The wonder of 45 colt

A round that is best paired with a pistol and a rifle.

While I’m finishing loading up my 45 Colt loads for my Henry BBX and Smith and Wesson 1854, I thought I would make a few loads for my Freedom Arms Model 83.

The Freedom Arms 83 was ordered by the previous owner as a 454 Casull, with a 45 colt cylinder. I shoot it primarily as a 45 Colt. I often use the loads I’ve developed for my rifles in this revolver.

Freedom Arms model 83 is one of the few revolvers strong enough to handle the higher pressures the modern 45 Colt loadings are capable of.

To give you an idea of the size of the revolver, here it is next to a Sig P226 SAO of mine.

All that for a five-shot cylinder.

Freedom Arms Model 83’s are unrivaled master pieces. Here is mine with its 454 Casull cylinder.

Here is today’s setup

One Freedom Arms Model 83 in 45 colt. Eagle eye’d readers will notice that the revolver now sports a brass bead front sight of a different height. I swapped out the front sight a few years back to better fit the 45 Colt’s ballistics. Freedom Arms was a pleasure to deal with.

The targets, chronograph, drink, and range.

It’s 32 feet from the table to the paper targets and the swinging plates. I can do as far as 75 yards, but trust me; I’m not that good with this revolver… Yet.

So, what did I load for it today?

Well, I decided to dig through my boxes of leftover cartridges and load them up for chronograph readings and target practice. Today, all of the cartridges use Hodgdon’s Copper Fouling Eraser-Pistol (CFEP) powder.

First up, Matt’s bullets 240 grain Hollow Base WadCutter, (HBWC.) All that means is the front is as wide as the back and flat. The rear has a cavity in it like a hollow point. That cavity expands when the round is fired, helping seat the bullet in the lands and grooves.

As you might guess, these rounds are not terribly aerodynamic. In fact, at fifty yards with a rifle, I’ve still not been able to get them, or the 38spl version of them, to group under three inches.

240-grain HBWC, seated and crimped at 1.285 using 8.0 Hodgon’s CFEP. Keep in mind this is a load developed for a rifle, used in a handgun designed for the 454 Casull. If you replicate this load, you do so at your own risk.

The results at 32 feet.

Wadcutters make some very clean holes. It's not a bad group, considering my past inaccuracy with wadcutters. My first shot was off to the right. Once I settled in, things tightened up.

The chronograph readings.

That’s a thumper. Most of my loads are meant to be shot suppressed in a rifle; as such, I like to see them around 1070 fps. 1112 fps is well past the speed of sound here.

The second load, a 245-grain Semi-WadCutter Gas Checked (SWC-GC.) I loaded 40 of these little gems. I shot twenty today through the revolver. The other twenty I’ll use when testing my rifles.

Matt’s bullets .452 245 grain SWC-GC, 8.0 grains of CFEP seated 1.627. Keep in mind this is a load developed for a rifle, used in a handgun designed for the 454 Casull. If you replicate this load, you do so at your own risk.

How was my five-shot group? Not too bad, not bad at all.

SWCs can cut very clean holes in your targets. Matt’s bullets always have clean, sharp 90-degree shoulders on his wadcutters and semi-wadcutters.

What about those chronograph numbers?

How is this possible? This bullet weighs only five grains more and has the same powder charge as a check.

That is more like it. The round is subsonic, pleasant to shoot, and accurate. The discrepancy in velocity could be due to several factors.

• First, the wadcutters were seated in the case fully, thus higher pressure.

• Second, the wadcutter's hollow base created a better seal through the barrel, which could improve velocity.

• Third, the gas check on the 245-grain SWC does impart more resistance than a straight lead bullet.

The third load of the day.

Matt’s, are you sensing a theme yet? Matt’s 260-grain SWC, 8.2 grains of CFEP, seated at 1.646. Check out that wide-front Meplat. Keep in mind this is a load developed for a rifle, used in a handgun designed for the 454 Casull. If you replicate this load, you do so at your own risk.

So, a little spoiler: this grouped beautifully.

Four touching, and the one shot that I whiffed. Not too shabby.

What do the chronograph numbers tell us?

That’s a great velocity for a lead bullet and an excellent standard deviation; all in all, I think this is a winner-load for this revolver. I hope it works as well in a rifle.

Load number four: in the past, this was my Henry BBX’s favorite 45 Colt load.

Cast Performance 265 grain Round Nose Flat Point Gas Checked (RNFP-GC) over 8.2 grains of CFEP, seated at 1.595. Keep in mind this is a load developed for a rifle, used in a handgun designed for the 454 Casull. If you replicate this load, you do so at your own risk.

