Powder thats bulky but "faster than W296/H110?

[Dale53]

4759 was created as a bulky powder for original black powder rifle loads. It is VERY good for this purpose. However, the grains are very large and do not measure well. It will also bridge in a powder measure. You can minimize the bridging by filing the drop tube of your powder measure to an oval shape (Redding powder measure). It works especially well in cartridges varying from the 32/40 to the 45/70 in size.

I have never tried it in the .45 Colt.

Trailboss was especially developed to provide bulk in light loads for the .45 Colt and similar cartridges. It does this better than any other powder. The only downside I have heard, is it is expensive. I have NO personal experience with this as I have been completely happy with the old standards in the .45 Colt. For "standard" velocities and slightly heavier you can not beat Unique.

My "go to" load in the .45 Colt is 8.5 grs of Unique behind a 250 gr Keith bullet.

Dale53

[rickster]

IMR PB is a good powder if you want a little more bulk. Burn rate is in the Unique ballpark. Measures as well as H110, etc. Hodgdon.com lists loads for the 45 Colt.

[Bucks Owin]

Have used PB in .44 mag, worked well for reduced loads, very clean. 4756 too...FWIW

[felix]

PB is much closer to GreenDot than it is to Unique in most applications. ... felix

[Changeling]

Looks like I'll be sticking with 2400 and 296!

[Bucks Owin]

Looks like I'll be sticking with 2400 and 296!

PVELOCITY AND PRESSURE COMPARISONS SHOWING THE SUPERIORITY OF H-110 AND W 296 OVER OTHER COMMONLY USED POWDERS IN THE .45 COLT. 7" TEST BBL.

BULLET POWDER GRAINS VELOCITY CUP
260 GR. LEAD SWC H-110 27 1459 FPS 30,600
260 GR. LEAD SWC H-4227 26 1377 FPS 30,600
260 GR. LEAD SWC # 2400 20.5 1294 FPS 29,800
260 GR. LEAD SWC HS-6 16 1259 FPS 30,800
260 GR. LEAD SWC UNIQUE 12 1199 FPS 30,000
310 GR LEAD SWC H-l10 23 1330 FPS 30,000
310 GR LEAD SWC H-4227 23 1176 FPS 29,400
310 GR LEAD SWC # 2400 19 1172 FPS 29,400
310 GR LEAD SWC HS-6 14 1119 FPS 30,400
310 GR LEAD SWC UNIQUE 11 998 FPS 29,200 Personally, I'd skip the 2400 (Unique too!) and stick with the W296/H-110 as recommended by John Linebaugh.... (Although I've had good accuracy with HS-6, it's no better if as good as W296 in that regard FWIW)

[Ronb]

I have become a big fan of AA9 for my less than full power revolver loads. I use it in the 480 and 357 with heavy cast boolits. They shoot to the same poa as my full h110 loads with no leading, pb bollits and great accuracy. A big plus is that it's cheap! Just above the recommended starting loads seems to be the sweet spot.

[44man]

AA9 is good.
As far as I am concerned, any 4227 should be taken out of load info for the .44. I am afraid to use it in the .45.
The powder works fine in many calibers and is the best for the .357 max but it does strange things in the .44. It is very accurate from a cold gun but hot weather or enough shooting to heat the gun will have pressures and velocity increasing ten fold or more.
I will not take the chance with the weaker .45 cylinders.
Why it does this in just certain calibers is something I can't explain but it will never go in my .44 or .45.
I can't say what the velocity change is but using the load of 23.5 gr of either H4227 or IMR 4227 and a 240 gr bullet for IHMSA at the 200 meter rams had the first shot hit center ram and by the time I reached the last ram, my sight was 16 clicks higher and I still hit way over 50 meters short. Since each click was 3" at 200 meters, that means a drop of 48" PLUS the distance it took to hit 50 meters short, add 24" to 36" more.
That amounts to a huge increase in velocity so the bullet was out of the bore before barrel rise. PRIMERS GOT DEAD FLAT.
I reduced to 21 gr and it was the same thing, dead flat primers with a hot gun.
But consider the gun also did the same at every range from 50 to 200 meters and the score for 40 targets would be as low as 10 or 12. There were a bunch that used 25 gr of 4227 and the cussing and anger from them could ruin a shoot.
If going through a shoot and having to look at your gun to see if the barrel bent or something broke doesn't teach a guy something, there is no hope for you.
I will never, ever understand why a few guys love 4227 in the .44 and .45.

