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Posted: 5/20/2008 1:49:35 PM EDT
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alright I haven't even gone to the store to get a reloading book for the .45 acp was going to make a order for some supplies. price per shot is over .30 at wal-mart so I think it is time to do this on my own! I have all the brass...large mix of commercial stuff picked up from the range and stuff shot by me as well. curious as to where you can find the cheapest bullets (lead is fine, but would like plated as well) also, experiences with different powders (care to share?) primers to use? and lastly, I was looking at the bullets, what is it .451 or .452? again, these are pre-liminary questions before I have received my reloading book on handgun loads. thanks for the info. |
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Cheapest bullets, you'll have to surf around and look at prices, and find one close enough to home to save shipping and the price is something you be happy with. Power - depends on what you want to do, WST WSF, 231/HP-38, red dot, buleseye, green dot, Clays, Titegroup, #2, #5, lots of applicable powders Primers, large pistol, whatever you can get your hands on at a fair price. Size - .452 for plated & lead |
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I usually shoot 200 grain semi wadcutters from www.mastercast.net/cast_bullets.htm or www.keadbullets.com/ Powder - 7.5 grains of AA#5. Primers - Winchester large pistol. |
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Cheapest bullets you make yourself with bullet molds, a lead pot and freebies from your local tire store. (lead wheel weights) I make .452 diameter 250gr. round nose flat point bullets and 255gr Semi wadcutters, coat them in lee liquid alox and load them with 4 gr of winchester 231 for 45acp. I originally bought the mold for 45LC and cowboy action shooting. They work great, accurate as hell and there's little or no lead build up in my 1911. |
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Personally I like Bullseye, Power Pistol, and AA #5 for 45ACP depending on what I'm wanting to do. I have lots of Fed 150 primers so that's what I use, but any large pistol primer is fine to start with. Bullets, I think I'm going to stick with Montana Gold from now on - they're priced right and super consistent/accurate. On brass, about all I've found is that I don't like R-P brass. It's a hair thinner than others I've found, and it makes it hard to get enough tension on the bullet to avoid any setback. To figure your COL, make some dummy loads starting at the max of 1.275 and work your way down until you find the longest that'll chamber everytime reliably in YOUR gun. That's a good way to get a very accurate round for your gun, since the bullet will be very close to the rifling. I like to taper crimp to .470 45ACP is easy to load, plenty of volume in the cartridge and tons of powders that work well. Just pick a published starting load that looks good to you and get going 
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| Good info. I just "rolled my own" first batch of .45acp. I had some Rainier plated 185gr hollow tip rounds and Winchester 231 powder with cci large pistol primers. The Lyman book said 4.4gr to I think 5.8. I figured I would be conservative, especially the first time, and go with the minimum. However, I looked at the wrong chart and the whole batch has 4.0gr instead of 4.4. Hope my ammo will cycle my guns and hope I did not double charge any... |
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My favorite powders for .45 are H. Universal and AA#5. For light 200 LSWC target loads I like green dot. The faster powders like bullseye are ok for light loads, but medium speed powders work better for 230 grain projectiles. Missouri bullet co seems to have the best prices on the web, with shipping you may do better locally though. |
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Got some .45 loaded today and test them out! First batch was 5.0 HP38 pushing 200 grain hornady lead bullets. LWC I believe... then I tried up to 5.5 grains of the HP38 but found I like about 5.3 the best. Seems to shoot pretty well and the reason i backed it down was due to more lead fouling in the barrel. the 5.0 was actually pretty soft shooting, so I wanted a touch more power behind it. next batch when I get home in 3 days will be behind 230 hornady JHP. I am figuring out the powder right now, but probably start around 5.0 or a touch less and work it up from there. I forgot what I have written down at home 
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+1 on the Missouri Bullets. |
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My 2 cents. .452 bullets are usually lead .451 bullets are usually jacketed. I suggest starting with 230gr round nose before graduating to SWC bullets in 45acp. Some 45s have a problem feeding SWCs and I think starting with the fewest potential problems is a good thing. You can start with lead bullets but I think you'll have fewer questions if you start with jacketed. There are a lot of powders that will work in 45acp, W231, unique, tightgroup, 700x, powerpistol, bullseye... probably a half dozen more. I use W231, Unique and tightgroup. For 45acp I use Winchester large pistol primers, CCI 300 Standard Large Pistol Primers and Federal 150 Standard Large Pistol Primer. I've never used remington large pistol primers but they will probably work just fine in 45acp. Don't buy magnum primers for 45acp. |
I have found that 5g of Bullseye lit with a CCI 300 primer works well with 230g cast lead or Berry's plated bullets. I stopped using plated bullets when the prices went up and am using cast lead ONLY for target work and 185g Hornady XTP over 10g of Hodgden hs-6 is smokin downrange at 1100 fps for self defense.
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I mostly shoot 200 gr cast SWC's, loaded in mixed mil brass.  I seat the bullets and taper crimp in a separate step. OAL 1.25. I use what ever LP primer that I find for a good price. I have used the Remington LP primers, they shoot great. |
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I have been messing around with my loads and tried a couple different bullets so far. I came up with 5.2 grains of HP-38 pushing a hornady 230 HP and really like the results. I will try to do some shooting tests and remember my camera and do a write up on it. The other one is the Hornday 200 grain combat target all lead bullets. 5.3 grains of HP-38 really shoot well and I like the accuracy a lot. I tried a little lighter and heavier loads and the excess kick wasn't worth it, and if I went to 5.0 I found it was a little light kicking for my liking. that whole range cycled very well. I'll get some pics and good results up soon. |
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