Introducing my bride to a CAS match in a few weeks. Not wanting to spring for a new set of pistols for her just yet, I figured to load very lightly my 45 Ruger Blackhawks, using 160 grain bullets. Consulted the Hodgdon manual and came up with 7.0 grains of Trail Boss - my usual powder for the 200 and 250s that I shoot.
New brass, weighed every load, used a single stage press - shouldn't have had any issues. I did use two kinds of primers for these practice loads - Federal and Wolf.
Surprise!! On the third shot, the cylinder jammed. Had to pull the latch pin and remove the cylinder, and all five shells - three shot and two not - fell out of the cylinder easily. So, wasn't a bullet stuck in the barrel (which would have been an embarassing reloading mistake), and it wasn't some sort of excessive pressure that caused the cartridge case to expand.
I repeated this a few times and got the same results. Noticed the primers and the whole rear face of the cylinder looked a bit "sooty". Primer indentation looked a bit overdone, and I'm wondering if the primers are backing out of the pocket just enough to keep the cylinder from turning. Will have to examine them more closely.
The load is too light and not forcing the case back against the breech face, giving the primer room to back out. IMO a heavier bullet is likely to yeild better results at the level you are looking for.
Never had the jam up problem. But I noticed in .357 that Trail Boss doesn't do well with light bullets. Really bad SD and ES numbers over the range I tested with 125g bullets. While fine for popping big steel targets, not so good for target shooting. Works much better with heavier bullets it seems like.... All my testing in .45 Colt was with 250 RNFP and 255 SWC BTW. No data on 200g bullets or lighter.... Anyway just my feeling ...
If you want to use a load hat light go to 45 schofield cases they will chamber fine in 45 colt cases and have a smaller case capacity and would be okay with 160 grian bullets. You cna get them from some manufacturers with 180 grain loads.
You could actually be getting too much pressure from an overly light load (detonation). Many of the old reloading manuals have a warning and recommend filling the case with an inert filler on top of very light loads.
I recently loaded some .45 Colt loads with a 190 grain bullet designed for the .45 ACP over 3.0 Red Dot. Like shooting a .22, and they all went in the same hole.
Not too light of a charge as Ranydl suggested and getting TOO much pressure. Not gonna happen with TB or any other fast burners. MIght stick a boolit in the barrel, but not a pressure problem...
Trail Boss is a high volume powder, made up of lots of little donuts. So even a light load does pretty well in filling up the case. It's quite true that slow burning powders with too much space in the case used to confound reloaders and powder/bullet manufacturers because they'd (infrequently) blow up. I remember that was still an unknown cause in the mid-60s. After that, "they" came up with the warning to not go below the minimum loads with slow burning powders.
Anyway, back to the 45 Colt. Since I only have 50 bullets left of the 160 grain variety, I'll quit experimenting and go with my usual 200 grain load, which is already pretty light. I wanted to minimize the recoil by going with the lighter bullet at a slow speed, but the 200 grainer at a moderate speed will do just fine.
I certainly did learn something about minimum pressures in this exercise. Never too old to back off, study the situation, and go the other way.
Now let me tell you about the time I got confused between H-4831 and IMR 4831.......
I can suggest the use of .45 Cowboy Special brass for light loads in the .45 Colt. They would also have the advantage of instant recognition of "light loads" upon seeing them.
Since they have the case capacity of the .45 ACP they'll work much better with light loads.
When I let my wife shoot my Colts, the load I have for her is 6.4 grains of HP-38 behind a 250 grain bullet. Recoil is light and is a very accurate load. If I use lighter bullets, they start shooting a little low.
Good suggestions. However, I'd rather not buy new brass or new bullets since I can just as easily have her use the 200 grainers I have now. Tried to optimize the low recoil thing by going to the 160s, but I'll abandon that approach for the moment.
If she decides she want to shoot this competition more often, then we'll see about some 38s or 32s and go from there. Probably wont' be 45s though.
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