Hello all,
I have an Uberti Colt .45 with a 5 1/2" barrel. I reload some of my .45 rounds with black powder just for nostalgia, to get the feel of the old west or history or something. What did the originals in the old west have in them? Was the grain size more like modern FFg or FFFG? Just curious. Or since about all I do is plink mostly (although I plan on hunting with it )does it even matter?
Thanks,
Freebooter

Belive the granulation was FFg...but even today's limited selction fo powders shows a lot of variation in perfomance between the brands of FFG. Besides, you won't have balloon head cases at hand to get the original weight of powder in a case...the 35-36gr. of FFFG you can get in most modern cases would get you closer to original ballistics (and if the pressure is a tad higher, you've got a modern gun that should handle it with ease).

Accuracy would be more important. To find that, may have to fiddlea around with powders and charge wieghts, as well as bullet alloy (usually softer) and bullet lubes (the ones specific to BP would be best).

Ditto ribbonstone. I can assure you modern smokeless lubes do NOT work with BP loads at all and I think may make things worse than no lube at all. I'm not sure the alloy needs to be real soft more so than does having the right size bullet. Older 45 LC guns were made with .454" bores while newer ones are made with the .452" bores common to other 45's like the ACP< GAP & so forth. If you'll note, a majority of the commercial bullets, cast and jacketed are sized at .4515" and to be quite honest, these don't perform well in either my LC or my ACP. For most shooting use as in the ACP with ranges of 20yds or less it does not seem to matter but when you put up a paper at 50, things get ugly.

I cast my own and have a few molds for the 45's and they all differ. Apples to apples, I used the 230 gr RN to compare ACP to LC with smokeless loads. As-cast with strait WW they drop out of the mold at .452" +/- .001 I worked the mold to give me as-cast of .455 with the same +/- .001" variation. Sized and lubed to .452" both did better than any commercial produced bullets but not by much. Next test was with them sized to .453" and the difference was like night and day. Both the ACP & LC love these and print the best groups I have ever obtained with any 230gr bullet.

The bridge gets longer when changing the LC to 255gr SWC, I happen to have a Lee mold. As-cast on these came in at .453" +/- .001" so this mold got lapped out to give me a base line dia. of .455" as well. Again sized to .453" my Ruger loves these with smokeless. I have tried 12 rounds loaded with 2F BP but failed to take into account consistent compression and the use of a drop tube (the more I read, the more I learn). Despite only being compressed slightly (enough to ensure no air space between bullet & powder) they grouped as well as the smokeless at 50 yds but with a considerably lower POI. Next step is to try using the drop tube and maintaining consistent compression from round to round with both 2F & 3F to see what happens. As I said, biggest problem was with lube. I've been using plain Crisco on concicals in my flint ML and I plan on trying it with the cast bullets in the 45 as well. Thinking of adding a wax paper wad OP to help prevent the Crisco from contaminating the powder over long term storage.

Think what we are trying to say is that to make good BP ammo, you can't just plug in the same bullets and lube you've been using with smokeless reloads on top of a BP charge and expect great results. Know that's what most people do when they try BP for the first time, and almost all of them are dissapointed by the results.

Thanks y'all. I am not an expert by any means, in shooting or reloading. I just like to have fun, plinking, snake hunting, etc., with my pistol, and really have not tried for any pinpoint accuracy. I just have one of those "Lee Loader" kits for a .45. I usually buy a box of factory ammo and after I shoot them I reload with bp just because it is cheaper and I am scared of modern smokeless powder. I have heard that a few grains too much will blow your gun up. BP is a little more forgiving. Although I do think it is neat to shoot what they did in the old west. I wonder when they went to smokeless powder back then, the 1880s/90s?
Take care,
Freebooter

Thanks y'all. I am not an expert by any means, in shooting or reloading. I just like to have fun, plinking, snake hunting, etc., with my pistol, and really have not tried for any pinpoint accuracy. I just have one of those "Lee Loader" kits for a .45. I usually buy a box of factory ammo and after I shoot them I reload with bp just because it is cheaper and I am scared of modern smokeless powder. I have heard that a few grains too much will blow your gun up. BP is a little more forgiving. Although I do think it is neat to shoot what they did in the old west. I wonder when they went to smokeless powder back then, the 1880s/90s?
Take care,
Freebooter

Those little Lee kits can make good ammo...no reason you can't make BP loads with it. Not a real big fan of beating on a loaded BP round, so once the bullet is seated take a little care with the crimping part of that Lee Loader.

