Revolver 460 S&W

[pipehand]

I haven't done it with .460 or for revolver but when I got my 1894 Marlin long ago and wanted to paper patch, coincidentally, Peterson's Guns magazine ran an article on paper patching for .45 Long Colt and .44 mag in both revolvers and lever guns.

I worked up loads for heavy boolits in my .44 Marlin duplicating the loads from the article and they shot well.

In the article, the author got very good results from revolver as well so obviously it can be done and works which reflects the results of pdawg_shooter and Nobade. .44 mag runs at lower pressure than .460 but it is certainly worth a try even if you can reach top end loads.

I'd try it.

Longbow

Longbow, I think I remember that article. Sometime around 1989 or '90, wasn't it?

[longbow]

More like 1987 or 1988 I think as I was living in Yellowknife NWT at the time. I had the machine shop in the plant I worked at bore me a cylindrical push out mould at 0.421" (cast boolit is 0.421"). I don't actually recall what spec I gave them but that is what I got. Unfortunately they decided to do me a favour and bore a chunk of stainless shafting. From the toughness I suspect it was a duplex stainless.

Regardless, stainless is a poor mould material. After I moved I bought a small lathe and bored my own cylindrical moulds from plain old cold rolled steel 1018/1020 which work fine.

The mould I had made was for my 1894 Marlin in .44 mag. I had them make a TC nose for it and paper patched up to 0.432". While well under bore size it worked quite well except my goal was heavy .44 boolits of around 300 grs. Problem was that I have the 1:38" twist microgroove barrel and it would not stabilize the heavy boolits.

Anyway, I worked up to 21 grs. H110 under a 300 gr. boolit before primers tarted to flatten noticeably. I had good accuracy to about 50 yards and it deteriorated from there. Lighter boolits shot well. I stick to about 270 gr. max weight now in that gun.

So I was running to "J" bullet pressures... or at least powder charge though pressures might have been slightly less with PP boolits. Not to .460 S&W pressures but pretty high. No cylinder gap in a Marlin though so one less hurdle for me.

I try not to paper patch or use gas checks if I don't have to. I am lazy! I figure that paper patching is about the same amount of work that making and installing gas checks and sizing/lubing is though... and maybe even less work overall. So if I have to do one I am leaning to paper patching.

I don't think the pressure of a .460 S&W will be a problem though especially with long/heavy boolits. The cylinder gap may present a bit of a problem but I suspect that sharp edges and misalignment of cylinder to forcing cone will be bigger issues if they exist. Just my thoughts.

I am actually a little amazed at the relatively recent BIG advances in handgun performance. Many of the newer cartridges are meeting or even exceeding old BP rifle performance. Let's face it .45-70 factory rounds are loaded to BP equivalent pressures for old BP guns and the 330 gr. Gould was a favourite game getter and here we are with handguns shooting boolits of 400, 500 and even 700 grs. at velocities that put some rifles to shame.

Longbow

[161]

Here's what's been going on with my new BFR 45-70.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...0096-Bfr-45-70