Powder for 45LC

[suspenders_slim]

Hi, been doing research for 2 months now and alot of reading, new to all this. Just when I think I have chosen a powder, read so mething different. here is what I have, a new heritage arms 5.5 barrel-45LC roughrider and a new rossi stainless lever 45COlt.
My lee molds are 200 grain swc and 200 grain RNFP.
I found shooting around 950 fps works well in both guns as far as accuracy. I was told to stick with molding the RNFP so I wont have any trouble feeding in my rifle. Okay, got this far. I was in a shop last week and they had a can of Alliant American select, no way to look it up so I bought it, doesnt seem to have alot of reloading info.

Withuout all the technicals, can anyone make this simple, I want a powder to use for both firearms, somewhere around 950 fps, I dont care what bullet I mold, probably the rnfp-200gr. Can anyone suggest One powder, been at this way to long. Thank you.

[BWM]

Accurate # 9 # 7 IMR 4227

[zxcvbob]

American Select was a good choice (even if you made it by default) It resembles Green Dot but burns a lot cleaner. Let me find you some load data...

http://www.castpics.net/LoadData/Fre.../Alliant01.pdf

Also check out Unique and Herco.

[buck460XVR]

Hornady has recipes for a 200 gr lead and American Select in .45 Colt.




5.2 min to 8.1 max. They show 6.6 for 950FPS. OAL of 1.595" I suggest you verify this with another source.

[Strafer Gott]

Unique, if you really want to keep it simple. AA5 works well. Mold a 250 gr RNFP bullet if you want to really experience the .45 Colt. I load them mild to wild Ruger only loads. It's just a fun cartridge, with versatility to spare.

[Wallyl]

I have tried both bullets in my Ruger .45 Colt BHK...with Bullseye, Red Dot, Promo, W-231, HP-38, & Unque. I never got consistency in terms of accuracy or average velocity, with numerous combinations. I don't have a carbine in the .45 Colt caliber.

I have tried Lyman 454190, 452424, and Lee's 252 SWC and 255 RNF...all shoot well for me with very good accuracy no matter what powder I use. Many swear by the RCBS 270 SWC... It would seem that a heavier bullt just works better in this caliber.

As my Ruger BHK has a .45 ACP cylinder..when I wish to shoot lighter bullets, I use it.

I wish you luck finding an acceptable load with a 200 grain bullet in the .45 Colt.

[suspenders_slim]

This is great!! BUTm Im glad this came up because this now brings another question...lets say i will use Hornadys recipe for the American Select, what do you do in the case of not being long enough to start. A good for instance is the factory hornady cases are short to begin with. So what do you do in case length. I hope Im making sense. You guys wouldnt believe how many hours I have on this. I just bought this Rossi, it immediatley went to a gunsmith for some heavier metal parts and reworked. he told me to keep my shells overall length at 1.51 to 1.56 and I will never have a problem.bear with me guys, and thank you, Im a stickler for doing research and doing it right, dont want to harm my new guns.LOL.
I dont think this has any bearing, but what I am going to be using is the Lee 45 hand loading kit, one at a time(On a social security budget, all I can do)

[Mike / Tx]

I will toss out some info for what it is worth, You want to keep it simple, you might want to get another of the Lee 452-255RF molds and just use those instead of the lighter weight bullet. This will give you TONS of data and will have numerous powders to choose from.

All I have is a Redhawk to shoot mine through, but like mentioned it just don't seem to hit a bad load with weights from 240grs up to 300. I did shoot some commercial cast bullets in the 200gr range but they were loaded a bit out of your range. Those were from Oregon Trail IIRC, and were loaded pretty snappy over some Unique.

If you can find a copy of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, it has listings for 8 different powders with the Lee 200gr RF molded bullet.

[suspenders_slim]

I have to agree with you Mike-Tx, but first i bought the 200 swc, then when the gunsmith told me i should use round, I went and bought the 200 grain rnfp, so I now own 2 brand new casts, but I agree, I should have went bigger, now Im sorry and stuck with what I have.

I shot slot of 255 from winshester, aguila, ect, then I shot some 185 from hornady, Im surprising myself how well I can lay those 185's in there out of both firearms, thats why I chose the 200 grain, I know, it was probably pretty stupid thinking.

[DaleA]

I know, it was probably pretty stupid thinking.

I know if that's the worst mistake I made this week I be a very happy guy.

You can get the heavier mold later and in the mean time cheer yourself up a little by thinking that you're getting more bullets out of your lead using the lighter molds.

Once you get it dialed in you might find you LIKE the lighter bullets for plinking.

