Why Would A Reloader Trim His SASS .45 Colt Brass to Various Short Lengths?

[Liberty1776]

My local gun shop cleared out a guy's garage and found a supply of reloaded.45 Colt ammo.

I wanted the .45 Colt brass, so he sold me the lot with the caveat I'd pull the bullets and start over.

I bought about a hundred rounds of reloaded .45 Colt and about 150 rounds of spent brass. I could tell by the empties that some had fired black powder. All green inside.

The former owner probably participated in Cowboy Action shooting. I figured none of the cartridges were loaded to max. Misc lead slugs -- round nose, flat nose and SWC, mostly.

I sorted the reloaded stuff by their cast bullet shape, figuring they were possibly loaded at the same sitting, then disassembled a representative cartridge and examined and weighed the powder and bullet.

Inside some cartridges was an unidentified smokeless powder, but in reasonable weights. Certainly not an overcharge. Some had powder with a buffer in the mix that looked like cereal or maltomeal or whatever, obviously added to bulk up the light charge's volume for reliable ignition. None had Trail Boss.

Other cartridges had black powder or BP substitute in them.

I took a few rounds to the range and carefully pulled the trigger. All the test rounds fired gently and the black powder spit brimstone. Nice. Did not measure velocity with the chrono. But they all felt like SASS-level charges. No hangfires.

Here's the weird part.

Some of the cases have been trimmed to strange lengths. I figured he was going for Schofield-sized brass, but none are really right.

Here are the lengths as measured:


The first six are nominally the right length for .45 Colt.

Then they start getting short -- but not short enough to be considered Schofield length.

Then at the end, they are really short.

I figure I can make the short rounds work in my revolvers with light SASS loads, but to function smoothly, the .45 Colt 1873 Winchester needs a round that's at least 1.450" long, and, ideally, 1.6" OAL so it doesn't hang up in the carrier. The longer brass will work, but not the shorter ones.

My question is, Why do you think a fella would cut his .45 brass to so many oddball lengths?

[cwtebay]

I'm assuming it's 45 Colt Cowboy Action Special?
Shorter brass, approximately 45 ACP length.

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[Liberty1776]

I'm assuming it's 45 Colt Cowboy Action Special?
Shorter brass, approximately 45 ACP length.

Ah, yes. The famous .45 CCAS. But that's essentially what the Schofield is -- a .45 Colt Special.

Perhaps he was tired of putting the buffering agent in the giant cases with those tiny charges. Who knows?

Hodgdon calls for 4.0 grains of Trail Boss or Clays pushing a 200-grain slug to a whopping 680-730 fps. Sounds about right for SASS.

I was simply wondering if there was some kind of reason not to make all the shells the same size. Now I have a collection of ".45 Colt" brass that's really strange, and will be need adjusting for each shell to seat and crimp.

Maybe I should just trim them all to a uniform length and load for revolver.

[downzero]

A 200 grain slug at 700 fps is over twice the power factor needed for Cowboy Action Shooting. The minimum power factor is 60 and the minimum velocity is 400 fps, which would be a power factor of 80 with a 200 grain bullet. So if you're wondering why he wasn't shooting 4 grains of Clays, that is why.

[cwtebay]

Ah, yes. The famous .45 CCAS. But that's essentially what the Schofield is -- a .45 Colt Special.

Perhaps he was tired of putting the buffering agent in the giant cases with those tiny charges. Who knows?

Hodgdon calls for 4.0 grains of Trail Boss or Clays pushing a 200-grain slug to a whopping 680-730 fps. Sounds about right for SASS.

I was simply wondering if there was some kind of reason not to make all the shells the same size. Now I have a collection of ".45 Colt" brass that's really strange, and will be need adjusting for each shell to seat and crimp.

Maybe I should just trim them all to a uniform length and load for revolver.

I believe that I would trim to uniform length and have fun with some light plinkers!!!

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[Liberty1776]

A 200 grain slug at 700 fps is over twice the power factor needed for Cowboy Action Shooting. The minimum power factor is 60 and the minimum velocity is 400 fps, which would be a power factor of 80 with a 200 grain bullet. So if you're wondering why he wasn't shooting 4 grains of Clays, that is why.

I'm just looking at the Hodgdon data for Schofield. They don't list a lighter than 200 grain bullet. And its minimum is 4.0 grains.

Interestingly, .45 ACP with a 200 grain bullet calls for 3.5 grains of Trail Boss at 652 fps. That might work for these short cases.

For CAS, I run 3.0 grains of Trail Boss in .38 SPL pushing a 125 grain lead round nose flat point to 753 fps; and for the wife, 2.4 grains of Trail Boss pushing a 100 grain RNFP in .32 H&R Mag. Very mild.

[Sasquatch-1]

Could it possibly be that the person was extremely thrifty(cheap) and was trimming split mouth cases for reuse. I have thought about this for .44 but have never done it.

[Harter66]

The split mouths is the highest probability .
With the high variations I'd just set a trimmer at 1.11 and buy a Lee set of 45 S&W or a spare seater and make them all long/ish 45 S&W .

I've been trying to get the guys cranky about the Hornady FTX Colts brass to turn loose of it for this for years . No takers yet .....

