cowboy 45 special brass

[knucklehead]

I dont understand the write up about the cowboy 45 special in the feb chroncile. the way i understood the article was he decided that the cowboy 45 special brass is a gamer load for black powder shooters and shouldn't be alowed in sass matches.

I shot them for the first time in my ruger old army yesterday. I was able to knock every plate off of the texas star with one hit.
I even had to shoot down knockdowns with the pistol with same results.
some of the other shooters had problems with the texas star plates and knockdown targets with their light loads, but not me.
in fact i feel the ammo smoked more than my ruger 38 special ammo loaded with black powder.

the reason i got the brass is because i felt 45 long colt ammo loaded with 35 grains of black powder and a 200 grain pill was a bit too heavy for cowboy shooting.
every one on my posse told me that i'm smoking too much.
I told them it was my way of making sure i hit all the targets
if the counters cant see the targets because of the black powder smoke then it gets counted as a hit

[Mustang Gregg]

It's gotta be fairly close in capacity to .45 ACP or .45 AR don't it?  I don't have a loadin' book handy.   

I don't see it as no gamer load for BP.   
You could do the same thang with .45 Colt brass, BP & half a case of grits.
Use 'em, Pard!

MG

[knucklehead]

It's gotta be fairly close in capacity to .45 ACP or .45 AR don't it?  I don't have a loadin' book handy.   

I don't see it as no gamer load for BP.   
You could do the same thang with .45 Colt brass, BP & half a case of grits.
Use 'em, Pard!

MG

on the cowboy45special.com website they tell you how to load em. they tell you to use the .45lc resize die then use the .45 acp dies to do the rest. so i would think these shells are the same as a .45 acp shell except that it has a rim on it.
I went this route becaue i didn't want to buy grits and mess around with this step.
In fact I'm not even sure where grits would be in the store. Only time i ever saw grits was in the chow hall at basic training.
I will need to buy another set of 45 acp dies so that i can setup for this new style of shell.

Yep, plan on using em, and ordering some more brass soon.

[Mustang Gregg]

 
Good one on the grits, Knucklehaed.   

Not bein' a Southerner, Ft Leonard Wood was the onliest place that I've ever seen real live grits meownself too. 

But I have used Cream of Wheat (or a cheap imitation) when I used .44 Mag brass occasionally.  But what a mess.  So now I load in .44 Special cases now with FFFg & NO silly filler.
I would reckon them shorty .45 cases would be a natural for BP & subs.  Do ya crimp 'em with the .45 ACP dies?  Or how?

Mustang (BP part-timer) Gregg

[knucklehead]

I use a dillen 550.
use the resizing depriming .45 lc die, remove die plate install 45 acp plate.
bell the shell with 45 acp die and drop powder in shell, use 45 acp die to install bullet and crimp bullet.
only problem i have at this time is my 45 acp crimp die is a taper crimp. i need the roll crimp die.
my .45 auto likes the taper crimp better so thats what i have so i will need to get a roll crimp die for these shells.

[Mustang Gregg]

Knucklehead:

If you really like a certain crimp of a certain die---Dies can be shortened to do that.
  Like takin' a .45 Colt seater/crimper die & cuttin' it off to make it work with your .45 SASS Special. 
I've bought partial die sets at gun shows for a coupla bucks just for parts.  These work fine for custom stuff.
But then, I'm a scrounger of parts & pieces.

Mustang Gregg

[Trailrider]

Howdy, Pards,

Some folks will bi...h if the sun rose!  From a technical standpoint, I have NOT had an opportunity to shoot BP from the C.45 Spl, but have done some very limited shooting using both 250 gr and 200 gr bullets and HP38.  Case capacity is about the same as .45 ACP/.45AutoRim.  Keeping loads down in the .45AR bracket (which is less than .45 ACP, as there is no need to cycle the action, and keeps pressures lower), I was able to get velocities in the 650-690 ft/sec range, depending on the load of smokeless powder.  This is in a similar range to some of the old British Bulldog .45 cartridges or the Webley's.  I have no idea what the BP capacity of the C.45 Spl is, but it ought to be similar to the lighter Bulldogs (which probably used balloon head cartridge cases, instead of the solid head design).

As I have pointed out in other posts and forums, Wild Bill Hickok did most of his "work" with either .32 Rimfire S&W #2 pistols or his .36 caliber Colt's Navy pistols, which have abou the same power as a .380 ACP!

In point of fact, the .45 LC was a tad hot for the U.S. Cavalry, and the load was reduced to the .45 Revolver Ball (Schofield).