45 Colt reloading for winchester 1892

[Youngeyes]

I have a gazillion hornady 230 gr tmj rd nose bullets that I use for my 1911.These are .451. I am buying a winchester 1892 45 cal. Can I use these for reloading for the rifle? I have unique and 700x powders. Anyone with a recipe and suggestions?

Thanks.

PS

A gazillion is just a little more than a s**t load in new math.

[David Sinko]

It's certainly worth a try. The trick is to be able to apply enough crimp that the bullets don't get pushed back into the case during feeding. If you are using traditional .45 Colt dies you will have a seating die with a roll crimp. If you apply too much roll crimp to the hard copper jacketed bullet you might buckle the case. The good news is the .45 Colt has so much space inside that even if the bullets do set back, you still won't run up the pressure to dangerous levels. I once tried loading the .45 Colt with my .45 ACP dies, but I don't recommend it as it's ultimately very hard on the brass.

Dave Sinko

[Badkarma]

DON'T DO IT!!! Reloading round nose bullets in a tube fed rifle is dangerous. It is possible for the bullet head to impact the primer of cartridge in front of it in the tube hard enough to set it off under recoil.

[Youngeyes]

It's certainly worth a try. The trick is to be able to apply enough crimp that the bullets don't get pushed back into the case during feeding. If you are using traditional .45 Colt dies you will have a seating die with a roll crimp. If you apply too much roll crimp to the hard copper jacketed bullet you might buckle the case. The good news is the .45 Colt has so much space inside that even if the bullets do set back, you still won't run up the pressure to dangerous levels. I once tried loading the .45 Colt with my .45 ACP dies, but I don't recommend it as it's ultimately very hard on the brass.

Dave Sinko

Three things;

A. Thanks for the response.

B. What do you think of Bad K's answer about the Boom possibility?

C. Should I load as if I'm loading pistol(starting low load),with normal COL ,and will large pistol primers do the job?

D. OK, 4 things. I can't find any data on a 230 gr bullet.

[calishootr]

you wont find data for ACP type bullets for .45 LC loads because as I recall the 45 LC is .452 and bigger???? usual LC loads utilize the SWC type bullet in the 250 gr range, and yes i'd be leery of a round nose bullet in a tube fed magazine. while it may not ever happen, the KB factor increases with the introduction of the RN bullet....

[David Sinko]

Yeah, I forgot about the tube feed thing. Thanks for pointing that out. My favorite lever actions are the Savage 99 and I don't have to worry about such things. I would not load RN bullets for any tubular magazine rifle. I would stay with the flat point SWC bullets for that rifle. Sizing of .452" should be best. I would be wary of .454" which might not chamber properly.

Dave Sinko

[wide45]

Round nose bullets are commonly used in 30-30. Pointy bullets are not, because they are often used in tubular magazines.

When my former boss found out that I reloaded, he gave me some old brass he had. There was half a box of 30-30's. Untrimmed brass loaded with soft nose spire points. Most of the tips were flattened, with impressed lettering. Frightening!

Of course not all round nose are equal. 30-30 bullets are designed for tubular magazines, doubtful that the idea occurred when the .45 bullets were on the drawing board.

Edited December 11, 2009 by wide45

[G-ManBart]

Kind of an interesting article on the topic:

http://www.chuckhawks.com/loading_45Colt_rifles.htm

[Aircooled6racer]

Hello: Look at cowboy action shooters loads for plinking. I am using 230 and 200 grain Precision moly coated bullet in my 1894 Marlin Cowboy gun.The Precisions are round nose flat point. I am using Hodgden Clays and Tite Group. It is a fun gun to shoot. It is accurate enough for me out to 50 yards and with hardly any recoil. My plan was to shoot "Wild Bunch" with a pump shotgun and a 1911 single stack. I bought bullets for my 45acp and use them in the 45LC. Thanks, Eric

[Youngeyes]

Thanks everyone. Now that I've seen your answers I will use the flat nose (thanks again on all the safety tips). Thanks Gman. Excellent article. I can't wait to shoot the 1892. My first rifle. NO short cuts in reloading. I guess I forgot that in the excitement of getting the new gun. Thanks everyone for putting me back on track.

[David Sinko]

You are right about RN bullets being factory loaded into .30-30. I have a single shot .30-30 (actually the upper barrel of a combo gun) and I shoot all kinds of donated old factory ammo through it and some of the bullet shapes make me wonder if they're suitable for tubular magazines.