[Liberty1776]

The split mouths is the highest probability .
With the high variations I'd just set a trimmer at 1.11 and buy a Lee set of 45 S&W or a spare seater and make them all long/ish 45 S&W .

I've been trying to get the guys cranky about the Hornady FTX Colts brass to turn loose of it for this for years . No takers yet .....

I think you and Sasquatch-1 have hit it. Split case reuse.

I toss split .38 SPL cases into the scrap brass bucket. But .45 Colt brass is rarer and getting expensive. I bought some at a gunshow for $30/hundred a few years back. (It was custom-headstamped "TOMBSTONE" though, and unique, brand new Starline.)

Two days ago (June, 2021) I bought some fired .44 Mag shells for 45 cents each. And fired 500 S&W Mag was 60 cents. (It's 85 cents each for new Starline at Midway.)

In fact, once-fired brass of any kind is hard to come by these days.

Trimming the split off is a reasonable idea, especially when shorter .45 Colt is an okay process.

I'll proceed accordingly.

Now I need to pull out the ol' Forster trimmer and see if I can chuck Colt brass up and have the appropriate pilot.

Thanks for the idea.

[dverna]

Or he buggered up setting up the case trimmer.

Seems stupid to have varying case lengths on purpose as they will not crimp properly. Must have been one lazy SOB IMO. Nothing wrong with using shorter cases...just make them consistent.

[Mk42gunner]

As others have said, shorter case lengths don't necessarily cause problems, but weirdly varying ones will.

The variations would make me nervous about firing any of them, no matter how many I pulled down to check. I really don't like firing unknown reloads, by an unknown loader.

If you want to use the brass, my suggestion is to trim it all to a short consistent case length; then treat it all as one lot for cowboy level loads. After cleaning it, the "green inside" ones definitely need a bath.

Robert

[Liberty1776]

If you want to use the brass, my suggestion is to trim it all to a short consistent case length; then treat it all as one lot for cowboy level loads. After cleaning it, the "green inside" ones definitely need a bath.

Robert

Hardest part is finding a Forster pilot to fit! Nobody had them.

I wet tumbled them all in warm water with Dawn, Lemi Shine and stainless steel media, and the brass is like shiny new now.

Next up, trim and work up a low-pressure load.

[Sasquatch-1]

I do know a guy who use to cut down .38 spl. brass to make it work better with speed loaders. I know this won't work with a gate loader but might be another reason.

[downzero]

I'm just looking at the Hodgdon data for Schofield. They don't list a lighter than 200 grain bullet. And its minimum is 4.0 grains.

Interestingly, .45 ACP with a 200 grain bullet calls for 3.5 grains of Trail Boss at 652 fps. That might work for these short cases.

For CAS, I run 3.0 grains of Trail Boss in .38 SPL pushing a 125 grain lead round nose flat point to 753 fps; and for the wife, 2.4 grains of Trail Boss pushing a 100 grain RNFP in .32 H&R Mag. Very mild.

My .38 load is 2.7 grains of Clays with a 105 or 125 grain bullet (probably the same LRNFP you're using). Recoil is certainly not holding me back.

[ebb]

The adjustment ring on his Lyman trimmer slipped just like mine did. I drilled and tapped to a larger size set screw but if you push hard it will still occasionally move

[Cowhide]

Back in March 2018 I had a stroke. Apparently for almost a month before the stroke I was being affected by it. Though the doctors never did answer me on if there is a pre stroke period or not. I do know that Of the brass that I trimmed 3 weeks before the stroke were off and the brass trimmed 1 week before the stroke were ruined. Luckily for me the 44 Mag brass that I trimmed less then 24 hours before the stroke were so short I could tell at a glance when I walked back into my reloading room in 2019, so I knew right away something was wrong with that brass. I was only trimming brass during that pre stroke time so I did not have to pull any loads. I just had to send 600 ct of miss trimmed 44 Mag brass to the recycler. As well as several boxes of Nosler 7mm-08 Rem brass that I had messed up trying to size with the RCBS sizing die set up incorrectly. RCBS replaced the two FL sizing dies that I broke during that period at no charge.
The only time in my life that I felt afraid in my reloading room was in January 2019 when I realized to what extent my thinking had to have been off for me to not know that I was doing things incorrectly those three weeks. I started re loading in 1991 .

[MostlyLeverGuns]

My old Forster Trimmer could slip the setting and trim cases shorter than intended. It had a 'friction' lock that would move on occasion, I went to the L E Wilson and/or Lee to stop this. Using the Forster, I was checking length every ten cases. Trimming splits or not watching the case trimmer settings probable cause.

[upnorthwis]

When fireforming 8mm Lebel in to .41 Swiss, would sometimes get a split neck. Rather than throw it away, would trim down past split and use it for warming the barrel before shooting for score. Got some of them so short I only use them with my longer bullets.

[ebb]

MLG I have never had anything cut as well as the Lee for consistency.

[Walks]

MLG I have never had anything cut as well as the Lee for consistency.

I've never had the Lee work for beans. My ancient RCBS and Lyman Power Trimmer work great. Never had either "slip". In fact in 60yrs I've never had a Trimmer "slip". But then I crank down pretty hard.