 |
 |
45 Long Colt
A MEGA?MAGNUM SOMETIMES....
by Paco
Everybody has done such a good job at writing their thoughts and experiences with the 45 Long Colt round...that it’s hard to write about it without duplication. So I thought I would go at it from a different perspective....
Elmer Keith was born in 1899. He was interested in guns of all types for his nearly 85 years...But one little known fact about him, because he is considered Mr.44...was that the 45 long Colt was his choice of caliber's in the 1920s. In fact he states in much of his writing even after going to the heavy loaded 44 Special...that in factory loadings the 45 long Colt couldn't be beat. He carried the caliber in single actions of the day which were not exactly strong...most being black powder burners from the late 1800s and of unknown age.
He blew the cylinder and loading gate on a Colt one July 4th in the late 1920s while celebrating by firing his Colt out a window of a friend's home on a Montana ranch. It was loaded with 35 grains of black powder and an almost 300 grain bullet...the old Gould mold with one base ring cut off. He states the old gun just couldn't handle heavy loading anymore. If you are wondering how powerful black powder loads are in the 45 SAs..read Jim Taylor's article on them. All according to barrel length with black powder, the loads can generate from 350 lbs. to over 500 lbs. of muzzle energy.
In 1928/9 Elmer switched to the 44 Special because there is more steel in the chambers. And the fact that the 44 Special in single actions were chambered in relatively new guns with modern steel. But for the 7 or 8 years Keith used the 45, he killed a lot of game...and some of it mighty large....
Keith tells the story of the iron mountain goat, back in the 1920s, it happened because of the factory 45 ammo's bullet shape...it being almost pointed...he had to shoot the goat 18 times over a several mile chase. Keith absolutely puts the blame on the bullet shape. Which should tell us something about hunting bullets. Certainly they should be flat-faced as much as possible. Keith's development of the Keith shaped bullet by Lyman (Ideal) came from his first try at a heavyweight, flat faced Belding & Mull bullet shape he designed. That bullet was too flat in the nose and wouldn't give good long range accuracy. With this Lyman-Keith shape he no longer had trouble bringing down game.
Over the nearly 70 years that this design has been available it has been copied extensively by many..but none have really improved on the original. And it is still a contender and a good one, for hunting bullets...I have tried scores and scores of different shaped bullets, some from molds I have made myself, but I always come back to the Keith shape. The only exception is a 340 grain SSK bullet I use when ponderous muzzle energy is needed. It's for Tyrannosaurus Rex, Wooly mammoth, and Bradley Armored Vehicles.
Bullet shape and construction is everything...though I have tried just about every bullet on the market for the 45s...jacket soft nose, soft flat nose, hollow pointed flat nose, soft hollow pointed round nose...you get the point. I feel the heavy Keith shaped cast bullet can't be beat....I use a one in fifteen alloy, with slugs pushed to 1200 fps or so. I go to one in twelve for 1300 fps or above.
I set my pot on the highest heat it will go to...put a cover over it made of several folds of tinfoil...I like frosty bullets they hold on to lube well...I drop the bullets into a bucket of water right from the mold...when they sizzle I know they are being tempered. That reduces fouling almost completely. I wait 24 hours or more before sizing and to lube, so the hardening process will complete itself. These bullets will expand...even though they are tempered. For bullets I'm going to use on game I use 1 in 15 or 16 tin to lead...the tempering keeps the fouling down, and I don't shoot that many thru the gun anyway...
I practice with harder bullets...in my book on leveraction rifles I explain PACO's RULE... it's simple but it gives the hunter a symbiotic relationship with his gun and load. Every time I change a gun or a load...I fire one round for every yard of distance I think I might shoot game at. And I do this out in the open where I can shoot at various ranges out to the furthest distance. If it is 150 yards then I shot a minimum of 150 rounds in practice. I try to do this in the area I will later hunt in...you get to know your bullet drop over various ranges. And your ability to judge range increases dramatically. Your ability to hit small objects takes a jump to better accuracy.
Just a word about lead...for practice rounds scrap lead is fine...as long as it is not modern wheel weights...the companies that produce wheel weights have dropped tin, and replaced it with elements that make forming perfect bullets extremely difficult. For hunting rounds I buy a 25 lb. bag of MAGNUM shot, it has to be magnum because of the higher antimony content in the shot. I can usually get a bag on sale, when the dealer is stuck with shot sizes that don't sell. In my 20 lb. pot I drop about a lb. and ½ of 95% tin plumbers wipe...the whole pot costs around a dollar a pound and about 3 cents a bullet for 250/270 grain bullets. Accuracy is a whole lot of things, but bullet material...hardness..and perfect casting is also in the equation.
I like 18/2400 under a 260 grain Keith cast bullets, in my Colt clones, for hunting deer and black bear sized game...My Colts and colt-clones show good accuracy with this load. This load is used just in my new and strong guns because it is at the top pressure for Colt type SAs. With 23 grains of 296 the pressure is much lower for the same velocity...approx. 1200 fps.....I carried the 2400 load in a 45 long Colt clone for years, almost exclusively. It brought down a lot of game...in those years deer meat was a staple of the Kelly family diet..it also stopped a bank robbery I stumbled into. It killed the get-away-car's carburetor, and other stuff on the top of the engine after going thru the hood like butter.
When I realized a robbery was in progress I slipped the sixth round into the empty chamber..and went to work. I never felt under-gunned or worried about slow reloading problems...I knew I wouldn't have to reload. Besides surprise, I had ample power on my side. It only took three shots..two for the car, and the first shot to teach the three involved that the robbery really was over and their anti-social behavior was un-appreciated.