[Changeling]

If that is your experience with 4227 ( I have never used it) you're just saying it has a serious sensitivity problem to heat, scary! Those who use it should really beware of developing loads in cold weather then using those loads when temperatures rise like in the summer.
296 is my favorite with 2400 second but not a real close second. I only used 296 in the 44 Mag (and 2400) for that matter. However I was warned early on by my deceased gunsmith to keep to the top loads and not to decrease loads to under what any reloading books said. A while back I was asking a lot of questions about crimping dies, 296 was the reason. It wants a really good crimp and hot primer to start combustion correctly. I am not sure of just how 2400 reacts to heat and lower loads (was to be a question) but I treat it the same as 296/H110.

This is why you see my question, I'm used to loading rifles on the warm side where you can still get into trouble if you don't know what you are doing but not as fast as dealing with revolvers. Anyway I wanted a bulky powder for reduced loads in the 45 and 44Mag as well but especially the 45 LC.
It just seems so dumb to me that there isn't really a powder for reduced loading in the 45 case that can take up 60% or more of the case instead of ones that will only take up 30 to 40 % of a case if that. I hope you understand.




The above is what my gunsmith taught me.

[Changeling]

N110 is a bulky 2400, and is single base. N120 is 4 grains slower, and is a bulky 4227. One of those two will fill that Colt case well, but at an expense. Best to have a match quality gun that can appreciate the expense. Both are less bulky than 4759. ... felix

Well there in we have another scenario, I'm doing everything I can short of re barreling to make things great for cast bullets, I believe it is going to come out Great/OK/not bad. I've bought about everything that will be necessary (I can think of). Last order from "Midsouth" is on backorder till mid February. I have powder but not nearly enough, therefore the investigation/post, those days of just saying give me a couple of pounds of this powder or that or long gone it seems.
Those N powders are a little pricey be it pistol/rifle. So, I am going to stick in the 296/H110, 2400, Unique area and figure these things out. After all it's the revolver that is the final judge.

Who knows maybe one of the manufacturers will make another mistake and create another shotgun powder that is great for cast bullets, I won't hold my breath though, LOL.

[44man]

If that is your experience with 4227 ( I have never used it) you're just saying it has a serious sensitivity problem to heat, scary! Those who use it should really beware of developing loads in cold weather then using those loads when temperatures rise like in the summer.
296 is my favorite with 2400 second but not a real close second. I only used 296 in the 44 Mag (and 2400) for that matter. However I was warned early on by my deceased gunsmith to keep to the top loads and not to decrease loads to under what any reloading books said. A while back I was asking a lot of questions about crimping dies, 296 was the reason. It wants a really good crimp and hot primer to start combustion correctly. I am not sure of just how 2400 reacts to heat and lower loads (was to be a question) but I treat it the same as 296/H110.

This is why you see my question, I'm used to loading rifles on the warm side where you can still get into trouble if you don't know what you are doing but not as fast as dealing with revolvers. Anyway I wanted a bulky powder for reduced loads in the 45 and 44Mag as well but especially the 45 LC.
It just seems so dumb to me that there isn't really a powder for reduced loading in the 45 case that can take up 60% or more of the case instead of ones that will only take up 30 to 40 % of a case if that. I hope you understand.




The above is what my gunsmith taught me.

The secret to 296 is good case tension---period. You do not need a super tight crimp, only enough to hold all boolits in.
You want primer heat without primer pressure. I use Fed 150's in my .44 and .45. WLP would be as strong as I go.
2400 is pretty stable and can be downloaded some. You do not need mag primers with it either.

