73 45 Colt

[bigted]

I have a Winchester Miroku 73 in 45 Colt. It wears a very short 16 inch barrel and round barrel. Nice n short as well as being light and swings easy.

My normal load in this has been between 35 and 40 grains of 3F Old E powder. Bullet is accurates 454260 big groove bullet. This carry's plenty of lube and shoots very clean.

Recently loaded some "hunters" for my 5 inch Redhawk pushing Lee's 255 grain bullet at around 1050 FPS loaded with IMR 4227. This load is spot on accurate in my Redhawk but now wonder how it would do in my 73.

Pretty "crisp" load in the Redhawk with its 5.5 inch barrel so wondering how the 73 toggles would handle it. My reasoning is that Winchester chambers this exact rifle in 357 mag so is it as fragile as most say it is?

Would love to see how accurate this rifle is with these loads. Seems like it should be a great hunting load.

[Maven]

Why not use that same BP load in your Redhawk, bigted? At the very least it eliminate confusing smokeless with BP loads + accuracy should be good out of that revolver to boot. Btw, I tried BP loads with Keith CB's in my Ruger SBH (10.5" bbl., open sights) and was extremely pleased with its performance (same accuracy as with smokeless powder).

[bigted]

Maven, I will try this. Black Powder should work in my Redhawk if I use the accurate 454260 powdercoated AND lubed. More news inna bit.

[Maven]

bt, I should have added to the above, that it helps to swab the bore after cylinder full of BP loads. Otherwise, it works just like smokeless. Good luck with this and let me know how you do.

[bigted]

Srry for the length of time Maven. I did load n shoot my same bp loads in the Redhawk. Not good for me anyway. The redhawk has little nooks n crannies in the crane and spindle the cylinder rides on. These places get packed with fouling and are just a bear to clean after. Accurate enough but my gosh what a cleaning nightmare. The S&W crane dissasembles way easier to be able to reach its nooks n crannys. My SAA's clean up very easy in this instance.

On the other hand, the Redhawk's inner trigger workings are made for bp cleaning ... or so it would seem.

[smkummer]

Older Lyman data showed 20 grains of 4227 with 454190 in a colt SAA. That’s been reduced now days. If it were myself, I would try something like that first and see if it meets your goals. A 250/255 grain 45 bullet going out at 1150/1200 fps is going to kill anything in N. Amer. with a good shot.

[bigted]

Agreed my friend. And that 250/255 in a 45 colt pumped through a snazzy lever gun is easy recoil, generally as accurate as I am able to shoot as well as being lightweight and at 16 inch barrel , very maneuverable and swings like a champ.

The other thing you touched on is being a HUNTER not a sniper. Hunting requires fieldcraft woodsmanship and just plainly being an old fashion hunter.

Thanks for your reply and have a great day my friend.