Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 45 Super

Wow! been having fun with a new 45 Super i sprung up, just bought the Springfield Garrison from HilhamHawk, Thanks Troy, it has a forged steel slide and grip frame along with ramped stainless match barrel, i ordered some parts from Wilson Combat and directly from Wolff Springs.

The setup:

Full length Wilson Combat guide rod
28lb Wolff recoil spring
X-tra power firing pin spring that came with recoil spring
Wilson Combat flat bottom firing pin stop
25lb Wolff hammer spring

I installed these yesterday afternoon, last night before dark i fired factory Mag-Tech 230gr ball and my old 45 ACP +P 230gr FMJ-FP load, it runs 1000 fps, the pistol worked fine with both loads locking the slide back at last shot, brass was 5 and 9 feet off right shoulder, i was happy, recoil was next to nothing.

I had it in my mind i wanted to shoot a HP bullet in this pistol, also knew it needed to be tough, thought was, standard 45 ACP hp's driven at Super velocities wont fare well in penetration, integrity and retained weight, so last week bought two boxes of the tough 200gr FTX bullet meant for the 460 S&W and 2100 fps, i checked powder burn rate charts and picked 10gr 800X powder, snipped the red tips off and loaded to 1.225" col, rounds fed like a greased glass rod, loaded in new Starline 45 Super brass lit with old white box Winchester large pistol primers, the ones for standard or mag loads, the load clocked 1257 fps, brass was 16 feet off right shoulder, no smileys, dents, bulges etc, brass and primers looked great at this level, no firing pin swipe etc either.


Filled two 5 gal buckets with water, shot into them lengthways, bullet punched out the back of bucket one to hit the second and bounced back in, retained weight was near 198 grains, expansion measured .748 inch, perfect! shot two off knee seated on shop slab at 25 yards, around an inch apart, with 6 o'clock hold on bottom of Redfield big diamond, i can work with that.

Light for caliber yes, and only a random powder charge picked, but i'm happy with this setup, if a man wanted to get serious, a good hardcast 255-275gr flat nose with 22 BHN alloy at 1150 fps would certainly bring home the bacon.

45 Super is pretty outstanding. Hard to beat that in a 1911.

You bet, fun stuff Mac, i think this tough little 200gr hp will make a fine pig popper.

Picture for Gunner500

Sounds like a winner! Looking forward to seeing a picture of a hog or three on the ground from your new Super.

Many thanks for posting pics JWP, Thanks MOGC, it'll be a fun little carry gun, be nice to pop some venison too.

Here are the other pictures for Gunner500

Thanks again JWP, i appreciate it Sir, you know, the more i think about it, that tough 200gr FTX would make a damn solid SD carry bullet load, may really excel on barriers and heavy clothing etc.

Agreed, should be a good SD bullet

Been thinking of that or a 460 rowland. I have a Glock 41 would buy a barrel for it to use 45 super. I think I would use one of my 1911's for the rowland.

Now you’ve gone and done it! I caught the virus, now looking for the cure. I love the 10mm, expect the .45 Super will really wind my clock! Nice pistol.

I believe that more now than when i first posted, Hornady website says it has a hard core with antimony and a thicker copper jacket, i broke off two petals with pliers and tried to pry the core loose from the jacket with small flathead screwdriver, it's hanging on tight, i'm just glad i could get some good expansion at a lowly 1250 fps compared to the 460 S&W's 2100 fps+


Get on it OEH, these guns are fun, you know, the 1911 45 ACP's remind me of a 426 Hemi engine, you can drive around just fine with 500 HP and a light tune, or go BTTW with 1200 HP on pump gas and cruise town all night long, power in reserve with both platforms.

LOL GF1, i am here to help ; ] i have a like 10mm too, with either, 10mm hardcast with 200-220's or 45 Super with hardcast 255-275's they will both get it all done as far as keeping wayward critters uninterested in your hide, both great cartridges.

And since i dont have pressure testing eq, i mic'd an unsized factory stick of brass, then a FL sized new stick and got .471" on both, mic'd the three fired cases from today unsized at .473 inch, a whole 0.002" case head expansion says pressures are very reasonable with this load, went and mic'd some +P loaded standard WW fired brass at 474.5, so yes, i have been firing hotter loads all along in 45 ACP +P, different pistol, but i dont think that Baer is going to have any slope.

Well into the safe zone with these 200gr FTX loads at 1250 fps in 45 Super brass, fired old +P 230gr FMJ-FP load put up in WW 45 ACP brass in new Springfield Garrison, case head expansion was 474.5, so yes, i was harder all along using standard brass with +P loads over the new load in 45 Super brass, only talking about one and a half thousandths, but thought i throw that out there anyway, safe shooting everyone.