[Bucks Owin]

Who knows maybe one of the manufacturers will make another mistake and create another shotgun powder that is great for cast bullets, I won't hold my breath though, LOL.

No need amigo, Try 19 grs of SR 4759. That'll fill the .45 Colt case to the base of most 250-260 gr bullets, eg 454191 or Lee 252 gr SWC, and drives them to 1025 fps with no pressure concerns and uniform ballistics. This powder is the "sleeper" of the pistol slow burners IMO, don't know why others don't give it a try in their big sixgun cases more often, I never hear of it if they do. It's tubular and bulky, looks kinda like 4895 with a hole through it, and may be troublesome in a progressive loader for those trying for a "rounds per hour" speed record, but that's not my agenda anyway. I load one round at a time and enjoy myself doing it. SR 4759 gives very uniform ballistics. 20 grs 4759/225 GC RCBS/WLP @ 1323 was the the most accurate long range load I ever tried in my 10" .44 mag Flattop and seems likely to do well in my .45 LC testing too. I like W296 for full tilt .45 Ruger loads, but for 850-1000+ fps SR 4759 is working fine so far in the big .45 Colt case. More to come.... Just two centavos....

[Bucks Owin]

The secret to 296 is good case tension---period. You do not need a super tight crimp, only enough to hold all boolits in.
You want primer heat without primer pressure. I use Fed 150's in my .44 and .45. WLP would be as strong as I go.
2400 is pretty stable and can be downloaded some. You do not need mag primers with it either.

Exactly my findings too. When I quit fooling with some old Lee .454" dies and got a recent RCBS size die, my W296 loads improved. And FWIW, going to a CCI 350 instead of a WLP with 296 jumped velocity (pressure) 100 fps! This was in 90 degree heat last summer, maybe that matters?...

[44man]

I love 4759 and use a lot of it but never tried it in the .45 because the powder gets hard to find around here. We have only one gun shop and they won't stock it.
The Problem with mag primers in the .44 is the tendency to push boolits out of the case from it's pressure. It was a lot worse with older dies. Different boolit movement actually changes case capacity from shot to shot and ruins accuracy. All of the tests I have done show groups three times larger on the average. Then the increase in velocity means more powder is ignited in the chamber instead of extending the burn down the bore farther, this can damage a softer boolit in the forcing cone. If you are shooting a short 4" barrel with 296, etc, you might want the mag primer.
I don't have a .41 but wonder about the smaller case with mag primers and guess the problem can be worse.
Now the larger case of the .45 seems to run fine with WLP primers. When I go to a full mag primer groups open with it too. Right now it is a toss up between a Fed 150 and the WLP for me and I need to experiment more.
All of you know of my experiments with the .454, 296 and SR primers. The powder will not ignite until the load is max or a little over, no starting loads allowed or bullets will stick in the bore. Strange that the little primer has enough force to push a bullet so far into the rifling without lighting the powder.
Going to cut down .460 brass shows even a Fed 150 will ignite any load but the case is large enough that a Fed 155 improves accuracy. Accuracy is MUCH better then with a SR primer. I also need the 155 in the .475 and 45-70.
I firmly believe case volume and primer choice is related to the results you will get. Primer choice is something you need to work out with the gun you have and the weather you shoot in. Even as cold as it gets here I only find groups open a little but I do not have any ignition problems. Mag primers in the .44 still open groups more.
Since accuracy comes first in my hunting loads, I never worry about a lower velocity, it means nothing at all. The .44 does not have to run at 1400 fps or more. There will never come a day when I try to see how fast I can shoot a boolit. I have never seen a dead deer lift it's head, look me in the eye and tell me "you dummy, the boolit was too slow."

[BOOM BOOM]

hi,
Try wc 820,

[buck1]

Felix, didnt you use one of the reloader rifle powders for for handgun loads a wile back? 7 or 22 I cant recall...Buck

[Groo]

Groo here
WW680/AA1680 will work for heavy for cal bullets but requires tight case,heavy crimp
and mag primers--also start at 90% max at 100% loadings..
For mags and strong 45colts only YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!