Can't help you much with a recipe for the .45 Colt but most of my target shooting friends pretty much settled on 200 grain swc in .45 acp over a little bit of Bullseye as their standard target load.

[WESHOOT2]

Check "Cowboy" data sources.

Can recommend Universal, Power Pistol, N350, HS6. All four can be tested with regular and Magnum primers.
All burn clean and meter/measure easily.

[johnjohn]

I use Unique or Red Dot.

[rclark]

I use Green Dot, Unique-Universal-20/28, True Blue, 4227, w-231, Trail Boss, Power Pistol, HS-6, 777 and I think some others that I can't think of right now. The favorite at this time is Green Dot for my every day loads. All these under 250g and heavier bullets. Never have/or will go lighter.

[suspenders_slim]

Thank you ro everyone, you have all been a reat help. i called around my area yesterday, and green dot powder is available, pickens are slim.

I have an order for 500 lead cast bullets on order(6 weeks now), for 200 grain rnfp. Since I have not recieved them yet, I am going to try and change my order to 250's. I think I will keep my new mold of 200 gr rnfp for plinking and see if I can sell the 200 gr, swc.

[Darto]

I have been shooting 45LC for years. The Rossi 92 (if your's is a 92) is the strongest lever gun every made.
Eventually you will want to load up some bombs for that thing, more than any .44 mag will do (really, no kidding). Instead of the cast lead bullets Paco has there you can just use the Hornady 300 MAG FTX.



http://www.leverguns.com/articles/pa...ltlevergun.htm

For these you need 2400, 296, H110, Reloader 7,4227, according to Paco!

--------------------

For more sane rounds in pistol I use Herco, Red Dot for years.
But many times I heard Unique is about the best powder for that.
------------


On to 200 grain, like you have...




source Hornady book:

200 lead 5.2....646 fps
5.9................726
6.6................812
7.4................912
8.1................998 (MAX!)

[suspenders_slim]

Now thats what I want to hear. i had bought a rossi last year, circut judge and the stock broke twice, had enough of that. So that is what I bought is the rossi 92 stainless, it went straight to a gunsmith to have a few parts replaced right off the bat.Thats what the gunsmith said, he said he gets less Rossis back to work on then any other lever gun, he swears by them. So far I love it. Im shooting the Hornady 185 ftx, somewhere around 930fps, and those are really accurate. i was wondering about different loads and just how strong the gun is.Thanks for the input.

[rclark]

green dot powder is available...

Rule of thumb for Green Dot is to load 1 grain less than you would using Unique. For example, If 8.0g of Unique, load 7.0g of Green Dot. About a 900fps load under 250g RNFP. This is my go to load at this time. 7.5g of Green Dot will put in the 950fps range out of 5 1/2" barrel.

[suspenders_slim]

I have heard the red dot does not meter well at all, how does the green dot meter? Thanks. Our local store is getting 35 dollars a pound, ouch.

[rclark]

Red Dot, Green Dot, and Blue Dot look actually the same but for the dot color. I have never had any problem metering them. I suppose it will depend on what powder measure you are using. I use an old verison of the Hornady powder measure. That powder price is out of line. Should be around $20.

[44 AMP]

I have been using Unique, and only Unique in the .45 Colt for over 30 years. For the load level I want, there may be something better, but I've never bothered to look.

I shoot 250gr bullets almost exclusively. My "pet" load is 10gr and it clocks just under 1100fps from my 7.5" Blackhawk. This also happens to be the max load listed in the old manuals for a Colt SAA.

[smee78]

+1 for Unique, it what I use for my 45C reloads.

[suspenders_slim]

I would go with unique and call it a day, but it cant be found in a huge radius of northern PA.

[Rico567]

I use Universal exclusively in .45 LC and .40 S&W. There are many other suitable powders listed in this thread, but Universal is in the same power range and therefore as versatile as Unique, but burns cleaner. I only shoot lead 255 gr. bullets, so I don't know personally how it would perform with a 200 gr. bullet. But in the online Hodgdon Data Manual, it looks like Universal is going to get into that 900 - 1000 fps range.

[dodge]

I use 10 grs of Unique for my day to day loads in my 5.5" Blackhawk but if I want some of the Ruger only loads I use H110 with 250 gr. swc. These powders will handle anything that I plan to shoot with the old girl. With the Ruger loads I use the Hornady 250 gr HP.

[buck460XVR]

Originally posted by Darto:

Instead of the cast lead bullets Paco has there you can just use the Hornady 300 MAG FTX.

While I know Hornady makes a 300gr FTX in .50 cal, unless it is brand new, I don't think they make one for .45 cal. They do make a 300 gr XTP-MAG in .45 cal tho, I use 'em all the time in my X-Frame.