You'de be safe enough with smokeless using the scopp and chart that comes in a Lee Loader. Take care to scoop the same way eacy time. Will tend to fill a small paper bowel or spray can's plastic top...something deep sided but not to large in diameter. Push the scoop straight doen into the powder until the oipening is covered, then pull it straight out and strike it level with the edge of a bussiness card (or any other thin straight edge). Only compression force is gravity, and it's not going to vary...dragging the scoope though the powder can work fine, but you have to take care to do it the same way each time. The gravity fill will give you a slightly lighter charge, but it's a consistant charge...on a scale, it seldom varies as much as 2/10ths while the drag through can vary twice that.

Right about BP, it won;t notice a 4/10ths change in powder charge....but you'd be safe with smokeless following the Lee directions.

I've used bullets with smokeless lube with black powder in .45 Colt and have experienced the poor results. However, I tried adding a Wonder Wad between the bullet and powder and noticed a big improvement. Using a black powder lube may be even better, but since I very rarely shoot BP cartridges, I don't keep any on hand. The Wonder Wads work well enough and a bag of them will last a few years for me!

Even though I've been loading ammunition for over thirty years, getting involved with BP cartridges was a whole new learning curve. Perhaps the most daunting aspect was the rather big step into bullet casting. My old small melter which worked fine for muzzleloading round balls, proved inadequate for the 400 to 500 grain drops now required, so I purchased a 20 lb melter. Another piece of new equipment was the lubricator sizer and sizing dies. For black powder you need to lube with SPG or Lyman's Black Gold.

For many years I used and loved my RCBS Rockchucker. I never dreamed that I would remove it from the bench, but I did, replacing it with the Lyman Mag II turret press. I have found that I need six dies in the BP loading process and having removable turrets, all set up and adjusted is very handy. Just for reference, the six dies are; FL re-sizer, Neck sizer, Neck expander, Compression plug, Bullet seating , and Taper crimp. The first three dies are familiar to those who reload handgun cartridges. After the case has been primed ( I like to use a hand tool) and neck expanded, I drop the charge of black powder into the case using a Lyman BP measure with a 24 inch drop tube. I then place a .030 fiber wad over the powder and then go back to the turret press and place the cartridge under the Compression die. Most black powders need to be compressed slightly, even up to .3 inches in a 45-70. Here we have a volume situation where the amount of powder dropped and the depth of compression creates a cavity in the case exactly equal to the seating depth of the bullet. Ideally you want to seat the bullet as gently as possible into the case to avoid defromation of the base or nose. Finally, the taper crimp removes the flare left over from the neck expander die and insures easy chambering of your cartridge. The taper crimp is highly desired over the roll crimp feature in your seating die as it does not deform the bullet. Actually, in a BP cartridge you do not need the roll crimp because the case is full under the bullet and there is no chance for the bullet to be pushed further into the case by recoil or spring tension in the magazine,

I like to use GOEX cartridge grade black powder. It has been further refined to remove the dust and fines. FFF or FF can also be used in the 45 long colt. I cast bullets using 30-1 lead-tin alloy. 20-1 is also popular but harder alloys don't work well with black powder. Wheel weights should probably be avoided as the alloys and hardness varys widely.

While apologizing for this long posting, I certainly do not want to discourage anyone from becoming involved in BPC loading. The learning curve has been a lot of fun and once you began to load cartridges with "real powder" you will never go back to smokeless.

freebooter,

All of my black powder shooting in the .45 Colt to date has been in my Marlin Cowboy rifle. I have used both 2F and 3F with good results but to match the velocity of original U.M.C. b.p. cartridges, I found that 3F is required.

8iowa,
I have found that as long as the bullet diameter matches the groove diameter +.001" harder alloys will shoot very well with b.p. If the bullet is smaller than the groove diameter, the softer lead, lead /tin bullets work better. The bonus in shooting bullets made from wheel weights or 50/50 lead / linotype, etc. is that one does not need a compression die since the bullet is strong enough to compress the powder without distortion.

John