Anyone tried this

[long rider]

I was wondering if any of you guys tried loading
454 round balls in a 45 long colt cartridge case,
well i tried it. I loaded 25 grns of goex pinnacle
black powder, then toped of the case with corn
meal, then seated the 454 round ball, i made 25
rounds and went to the range. I do not have hi
tec equipment like a crono ( i think thats what you
call it ) anyway they shot well in my 58 remmy
conversion cylinder, the bore di is 454 so i thought
give it a spin, so my question is anyone tried this

[berkmberk1]

We must be simpatico............I was thinking about that on the way to work today. I know I read about that in a gun mag like G&A a long time ago. If I remember correctly, it worked ok but wasn't anything special. The weight would be quite a bit lighter so velocity would probably be higher, but I don't know if accuracy would suffer or not.

Did you put any sort of crimp on it? What was accuracy like?

I was also thinking the opposite......a soft lead Keith type bullet, maybe with a hollow base, crammed in a .44 Navy!! Good ballistics, a good gas seal, and a long bearing surface........sounds like it would be better than a minie.....

[long rider]

Yes i did put a crimp on the ball but it was a
very lite crimp As far as accuracy goes not to
bad. If i shoot cap and ball at 25 yds its bang
on, when i shoot 45 cal conversion it shoots
way high, with the price of lead bullets so high,
i have lots of 454 round balls. I might try another
20 or so rounds maybe i will go 20 grns of black.

[sundance44s]

I`ve shot alot of these round ball loads out of my Remmie with conversion cylinder ..they are nice light cheap loads , and accurate to boot , only thing I do different is I put a good tight crimp on the ball , I tried a lighter crimp and have had a few balls creep out from recoil . The only problem with these loads , is the lack of lube , so I still add alittle over the top before I shoot.

[Steve499]

I have tried it, too. I had gone to a lot of trouble making a new front sight for my .45 so the gun would shoot to point of aim with 250 grain bullets. When I shot the round balls they impacted so much lower than the ones the pistol was sighted for that I never really got too far with accuracy testing. They were very pleasant to shoot and seemed to group similarly to the 250s, just lots lower.

[sundance44s]

Thats the only problem with useing conversion cylinders ..the POA will change with the heavyer bullets and the heavyer bullets shoot tighter groups than the lighter ones ..The round balls shoot about as good as it gets ..but you have to sight in for one or the other or use alot of KY. windage in your shooting . I always try and sight my Remmies in with POA somewhere between the two ..There are times I enjoy the conversion cylinders more than cap & ball .

[DrLaw]

Not exactly Black Powder. I made up a couple round ball loads for .45 LC using the Speer manual's reccomendations.

Showed them to a friend who likes big bore guns and who also has cooked up a new cartridge and bullet. He got a laugh out of it.

I told him I had invented a new cartridge, too. Called it the "THUD" . He knew exactly I was being a smartass.

The Doc is out now.

[Pathfinder45]

I've never loaded single balls in .45 Colt but I have loaded up batches with two .454 round balls with soft wax between. The balls weigh about 141 grains each so it's no wonder single balls hit low. Double them up and they will hit higher and print a few inches apart depending on range. I read about this trick many years ago in a book titled, "Modern Handloading", by George c. Nonte. I guess He's long gone from this world but he was a Major, I believe, with a lot of experience. He said it was a very good SD/combat load. Two hits with one shot, maybe so......

[long rider]

OK pathfinder45 let me see if i read this right,
you say you can load two 454 round balls into
a 45 lc case, well how much bp can you get in
the case,? do you use any filler?.
Can you give me some more info on this, i would
be very much intrested thanks.

[Raider2000]

Well I've never personally tried to load 2 RB's into a cartridge case but I have dubble balled my Dragoon a cupple of times using 20gr. FFFG & 2 .457 Ball "trust me there was almost no clearence between the top ball & barrel" & it was quite interesting but I would think that it'd be only effective out to 20-25 yards being that it'd loose quite a bit of velocity & energy prety quick.

[Pathfinder45]

Actually, I used Unique and that was a while back. In the case of BP it would be a matter of putting enough in the case to give, "light", compression under the balls. The last ball is seated just past its center so that the crimp follws its curvature. I never use fillers. I don't believe in, "light", loads for the .45 Colt. In the Old West if you wanted a rabbit gun you might choose a .32-20. But those who bought .45 Colts wanted all the power they could get. Those who bought their revolvers in .44-40 wanted as much power as they could get while being able to use the same ammo in their Winchester. Most of my loads feature 250-255 grain bullets at 950-1050 FPS.

[noelf2]

I've had the same thought for quite some time now. Yesterday I picked up some primers at a gun show, but didn't find any reloading tools. So I made my own (temporary, so don't laugh at me). I made a primer press out of one of those c&b cylinder reloading presses. I fixed a penny on the end of the press with a piece of gray tape between the coin and the end of the press (because the end of the press is concave, the coin flattens it out). I found that Lincoln's head pushes the primer in just right and since the large pistol primers are kind of big, I could press them into the cartridges without them bending or buckling. Then I put 36 grains of Goex fffg in them, thumped them a bit to settle the powder, and put a wax/grease felt wad (of proper dimension) over the powder, plopped on a .451 round ball, took the coin off the press and pressed the balls into the shells until they wouldn't go further (i.e. no air gap). There was only a slight ring of lead scraped off each ball. The 36 grains of bp was perfect to let the ball set into the cartridge with just a slight ridge of brass shell extending beyond center of the ball (the ball doesn't press too far into the cartridge). I loaded 10 rounds this way with no problem, but it was a slow process and I will surely pick up some tools and dies soon. They seem tight and I don't think they'll need a crimp, but I'll find out when I take them to the range. I'm using a 1858 remmie repro with a r&d cylinder.