Elmer Keith once wrote about a shooter who had extensive experience with the .50 Alaskan. Some of his fingers were blown off when he was using RN bullets in a tubular magazine which set off a primer or two. Keep in mind that the .50 Alaskan generates considerable recoil and recoil certainly plays a huge part in such an incident.

Undersize cast bullets might perform well, depending on your rifling and bullet hardness. My Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun shoots bullets sized .454" for the .45 Colt with surprisingly good accuracy. I have even used the 200 gr. SWC sized .452" with decent close range accuracy and the bullets never tumbled for me.

Dave Sinko

[Youngeyes]

You are right about RN bullets being factory loaded into .30-30. I have a single shot .30-30 (actually the upper barrel of a combo gun) and I shoot all kinds of donated old factory ammo through it and some of the bullet shapes make me wonder if they're suitable for tubular magazines.

Elmer Keith once wrote about a shooter who had extensive experience with the .50 Alaskan. Some of his fingers were blown off when he was using RN bullets in a tubular magazine which set off a primer or two. Keep in mind that the .50 Alaskan generates considerable recoil and recoil certainly plays a huge part in such an incident.

Undersize cast bullets might perform well, depending on your rifling and bullet hardness. My Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun shoots bullets sized .454" for the .45 Colt with surprisingly good accuracy. I have even used the 200 gr. SWC sized .452" with decent close range accuracy and the bullets never tumbled for me.

Dave Sinko

Hi Dave,

Someone (yeah, that famous someone) told me lead bullets over 1000fps will lead out a barrel quickly. Are there fmj .454 or .452 bullets available? Will the harder alloy bullets work OK at higher speed. I'd like to shoot a little higher than some of these anemic cowboy rounds. NO offense to action shooters. I'm SASS myself.

Thanks.

Joe

[David Sinko]

The vast majority of my .45 Colt loading experience has been in a Bowen custom Redhawk. I never owned a .45 Colt rifle but I do a lot of cast bullet work with my .30 rifles and .45-70 Guide Gun. I have shot plain base 405 gr. bullets out of the Guide Gun at 1953 FPS without experiencing any real leading. It works very well and I bagged my last whitetail with this load. I have shot gas checked bullets at over 2400 FPS out of my .30-30 with excellent accuracy. All my .45 Colt cast bullets are plain base, made of water quenched wheelweights. I have shot them to at least 1200 FPS without leading. But back when I was figuring all this out I had a batch of 255 gr. RF that I cast from wheelweights without quenching them. I shot them at only 945 FPS but they were so soft the bore was completely leaded in five shots. After that the bullets would keyhole and hit sideways at 5 feet. So you need to make sure that the bullets are hard, and I find that quenching wheelweights in water is the easiest way to do this. I also attempted to develop a cast bullet load for the M1A for multigun matches but I recently sold this rifle. Surprisingly, this rifle also did very well with cast bullets but I got rid of it primarily because it's a brass eater. So you never know what your rifle will do until you actually try it for yourself. I would not rush out and buy a large quantity of .454" bullets for a .45 Colt rifle; they might not chamber at all. In fact I would just avoid anything .454" in a .45 Colt rifle. The .454" sizing is meant for the old Colt revolvers. They do not chamber in my Redhawk and I tried shooting them out of my Guide Gun just to get rid of them. I was surprised that a .454" bullet would even work at all out of a .458" barrel.

Plated bullets might work but you have to be careful about how you crimp them. I once crimped some plated bullets a little too much in a .38 Super revolver and this caused the case mouth to bite through the plating. The lower half of the plating then separated when the bullet left the barrel and I had two holes on paper for every shot fired. This caused a lot of scoring confusion at the ICORE match when it happened, but the result could've been disastrous if some of that copper had remained in the barrel and caused an obstruction.

Just be careful and use common sense. If strange things happen, stop immediately and check the bore for excessive leading or any barrel obstruction. And always load in small quantities and test first. No point in loading up 500 rounds and finding out that they don't work at all or are even dangerous.