As a hunting round, especially for folks that for one reason or another can't take recoil, the 45 long Colt is superb. You just can't put a near half inch hole thru a game animal without stopping it or slowing it way down for the second shot. Now saying this I once shot a Javelina at about 20 yards in the middle of the brown as our English brothers say. No more than 18 lbs., she ran a good 30 yards before I could hit her again. The first shot went thru her completely, but behind the lungs..it punched in and out...so we do have to do our part with placement. That little animal would have run with a 44 mag in the same place.
The 45 Keith mold that I have is a very old one with the original Keith style, 4 cavity, and drops 260 grain bullets in alloy 1 in 15. I have Keith molds in all caliber's as near to the original Keith design as possible. At one time I would size these big 45s down and load them in 45 ACP cases...for a real close range man stopper. We had to change the angle shape of the entry ramp on the barrel, but after that functioning was excellent. And accuracy was what one would expect from a custom 1911 auto. Velocity wasn't very high, but it didn't have to be out to 20 feet or so. Accuracy is always more important...in any nasty social situation.
In 1970 or so, I purchased a Colt 45 long clone when Uberti first brought them out on the market...I was on my way home to our wilderness farmstead...and spied a very large vulture on a limb of a tree about 40 or so yards off the old dirt road. I took careful aim not knowing where the bullet would really go...at the shot he spread his wings and fell off the branch to the ground in some bushes...I thought I nailed him but suddenly he was back up on the branch again...so I took even a better hold and squeeze...and off the branch to the ground he went again. I went over to the little clearing behind the bushes where he went down...Imagine my surprise to find two dead vultures and a half eaten rabbit.
When the first one fell it must have scared the other up to the same branch. That was factory Remington ammo if I remember, the gun shop owner had given me a handful to take with the new gun...in case I ran into something...I remember him telling me it was dead on with factory ammo. Because he had one just like mine and all he used was factory ammo. He was certainly right.
I carried that 45 SA until 1976 when I sold it to a friend...we were moving to Tucson AZ and we needed a little more cash then we had....After we were in Tucson for a while, around 1979 I bought another 45 Colt clone SA. By this time Uberti had greatly upgraded their guns. I paid the unheard of price of $87.50, friends were appalled that one of those foreign Italian guns cost so much. I carried that gun for ten years..when in 1989 a load meant for the 454 was slipped into the gun by an unsuspecting individual...that didn't know the red painted base of the 45 cartridge meant keep out of any but the Freedom Arms SA. I fired the beast...and boy did it come apart...except for a numb thumb and trigger finger I was fine. But the top strap of the gun split in half in the middle...the heat cooked off the two rounds on each side of the fired chamber, so all three chambers were now only half there.
Please select one of the small photos for a larger view
| |
|
A friend welded a flat top in place of the top strap of 1/4 inch steel, we got a hold of another cylinder and the gun shot into 2 inches at 25 yards....18/2400/260K-cast. Everything else in the gun was unhurt...it shot fine for years after that.
Please select the small photo for a larger view
Paco's rebuilt "blowup"
Today I have a three screw Ruger SA in 45 Colt. It started life as a 357, but I got a hold of a 45 barrel and cylinder and presto a 45. Of course the Ruger will easily take a good deal more pressure...than the Colts and their clones. And Jim Taylor's article on the Ruger 45 is must reading. I want to stick to standard pressure loads for the smaller framed SAs.
One of my favorite loads is a 460 caliber ball of pure lead, squeeze down into the case over two or three grains of Bullseye..231..#2..what ever fast powder you use. Inside twenty five yards or so they are dangerous to what they hit. They do around 600 to 700 fps and they are around 150 grains...giving about 160 ft lbs. of muzzle energy..deadly at close range. I use old cases that have lost their usefulness with heavy loads. I trim them back about 3/8ths of an inch..with some guns I have to size the balls down to around 454...others will take them as they are. Accuracy is minute of squirrel...and very low noise.
When in Africa I shot and killed a zebra with a factory load. My grandfather had told us kids that he had killed a horse in 1928 that was stomping it's rider..right in front of his house in upstate N.Y. With one well placed shot. So having a 45 long Colt, and some factory ammo I decided to try it. That was the easy part. The hard part...you just don't get that close to a zebra trying to stalk him.
Our pro hunter..which were called white hunters in those days..and our camp guide came up with the idea of me plastering myself into the side of a small mud wall at one edge of a water hole. 10,000 years of animal everything was in that mud...boy was I young in those days...
Anyway along came three zebras...a male in between two females...the females protect the males...at across the small pond distance I shot him right in the high center chest. We were both surprised...me because of how quickly he fell down and died. I suddenly realized the power of large caliber bullets from handguns...and it was love from there on....
In our shooting world today we are getting bigger, and bigger cartridges... with more, and more, killing power. And there is nothing wrong with that...the new developments are great. But I think we have to remember that 90% of our handgun shooting...even at game, doesn’t need to give us 1500 to 2000 lbs. of muzzle energy. A 260 grain cast Keith bullet at 1200 fps gives over 800 lbs. of muzzle punch. Very few in the way of game animals can with stand that.
For Pressure Data for the .45 Long Colt, Click HERE
Click on the part you have not yet read for the Continuing story....
Part I Part II Part IV Part V Part VI
Drop Paco A Letter