As soon as the heat wave breaks, we require pictures of dead animals and recovered bullets.

LOL, you bet my good Sir, it may be hard to catch one of these bullets in a deer or pig, but i'll dang sure try, speaking of recovered bullets, i told a bud about shooting through a 5 gal bucket of water, hitting the back of second bucket and bouncing back in first bucket, he couldn't figure how that could happen, i referred him to this thread, he was somehow able to blow up JWP's pic of the buckets to see the bullet exit hole at the bottom of the big crack and thought it bounced back in where the big crack is.

From what little i know, and having never cut the tabs on that bucket lid to remove it, blowing a factory sealed lid off and rupturing a 5 gal bucket with a light semi auto pistol tells me a whole lotta goodie was going on at impact and travel, should make a fine white tail/pig sidearm, old bud has a long barreled Glock 460 Rowland, guess who is going to be at the LGS first thing Monday morning to buy the remaining boxes of 200gr FTX for his Rowland? according to him, it'd make a perfect flat shooting load in his rig with delta pro sight, said he'd never thought about clipping the tips on the bullets.

Gunner, good deal on your Super, I think you'll really enjoy it.

I just finished putting another Super together, this time a Glock 21.

I had put it together with another brand barrel, the the throat was so short in that one that performance was, for lack of a better word, compromised. There were a couple of other small things I didn't like, too.

OALs with two bullets I like to shoot in the Super were shortened quite a bit. I normally seat the Missouri Bullet Company's 255 grain bullet at 1.26" in my 1911 Super, but max in this barrel was 1.8". The Montana Bullet Works 250 grain LFN GC is normally seated at 1.24" in my 1911 (this is to allow the meplat to clear the ejection port, not a throat issue), but max was 2.02".

This barrel will go to CylinderHone to address that issue.

Meanwhile, I bought a KKM Precision barrel. That came in yesterday. The throating in this barrel will allow the original OALs to be used and allow interchangeability of the ammo between my 1911 and M21 Glock.

The "other " barrel is SBN treated, and as a result, is rough. Velocities indicated pressure was elevated and as hard as an SBN barrel is, I don't know how long it'll be before it smooths out. The KKN is very smooth, the compensator felt like it was spinning on bearings when I installed it. I'm really impressed with this barrel and hope shooting it is not a disappointment.

Looking to get 1035 to 1050 fps with the MBW 250 LFN GC. That looks to be doable with fairly mild pressure and the chamber looks to support the case very well.

Now, If Starline will get the backorders on Super brass out of the way, I'd be happy. I'd like to have a couple hundred more cases cause I may wear out the ones I have now!

Mine is an xd tactical 5.25" threaded and Mrs. Geno's is an M&P 2.0 with a 5" factory threaded barrel. Only needed a recoil spring (20lb wolff) in mine. Hers needed a recoil spring and double sprung magazines.

Thanks Vic, those 250's at 1050 will lay a hard slap on anything, nice rig there.

That XD is a monster masher Geno, hope you guys bloody those on some FL pork this year.

I Just got a 20lb flat wire Wilson spring and flat firing pin stop with thoughts of setting up for +P or Super loads. Is 28lbs and the other springs required as well to handle it? I thought i had ordered a 24 but I got a 20. Don't want to beat the heck out of it. I really want to get another 460 Rowland setup, but from Clark this time. But if I can setup for the 45 Super that would carry me through deer season.

Gzig5, You can get by with a 20 lb recoil spring. The best mods for slowing the slide down is a Flat Firing pin Stop and about a 26 to 28 lb Mainspring. I run 20 recoil/28 mainspring/FFPS in my Ruger 1911. I also added a compensator, though mine is one that takes the place of a barrel bushing and does not screw onto the barrel, so it basically slows slide velocity down by mass. Ejection distance is 6 feet with comp, about 8 without. ACP loads dribble at my feet.

Thanks, Gunner. One thing I noticed putting it through its initial paces is that boy, that comp really helps with recoil. Ugly as hell, but it helps. Two other things I noticed are the lower barrel axis helps with muzzle flip and the larger Glock grip helps with recoil, all being equal with the two pistols. The Glock also seems a little less fussy about feeding certain bullet profiles, the one bullet in particular being the Missouri Bullet Company's 215 grain Express. That's the only bullet I've tried so far that chokes the 1911. The Glock feeds them slick as snake snot.