Did I mention it was 38 degrees outside and quite windy? I was quite chilled by this point in my shooting, shooting with leather work gloves, but I managed a respectable group. If I had time to practice more with this revolver, I could narrow these groups even further. It’s been more than a year since I’ve shot for group size with a revolver or pistol.

One of the many reasons I love the 45 Colt is the wide Meplat. It makes these wonderful clean holes.

So, how is this bullet with its gas check in the velocity department?

Only four shots were recorded, but that’s not bad, either. In the rifle, I generally load 0.1 or 0.2 grains more. That brings this round closer to that 1070fps when fired out of a rifle.

The final rounds I loaded for this pistol today; the two others are loads developed for my rifles.

Matt’s 305-grain SWC-GC, 8.2 grains CFEP, seated at 1.60. These are some beefy boys. Keep in mind this is a load developed for a rifle, used in a handgun designed for the 454 Casull. If you replicate this load, you do so at your own risk.

And boy-howdy did my cold hands notice the difference in recoil!

The first three shots went high, and the final two, well, I think I did alright. The recoil was a third more than the previous 265-grain cast performance loads.

So, the numbers?

This illustrates that the mass of the bullet has a great deal to do with the amount of felt recoil. Outside of that, this is about a perfect non-supersonic load for 305-grain bullets as one could want.

So what now? Well, I’ve a bunch of plinkers I’ve accumulated over the last few months of loading. Most of these are mixed head stamp brass and could be loaded with any number of things like: Hornady 185 grain XTPs to Blue Bullets 320 grain RNFPs. All of these are loaded for that 1070 fps out of my two rifles.

First up, Matt’s 260grain SWC again. This a ten-shot group.

Not my best, but it isn’t terrible either. I’d been outside over an hour at this point, and yeah, I was freakin cold.

What does the chrono say about a rifle load shot through a pistol?

Not a heck of a lot, but look at that SD. That’s a great number across ten rounds.

A whopping 28.5 fps faster with the rifle’s load than with the dedicated revolver load. Honestly, I’d be fine using this through the revolver all the time, provided I could thaw out and get some real groups with it.

The next bullet I have is the round both of my rifles prefer, even more so than the Cast Performance 265-grain SWC-GC. This is Matt’s 285-grain Truncated Cone Gas Checked (TCGC) 8.3 grains of CFEP, seated at 1.67. Keep in mind this is a load developed for a rifle, used in a handgun designed for the 454 Casull. If you replicate this load, you do so at your own risk.

Again, not my best.

I was cold, numb, sore, and saved by the mail lady. She arrived to deliver my order of Dewey cleaning gear for my Henrys and Smith lever actions.

The chronograph numbers. The 285-grain TCGC is a far more aero-dynamic round than most of the others. I expected better accuracy, but as I said, at this point, I was a popsicle.

The SD in this isn’t too bad, considering it was all mixed head stamp brass. I separate my headstamps. The plinking brass of mixed brands goes into a bin, and the Starline brass goes into a bucket of its own. Yes, the difference can be several inches at 100 yards.

After half an hour of thawing and looking through what I received in the mail: bullets, sizing dies, swaging press, swaging dies, cleaning rods, and guides, I headed back outside.

The back orders came in. I can now proceed with loading 350 legend and polishing the bore of the Smith and Wesson 1854.

Back outside, I thought I’d shoot up the rest of my plinkers. My excuse for being cold is gone; here’s the best of my groups.

First five of Blue Bullets 320-grain RNFP plonkers. Not bad at all; being warm and the ability to feel your fingers should not be underrated.

The second set of five Blue Bullets 320-grain plonkers.

Need I tell you more about how I love the 45 Colt and its nearly endless possibilities?

These are the balance of the 260-grain SWCs I loaded today, and yes, that’s 10.

My last 5 of the Cast Performance 265-grain RNFP. That’s a nice little grouping. I’ll end the session with that.

So, what conclusions can I draw from today’s shooting session? Well, I don’t think I need to download the cartridge loadings for this revolver. All of my plinkers in these last photos were Rifle loads. They performed admirably.

Maybe one day, I’ll bust out the IMR-4227 or the H-110 and see if I can push these puppies up to 1350-1400 fps. For now, though, these speeds are pleasant enough to shoot that I’ll gladly go outside in 38-degree windy weather to put some rounds down range.

The rifle session is coming soon.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the read.

~Evan.