.45 Colt Problems

[moose3840]

Bear with me here. Have been shooting a Colt SAA for the last three or four years. It is .45 Colt with the 4 3/4 barrel. Accuracy has been okay but nothing to write home about. Have right at 3k rounds through it so I am pretty much okay with it as is. However, lately the accuracy thing has really been bothering me. I use either a Lyman 454190 cast from wheel weights sized to .454 (as big as can get them) or the Remington 255 grain swaged bullets over 8 grains of unique. The chamber mouths on all six chambers measure .456 which is large but the Remington bullet should compensate for that. It does not. Anyway, tonight I was kinda brainstorming and got the idea to pull one of my loaded rounds. Sure enough it measured .452. My seating and crimp die has been swaging the bullets down. Someone point me in the direction of dies which have the old .454 expander and crimp die? Or would I be better off going with a SWC of some sort sized to .454 and a factory crimp type die? At this point I wonder if a actual .454 bullet would expand on firing and actually shrink the group. Ideas???
I have never fired a single factory load through the gun. I may sell the family car and buy a box or two of factory loads to see how those work.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Moose

 

[Springfield 1911]

.452 is standard for the colt 45 in lead bullets. This might be a case where a hollow base wadcutter might be the trick. It would allow the bullet to expand to fully grip the rifling. The chamber mouth is going to be a little bigger than the barrel on the revolvers I have seen at least. I would try a hollow base wadcutter on the warm side and see what that gets you.

 

[Clarke123]

My Lyman's 49th Edition mentions that pre-WWII revolvers have the (original) groove diameter of .454 while pistols manufactured thereafter
were built with .451 grooves. Thus, cast projectiles sized to .452 should be right for post-WWII production models.
My own experience has been in having problems getting the proper crimp ... which is important (without damage to the projectile)

Here's MD Smith's reloading pages on the .45 Colt ... you may also want to look at the cast-boolits forum as well.
Elmer Kieth style projectiles are often mentioned as the best performers in .45 LC.

Let us all know what you find as there are many of us who love that old cartridge!

http://www.reloadammo.com/45cload.htm