[long rider]

OK pard, you say you pack 36 grns of 3f that should
pack a wallop, you say you use 451mmmm 451 is to lose in
my 58? i use 454 and some of the guys on this forum use 457,
i would have thought that under 36 grns the balls would creep
forward under that charge?, have you tried them yet, if not
when you do shoot 3 balls then check the others just to see
if they did move forward, oh and dont forget to lube over ball.

[noelf2]

All good advice, thanks. I use a lube from a recipe I've seen on another forum. Works great. Includes bees wax, paraffin wax, and mutton tallow. That is soaked up / saturated in the felt wads I use under the ball, and I plan to put some over the ball but mostly around the edge of the ball where there's a bit of a brass ridge. I would think that a .451 or .454 ball wouldn't make much difference since any excess lead gets shaved off the edge of the ball to fit into the cartridge anyway. They all end up the same diameter, but the bigger ones should end up with a bit more gripping edge. I wouldn't think the balls would move much either, even without a crimp. .451 balls in my c&b cylinders don't creep and I use about the same charge of bp (up to 40 gr, same felt wad, nothing over the ball, and same recoil). I could be waaaay wrong, but I will find out on the range I suppose.

[Raider2000]

Long Rider:
In both of my Pietta 58's I use 35gr. FFFG Goex with my Ox Yoke wads & .457 Ball which does produce a pretty decent thump, maybe a little less recoil than my 1911A1 .45ACP but almost as much punch at the business end & quite a bit more fun too, & none of my balls have creeped forward.

[long rider]

I to sometimes use 35grns of fff, but in a 45lc case
with no crimp? thats what i mean when i say the
round balls will creep forward, i thnking thats what
noelf2 means.

[noelf2]

I guess I don't understand why the ball would creep out of the cartridge when a similar load and recoil wouldn't cause balls to creep out of a cap and ball cylinder. Are the balls more likely to slip in a brass hole versus a steel one? If they do creep, I will probably not want to decrease the powder load, but will need to crimp. Do you recommend a factory crimp die or is there another way? I'm trying to put as little strain on the cases as possible so they last a good long time.

[long rider]

OK lets see if we are on the same track here.
I have 3 58 remmys, and i have conversion cylinders to.
OK lets start with the bp side.
I use 454 balls in all my 58s, if i use 451, which i did try
a long time ago, i load all six with 451 the first shot and
the rest all jump forward, and you can not rotate the
cylinder they move that far forward.
So a 45lc case takes a 452 lead bullit and up, i am sure
that some folks will say ah ah, all my saa in 45 lc take
452 bullit, so what i am saying is a 451 round ball will
not be a tight fit, and not haveing a crimp well say no
more, i have a rcbs 45lc 3-die set wich i use for my
round balls. Dont get me worng i am not telling you what
you should do, just trying to help.

[sundance44s]

I loaded some uncrimped bullets once for my conversion cylinder ..had the creep problem with them ..they didn`t fall out but creep was far enough to lock the cylinder up ..
I loaded some 454 balls and used my Lee neck crimp on them ..with no creep problems .

[noelf2]

Ok, I see where you're coming from now. I've always used .451 with my pietta 1858 for the c&b cylinder and never had any bullet creep. My gun actually came from Cabelas with instructions to use .451 round balls. In fact, when I load .451 into my c&B cylinder, it shaves off a slight ring of lead from each ball, so my cylinder chambers must be a little less than .451 in diameter. When I pushed the balls into a spent Magtech 45lc shell, it shaved off a slight ring of lead from the balls as well. I could not push them in by hand. The balls are Hornady .451. If I do end up with 4 balls rolling out of the cylinder after I take a shot, I think I'll try a .454 or even a .457 before crimping.

[noelf2]

Sundance - does that lee neck crimp come in the 45lc hand reload kit? The one you have to use a mallet with? The whole reload kit is only about 20 bucks online.

[long rider]

Talking along the lines of crimping, lyman sell
poterble hand held 3 in one loading tool for out
in the field, i can not remember the cost but i
am sure its cheper than a die set.

[sundance44s]

Noelf2 the Lee hand loading kit ..won`t do a good crimp period ..at best it`s off center and will affect the shot I use to load with one untill I broke down and bought the Lee Turret loader and some good carbide dies ..sure made a difference in my hand loads ..

[noelf2]

Thanks. I'm looking at the lee hand press kit from Cabelas. It's like a single stage press but doesn't have to be mounted on a bench (would be great for hand load experimentation at the range to really tweak in the best load). Uses all of the regular dies. Thing is, I don't really want to buy a bunch of dies just to experiment with loading round ball in 45lc cartridge (call me cheap) just to find out that accuracy is crap anyway. If I have problems without a crimp, I wonder if just using a factory crimp die in the hand press would work to crimp over the round ball and keep it in there? Also, I'm sure the brass won't last long if I have to keep crimping it.

I guess I'm putting the cart before the horse here. I need to go to the range and see if I even have a problem without crimping them.

[Raider2000]

noelf2:
Where in Stafford are you at?

I'm in Orange co. my self & when I do go shooting I do it over at the Izzak Walton League "mostly Archery but on occasion BP.