr lead FP with 7.6gr of Unique in my Ruger New Model Blackhawk.
Took it to the range today and was able to knock down large ram silhouettes from 200 metes (bench rested).

[geargnasher]

I can second the outstanding performance of HS6 in Standard-power .45 Colt loads. I personally download to 9.5 grains behind a Lyman 452664 and have EXCELLENT accuracy in several pistols and a Henry Rifle. I've tried several other powders exhaustively, and worked HS6 up and down from 9-10.5 grains in each gun I load for, but my one-size-fits-all is the 9.5 grain charge and standard primers.


Also had good luck with Titegroup, 5.4 grains exactly (any more blew the groups in one pistol) but it tended to shoot about 3" low at 15 yards and 5" low at 25 in my pistols, so I moved to Unique, Universal, HS6, Longshot, and Blue Dot until I found what I was looking for.

For a little hotter stuff the Jury is still out at my house, I'm currently using Blue Dot with good success with heavier boolits.

Of course YMMV!

Gear

[HammerMTB]

My all time favorite is 9.0 grains of Unique and 255 SWC . This is above a Colt load so don't use in Colts.

Joe

This is what I use and like it well in my NMBH 4&5/8"

[Lloyd Smale]

same here. another would be 10 grains of herco.
My all time favorite is 9.0 grains of Unique and 255 SWC . This is above a Colt load so don't use in Colts. Load for Colt would be 8 grains.

Joe