Burned 45 brass!?

[VTM]

I started loading 45's about a year ago. I'm a beginner. Anyway, I have enjoyed shooting them in my 45 blackhawk..4.5/8 barrel. But! The brass is really sooted and burned and I am looking for a way to not have this happen. I understand that because of the enormous size of the brass, this happens easily. Thant he brass does not expant to the chamber so you get blow bye, or blow back which dramatically soots the shell.

Got any advice to shorten my learning curve...have used light loads with Trail boss, unique 8 grs. and some red dot..all undre 250 255 gr. of lead round flat points.

I appreciate any advice you may have. The guy writing about 45's did not think they were as good as 44's for that reason (I like 44's too).

I was thinking of getting the Ruger redhawk 45 and selling my redhawk 44 mag...now I am not so sure!


VTM

 

[contender]

First,, get a tumbler & clean the brass & keep on using it.
Next,, you can do a few things to raise the pressure to where the brass expands & fills the chamber. One is a tighter crimp. Another is to up the powder charges a little at a time to see when it seals the brass in the chambers. But, as always,, be careful & stay within the safe guidelines of the loading manuels.

 

[pvtschultz]

Yeah, I just toss them in the tumbler and clean them up. Once you get above SAAMI spec for the 45 Colt, the brass will expand to fill the chamber preventing the blow-by. A nice next load would be 13 grains of HS6. You can start at the max listed for SAAMI spec and work up to it if you prefer but that load is an ancient one and safe for your Blackhawk as is. After that, full charges of H110 will really get things moving in your Blackhawk, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

 

[J Miller]

It's not the size of the brass cases that cause them to be all sooted up.
It's a combination of:
>The generous chambers most manufacturers use in the .45 Colt. Why they don't bring themselves into the 21st century I don't know. But they insist on cutting the chambers to the max allowable spec. I guess they think we're still shooting black powder or something.
>The low SAAMI pressure specs of the cartridge. SAAMI spec for the .45 Colt is 14000PSI. That is just barely enough to expand the thinnest cases.
>Overly thick cartridge cases. Starline, Federal, and some others use brass that is generally thicker than needed for standard pressure .45 Colt loads. It's great for the Ruger - T/C level loads but won't expand and seal the chambers with standard or cowboy type loads.
Winchester is almost that thick but not quite.
Remington is just about the best for standard and below loads. While still being durable enough for heavier loads as well.

If you're going to shoot light loads, try what was suggested above and also a different brand of brass.

Joe

 

[Yosemite Sam]

Thanks for posting this. My .45 Colts have been getting sootier than some of my other loads, and now I know why.

My problem then becomes that I want these wussified light loads for target shooting.

Choice of powder may play a role, too. In my experience both Trail Boss and Unique are pretty dirty. TB in particular seems to stain cases worse than other powders - staining that doesn't polish out in a tumbler as easily as mere powder blow-by. The fact that it's a low pressure powder and would seal the case even less well may play into this.

I find HP-38/W231 to be slightly less staining, but I'm still getting blowby. I'm using 6.0gr of HP-38 under a 255gr cast LSWC.

-- Sam

 

[Jayhawkhuntclub]

Why do you care if the brass is blackened? Aesthetics? I don't normally tumble any of my cases. Just curious?

 

[Yosemite Sam]

Why do you care if the brass is blackened? Aesthetics? I don't normally tumble any of my cases. Just curious?

I tumble because I don't want to grind all that carbon into my dies.

-- Sam

 

[Bucks Owin]

You can try a fast powder to bump up the pressure somewhat. I've recenty tried 8.3 grs PB under the 255 Hornady"cowboy" bullet. Velocity around 900 fps and little sooting...

 

[pvtschultz]

Hodgdon Universal Clays is nearly the same as Unique and a bit cleaner (from what I've read). I use it for "wussy" loads (7.3 grains with a CCI350 primer under a 250/255 gr cast boolet) and do get the carbon sooting on the brass and on my stainless Blackhawk.

As a side note. LEE recommends that you use dirty brass for their carbide resizing dies to act as lubrication (graphite is carbon after all). The down-side is that you'll need to pic cleaning media out of the primer pockets from cleaning after sizing/depriming.