45 colt powder choices

[jonp]

I've been trying several powders with my 45colt BH. I've settled into Red Dot for target stuff using a 200gr rnfp because I have several thousand of those I use with my 45acp and it is something you can shoot all day and H110/w296 if I want to go heavy. I was using 2400 but I found that it is a sharper recoil than the h110 and produces a pretty interesting fireball when you get up to 19gr or so.

[DougGuy]

I have loaded the Ruger Only loads for many years, once I got my old vaquero back from Ruger and they got the windage shooting point of aim, I was wide open for load development. WW296 and H110 being long time favs for heavy boolits, that's where I started after laying off handloading for a number of years. I still had ammo loaded from the mid 1990s that shot well, so I knew I was good to go in taking up where I left off.

Once the vaquero came back, I reamed the cylinder throats and also taylor throated the barrel/forcing cone, and it seems to like just about any 300+gr boolit I shoot now. Getting great groups with traditional slow burning powders, I found for slightly less than minimum Ruger Only loads, 2400 was a great choice as it will easily go a bit below the minimum level of H110 and be quite pleasant and accurate at the same time. I have a softer alloy 320gr GC deer load that I will use 2400 for just that reason.

The rest of the stuff I load is very stout. After comparing H110, 2400, Herco, and getting good results, I tried a pound of LilGun and was favorably impressed with not only it's performance, but in nearly all of my loads, the group sizes were reduced considerably. All the while still being able to shoot to point of aim with a fixed sight revolver. It has allowed me to develop 5 loads that will shoot through each others' holes on paper.

After much range testing with 3 and 5 shot strings, I photographed and logged all my targets and loads and found the LilGun to be the most accurate powder for the heavies. Now that I have found the best charge weight and best group in each boolit style, I am loading in 30rd groups by weight, and will begin backing off to 50yds, 70yds, to see how far I can reliably group on a 6" paper plate with a 4 5/8" barrel.

This is a trail gun, not a long range hunting gun, meant to accompany a rifle or shotgun while hunting. Compact, portable, and hard hitting. I have taken an amazing number of deer with a pistol from my treestand, dang near shooting straight down. It amazes me. I thought I better get a shorter barrel to keep from hitting them with the muzzle!

On the other hand, I also wanted a sufficiently empowered revolver for hunting hog, so developing loads with heavy hardcast wide flat nose boolits was a must.

I think I will stick with H110 for the 340gr WFN boolits, but the 330gr WFN PB, 325gr WFN GC, 320gr WFN GC, will all get seated over LilGun.

I've also gone back to using .060" thick sheets of dental wax for soft gas checks to use with the PB boolits, as it seems to help keep the barrel cleaner between shots and the blue magma lube doesn't always melt enough to perform like a lube should, so the wax seems to help out.

[TXGunNut]

The last time I went powder shopping, the shelves were as bare as Ole Mother Hubbard's cubbard. I have 5# of Goex black power. Does anyone use Goex as their go-to? I saw in one of the above posts, 40 grs for 960 fps.

Not Goex but it would do fine. I like FFFg but some folks use FFg in 45 Colt. My load happens to be 37 grs KIK FFFg but those 5 #'s of GOEX are worth a try. Have fun!