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What is your favorite elk hunting handload for the 45 Colt?



For that range what would be my best sight in distance?
What distance do you like to sight in at?

I'm shooting a Ruger Blackhawk Bisley 7.5" Hunter, open sights.

I know of two highly-respected and very skilled and experienced gun scribes who've used the .45 on a bunch of large game, and praise its performance, but both of them get close. I suspect they'd recommend you do the same, especially with iron sights.

In a carbine, I shot a lot of Buffalo Bore 325 LBT LFN that was very accurate out to 200yds! I actually used, for mule deer, the handloaded 250 XTP on a 75yd buck. I traded the rifle off before I used the 325 on anything. However, it put it in the elk capable category! The load I carried in my revolver was the 270 LBT LFN going around 850fps.

A Google search will lead you to an article that John Linebaugh wrote called “The .45 Colt - Dissolving the Myth, Discovering the Potential.”

Down toward the bottom, he writes, “I have personally taken about 10 antelope and 1 mule deer with a .45 Colt. My boys have taken around 6 antelope and 5 mule deer with their .45 Colts. They use a 4 3/4" Colt SA and the handload is a 260 Keith cast at 900 fps. This load will shoot lengthwise of antelope and mule deer at 100 yards. In my estimation it kills as well as the .270, 30-06 class rifles if the shots are placed properly. If I were hunting heavier game I'd step up the velocity to 1200 fps and in extreme circumstances, (elk, hogs, bear) go to the 310 gr cast slug. This load, 310 at 1200 will go through elk like so much air. These loads can be managed by anyone who is serious about handgunning big game. The .45 gives them a minimum of recoil and blast. I think the .45 Colt has a lot to do with this as it gives them big bore power without big bore recoil and blast.”

At the very end he provides load data that would be safe in your Ruger Bisley.

I've only killed one elk, and that was with a 338 WM, but I'd love to get one with a revolver and I'd probably use a Ruger just like yours. And I'd load it as Mr. Linebaugh recommends. When it comes to big-bore revolvers, I think that we can probably trust what he has to say.


Okie John

I used the Corbon +P 300 JHP on about a 450 lb. bear and they were excellent. At 1,300 fps it is about all I want to handle. My pistol was the Bisley Vaquero, I keep going back and forth on if I want to go to a better sight like the Hunter model, but the traditional sight is better in the holster.

A Keith type hard cast flat nose of 280-310 grains at about 1,200 fps would be a good combination. Linebaugh has data for this.

I am no Elmer Kieth, who claimed hits out to 600 yards with his revolvers, and I like 75 yards and under for game. With a rest I would push it to 100 yards if I was in practice at the time. No doubt some skilled shooters can double those ranges and still be ethical hunters.

Many times when the subject of hunting big game with revolvers comes up, somebody posts about Keith and 600-yard shooting, as if he claimed to do it all the time.

He did not. Instead he once finished off a mule deer that had been wounded by a rifle hunter. The final range was guessed at around 600 yards. It took Keith several shots to do it with a .44 Magnum.

He did kill quite a few big game animals with a revolver, but mostly incidentally, when he came across one and the only firearm handy was his holstered revolver. He much preferred a rifle for big game hunting, and even then did not make it a regular habit of shooting at 600 yards.

only 1 elk to my 45 colt ruger, cow at about 35 yards. 300 gr. at 1000 fps. in and out both shoulders , still going I guess. she dropped at the shot. it is also good on p-dogs. head shots make awesome spinning dogs. great to learn your sight picture as well. quality lite pistol rebuild. 4 1/2 br with 1 " comp for total 5 1/2 br.easy load to shoot and load for. a John Taffen load. have fun!!!

I sure don't have any grand delusions of shooting at Keith distances. I do shoot off-hand on a regular basis at a 155 yard target that mimics a cow elk size chest. That is pretty much my limit.

In the past I shot a brick of 22's a week through a Single Six. Best practice ever, even for rifle shooting.

Thank you John. That has to be one most misunderstood and misinterpreted stories of Keith's. Most people ignore one of his signature lines, "hunt as close as you can get, then get closer", and focus on that story when defining Keith. He a was a capable long range shooter, with both a rifle and handgun but I think he, like many of us, enjoyed the challenge of closing the distance on game. And for one who depended on game meat in his early days, the certainty of a close range shot was far more important than the bragging rights of a long range shot.

335 grain LBT Wide Flat Nose, Gas Check or 225 grain WFN plane base with 19 grains of 296 and a magnum primer.

If Elmer was lobbing handgun loads at that distance...it was pretty irresponsible.

comerade,

Did you read my post on why Elmer was shooting at the wounded mule deer at 600 yards?

Ross Seyfried used .45 Colt Rugers in Africa on game up to and including Cape buffalo. Elk should be well within its capabilities, if the shooter is.

Yes, I was referring to your post, and I really value them.
Even as kid I found Elmer's stuff questionable, in my view finishing off would include a 598 yard walk .
Myself as a 10 year old kid I found his writing puffed up
I liked Jack, we were born on the same day, 56 years apart. It is in the stars! I cannot change it. Cheers

JB that is

Never shot an Elk with a .45 Long Colt but have shot deer. I have a 7.5 stainless Blackhawk that I used to hunt with back in the last century. Used to load a 325 LBT style cast over a full charge of 296 in the .45 Colt and a 290 truncated nose style projectile in a Redhawk .44. I haven't shot either in 20 years but reading this thread has interested me again. Back then I used what I called a grenade box to check penetration of handgun bullets, oak plywood on the front and back, newsprint and 1 piece of oak plywood in the middle. Not sure how valid this was concerning game performance but it was fun to compare. The Blackhawk wears Rosewood Hogues and was just as uncontrollable as the Redhawk when loaded all the way up. The .44 won the penetration contest as I recall but the surprising thing was how well a .357 158 SWC hardcast did compared with the larger heavy weights.

RE: Kieth and the 600 yard shot, Yes he had to walk it in and it is akin to the famous shot at Adobe Walls. But he also wrote of doing this on rocks usually with a minimum of walking in shots. His revolvers Kieth # 4 & 5 had at least four gold wires inletted into the front sight for Kentucky Windage.

Back to the Elk load, anything from 255 up at 1,000 to 1,300 fps should do. I would go 280 or 300 grain LFN with a gas check at 12-15 hardness.

Looking at Bear Tooth 300 grain LFN or WFN.

Burning Accurate No 11 FS, Western tells me it has the same Burn Rate as 296.

I am always puzzled by the strong emotions, mutually exclusive, either for or against O'Connor and Keith. It seems that many feel they can only like one of them, due to the rancor that existed between them. I am paraphrasing here, as I am not at my home computer near my books, but I think it was in the letters published in the back of one of Keith's Gunnotes books, that Jack O'Connor wrote Elmer Keith a letter after Elmer had a health issue. Jack wrote to the effect of "we've had our differences, and you like bigger bullets than I do, but that's neither here nor there. You've live a life few have had the chance to, and no one probably will have the chance to again, and you should write your life story." Elmer replied in a letter that he just might do that. I just know I loved to read them both, as each in their own style could spin a tale that made a boy want to own guns like theirs and go hunting! Still have their books, and read them both on occasion...though I just about know every word in those books.

Concerning both distance and cartridges Elmer often said (paraphrase)
"I like to do my hunting before the shot, not after".


I like that one