Handloading and the 45 Colt

[okie john]

That's what I use when I carry my 625 mountain gun. Haven't had a reason to test it on anything other than paper yet, carried it a lot on a remote project site hoping for one of the pigs we were seeing on game cameras but no such luck.

If you get serious about shooting hogs, then you need https://thehogbook.com/ It's a long way from most game cookbooks that just accumulate shitty traditional deer-meat chili recipes from church-group members.

The guy who wrote it runs a restaurant in Austin called Dai Due (https://www.daidue.com/), which features wild boar and nilgai. They also have a deli counter where you can get sausage made from those animals. I was in Texas on family business a few weeks ago, so I stopped in for lunch. The dining room was closed but the deli counter was open. I had a loaf of good bread in the rental car, so I bought half a pound of wild boar summer sausage, half a pound of nilgai salame cotto, and a bottle of Texas olive oil. I ate in my car in the parking lot next door, and I saw the face of God with the first bite. This is NOT the typical oversmoked, overspiced product of the Texas Hill Country, but genuine gourmet fare.

A couple of nights later, I went back with Ms. Okie and had the nilgai filet and a bottle of tempranillo for dinner. Same thing.

Part of my time in Texas included shooting a smallish hog. The backstraps are braising right now for one of his recipes.


Okie John

[Lost River]

A good .45 Colt revolver that has all the chambers throated properly is truly an outstanding piece of gear for the hunter/outdoorsman. My large frame BH shoots quite small groups when using .45 Cowboy Special brass, which is simply .45 Colt cut down to ACP length. It is not to be confused with auto rim, as they are two different animals.

Here are some 25 yard groups shot over bags:



My personal favorite general purpose all around load is a 270 grain wide meplat Keith style semi wadcutter that does 900 FPS from a 4& 5/8ths" barrel. That gives plenty of power to handle about anything I am going to hunt and is easy to shoot well, without inducing a flinch within a dozen or so rounds like the upper end rounds can certainly do. Besides, once you have shot all the way through an animal there is not much point in going hotter, in terms of velocity.





While I have some very heavy loads for the full size BH tucked away, I avoid shooting them, as I still clearly recall how unpleasant they were. They are 360 grain hard cast wide nose, pushed fairly quickly. I recall how my trigger finger became bloody from coming off of the trigger and smacking the inside/front of the trigger guard repeatedly. I wanted some true stomper loads and these were it, but they were miserable things to shoot!

[okie john]

My personal favorite general purpose all around load is a 270 grain wide meplat Keith style semi wadcutter that does 900 FPS from a 4& 5/8ths" barrel. That gives plenty of power to handle about anything I am going to hunt and is easy to shoot well, without inducing a flinch within a dozen or so rounds like the upper end rounds can certainly do. Besides, once you have shot all the way through an animal there is not much point in going hotter, in terms of velocity.

Makes perfect sense.

I read somewhere that one of the War Department's original criteria for the 45 Colt was the ability to kill a horse at 100 yards, which makes sense given that they were fighting the Indian Wars at the time.

Very few animals are as hard to kill as a horse, and your load adds a more effective bullet design to the level of already power proven adequate for that task.


Okie John

[SwampDweller]

Makes perfect sense.

I read somewhere that one of the War Department's original criteria for the 45 Colt was the ability to kill a horse at 100 yards, which makes sense given that they were fighting the Indian Wars at the time.

Very few animals are as hard to kill as a horse, and your load adds a more effective bullet design to the level of already power proven adequate for that task.


Okie John

I didn't know that. A handgun cartridge being able to kill a horse at 100 yards is damn impressive.
Maybe there is something to the idea that the bigger/heavier caliber has some advantages over the smaller/lighter caliber.

I seem to recall Darryl Bolke often extolling the "near death ray" ability of the .45 Auto 230gr Federal HST +P. Nowadays the window in performance difference between standard service handgun calibers has been narrowed dramatically, but apples to apples, there does still seem to be an advantage to the big ol' .45 caliber slug, particularly when dealing with animals.

[Caballoflaco]

@SwampDweller

Here’s a video of a dude in South Africa taking 4 hits from a .44 mag and running 70 yards before he died. The other guy who got hit was never found. The guard who did the shooting has a response pinned in the comments section. He carries a P07 and never uses a fanny pack after that. I’m not saying big bore revolvers aren’t awesome or you shouldn’t buy or own one, just that good hits still matter.

[camel]

@SwampDweller

Here’s a video of a dude in South Africa taking 4 hits from a .44 mag and running 70 yards before he died. The other guy who got hit was never found. The guard who did the shooting has a response pinned in the comments section. He carries a P07 and never uses a fanny pack after that. I’m not saying big bore revolvers aren’t awesome or you shouldn’t buy or own one, just that good hits still matter.

Shot placement. Shot placement.

[SwampDweller]

@SwampDweller

Here’s a video of a dude in South Africa taking 4 hits from a .44 mag and running 70 yards before he died. The other guy who got hit was never found. The guard who did the shooting has a response pinned in the comments section. He carries a P07 and never uses a fanny pack after that. I’m not saying big bore revolvers aren’t awesome or you shouldn’t buy or own one, just that good hits still matter.

Definitely. I don't disagree at all!
I think the best thing we can take away from this is: bullets do weird things and humans are damn hardy and can persevere through more abuse than we could even imagine.

ETA: I also think this is a good example of the fact that the gun you can access the quickest is the best weapon for the defense of yourself and/or innocent people. Guns don't mean much when you can't get to them in time. That's partly why I've become so fond of a pocket carry revolver.

[Chuck Haggard]

I wonder how this Barnes all-copper JHP would perform in a self defense use against humans? It's 200 grains going 1025fps.

@Chuck Haggard have you happened to test this before?

https://www.luckygunner.com/45-long-...rnes-20-rounds

I haven't tested that one