Dave Sinko

[Youngeyes]

The vast majority of my .45 Colt loading experience has been in a Bowen custom Redhawk. I never owned a .45 Colt rifle but I do a lot of cast bullet work with my .30 rifles and .45-70 Guide Gun. I have shot plain base 405 gr. bullets out of the Guide Gun at 1953 FPS without experiencing any real leading. It works very well and I bagged my last whitetail with this load. I have shot gas checked bullets at over 2400 FPS out of my .30-30 with excellent accuracy. All my .45 Colt cast bullets are plain base, made of water quenched wheelweights. I have shot them to at least 1200 FPS without leading. But back when I was figuring all this out I had a batch of 255 gr. RF that I cast from wheelweights without quenching them. I shot them at only 945 FPS but they were so soft the bore was completely leaded in five shots. After that the bullets would keyhole and hit sideways at 5 feet. So you need to make sure that the bullets are hard, and I find that quenching wheelweights in water is the easiest way to do this. I also attempted to develop a cast bullet load for the M1A for multigun matches but I recently sold this rifle. Surprisingly, this rifle also did very well with cast bullets but I got rid of it primarily because it's a brass eater. So you never know what your rifle will do until you actually try it for yourself. I would not rush out and buy a large quantity of .454" bullets for a .45 Colt rifle; they might not chamber at all. In fact I would just avoid anything .454" in a .45 Colt rifle. The .454" sizing is meant for the old Colt revolvers. They do not chamber in my Redhawk and I tried shooting them out of my Guide Gun just to get rid of them. I was surprised that a .454" bullet would even work at all out of a .458" barrel.

Plated bullets might work but you have to be careful about how you crimp them. I once crimped some plated bullets a little too much in a .38 Super revolver and this caused the case mouth to bite through the plating. The lower half of the plating then separated when the bullet left the barrel and I had two holes on paper for every shot fired. This caused a lot of scoring confusion at the ICORE match when it happened, but the result could've been disastrous if some of that copper had remained in the barrel and caused an obstruction.

Just be careful and use common sense. If strange things happen, stop immediately and check the bore for excessive leading or any barrel obstruction. And always load in small quantities and test first. No point in loading up 500 rounds and finding out that they don't work at all or are even dangerous.

Dave Sinko

All good advice. " if strange things happen, stop immediately". That's also good dating advice. I intend to just shoot some 250gr ultramax thru my gun and see what happens. There is absolutely no data on a newer 1892 out there. The company isn't even pretending. I'll follow your other good advice and load up 10 at a time and see what happens. I don't cast my own. Do you have any experience with the hard alloy that's out there? Maybe the lazercast.

Happy Holidays to you and yours, and Ho, Ho, Ho to the community , and thanks to Brian for hosting this forum.

[fltbed]

Things I’ve learned about the 45 Colt over the years.

Over the last 20+ years I’ve owned a S&W, three Blackhawk’s and a Winchester 94 Trapper in 45 Colt.

The first handload I ever tried to make up were using 230 gr. FMJ bullets I had laying around for loading into my 1911’s. The first problem encountered was the sizing die would not size the empty case small enough to grip the .451 diameter FMJ bullet. I overcame this by using my 45 acp sizing die on the top 1/3 of the casing and turning down my expander plug a bit. The finished rounds had that comfortable hour glass look to them. (This worked so good at increasing bullet tension I still use this technique for +P loads). It was all for naught though as I’ve never been able to get any 45 Colt firearm to shoot .451 jacketed bullets into any group smaller than a turkey choked shotgun pattern.

Cast bullets are another story. The H&G #68 200 gr. SWC (.452 dia.) loaded in a double sized casing and taper crimped with a 45 acp taper crimp die are as close to match grade as anything I’ve ever seen. (sadly they would not feed in my Trapper).

For black powder spec loads, Unique is hard to beat. It has great load density and very consistent velocity readings with normally low SD’s. Winchesters 231, WST and Hodgdon’s Titegroup are also very good performers and a bit cleaner burning than the old Unique.

My old 94 Trapper was rated for “Ruger only” +P loads and the old 1892’s were suppose to be even stronger actions. (Rossi chambers their version of the 1892 in 454 Casull!) If you do decide to try some +P loads in it, my advice is to stay away from anything heaver than 270 gr. The gun may be able to take the pounding of 300+ gr. bullets but I was not! My two favorite +P “hunting” loads in the old Trapper were Hornady's excellent 250 gr. XTP loaded with Hodgdon’s recommended start charge of H110. The other was the Hornady 240 gr. XTP mag. Loaded with Hodgdon’s recommended start charge of Lil’Gun. Both were wonderfully accurate out to 150 yards.

Congratulations on your purchase.

Jeff