Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns .45 ACP pet loads needed

I did some testing in water jugs yesterday. 9.6g of AA#5 with a 185g Nosler HP expanded very well.

Yeah, but your gun is ugly and doesn't ooze style like an auto.

(*sprints for cover, zipping up the nomex as he goes*)

Nice gun! Nice shooting! Nice photo! Nice everything!

One of the greatest regrets of my life is not getting an original S&W revolver in .45ACP.

That is certainly correctable, just acquire one and presto NO REGRET

True assuming I could find one. Right now though dealing with car and need cash to get my 1911 out of hock with Wilson when the time comes.

Hello derby_dude
I can tell you that it took me "Year's & Year's" of searching in my area to locate the S&W .45 Hand eject revolver that I have shown in this thread. I suspect one of the reason's It took me so long to find this one is that I strive to keep all of my S&W's in my Gun collection to be Non Model stamped Revolver's which means made prior to 1957, as after 1957 time span, S&W started stamping all of their revolver's with model Number's and the other problem is I wanted it to be a Five screw example which had to come prior to 1956, so I "Thought". Soon after Purchasing the one show I had it dated and it shipped out of the factory in April of 1959. That seemed Odd to me as it was a Very late shipment for a Five screw Pre-Model stamped gun. I Knew going into my Search for a Five screw example, it was going to be tough Locating one, as they really did not make many of them in this early Variation compared to the later Four screw varieties or the even more abundant Three screw Model's which were stamped with the model number 25-2. I am Not trying to Label this Gun as a Rare find, they are simply Scarce as owner's of them know how well they shoot and do not Often Trade or sell them. and being that S&W Built this caliber on the Massive-N-Frame with a Meaty cylinder wall they seldom Shoot them self's Loose if we compare them to the Magnum caliber's these can Take a Licking and Keep on Ticking over the long Haul. A Further research of this gun showed the reason that it is of Five screw design and a Pre-Model stamped series is because S&W mass produced the Five screw Variation -N-Frame's in abundance anticipating many more sales of the famous Pre-29 revolver which was chambered in .44 Magnum. The Outcome proved there sure was not as Many Dirty Harry Types out there as the company had projected there to be and this one had to have been stuffed way Back into the company Vault. Which in Turn lead's to another Bonus.... The .44 Magnum Frames have a special heat treating done to them to take the repeated recoil of the fierce .44 Magnum cartridge so this one has that feature, and I can rest assured it can safely Handle any .45 SCP round I choose to hand load for it. One other problem in my area is that we have a Lot of Military personal stationed here, therefore, and Gun's chambered in .45 ACP disappear as soon as they are set out for sale. Case in point while I was awaiting my Back ground check to come back in a Man entered the store and asked if he could see my revolver which laid on top of the glass case. The store owner told him that he would have to ask me to handle it as I had just Purchased it. I Obliged him and he marveled over it, then turned to me and asked if I wanted to sell it to him before my background check was completed ? I told him that I had hunted Hard for one of these so I was not inclined to sell it at this time. He set it back down and said he was retired from the Marines and had always' wanted a Pre-25 S&W revolver chambered in .45 ACP but could never find one out there to Buy. I was sure glad I did not procrastinate over the sale of it, or surely this man would have been walking out the door with it, rather than I I am sure the store Owner wished this man would have showed up before me as I Haggled the price down from $800.00 to a Price of $600.00 Out The Door, but the deal was done, so the store owner had to more or less Bite the bullet on making his Full Blown retail listed price of $800.00 on this one...In conclusion, I had a newer Model of this gun about Two Years ago being the S&W Model 25-2 and sold it as I was Not Impressed with it's Group's shot @ The 25 Yard line. I had it checked over by my local gun smith & he shared with me that the gun had Larger than Normal cylinder Throat's so that is why he told me the gun did not produce nice tight Target group's. This one must Have Tight Cylinder Throat's as it shoot's Laser straight every time if I do my part right. Good Luck in your search I know this One Came Real Hard for me, so it will Never be sold or Traded unless I find a Better example of it... TheGeneral

Thanks General for the reply.

I was familiar with the 25-2 but I was unfamiliar with the non-model stamped models. So if I should happen to come across a S&W in .45ACP that is in good shape, a five screw non-stamped model .45ACP at a good price I should grab it. I was 10 years old in 1957 so I'm not familiar with guns made in the 50's. I shall have to consider boning up on that subject.

Any good S&W history books out there on the firearms made in the 50's?

I think I'll save your post so I can refer back to it.

Jim Supicia, I think is the Smith and Wesson expert. Go to Smith and Wesson Forum. There is a ton on info there if your into them. I sold my 24-3 and still have my 18-3 .22lr all target options. Love the Smith Revo's

Thanks. I may have to do that.

I had a older model 19 in.357 mag I sold to buy my .44 mag. My hands don't normally fit double action revolvers well so I tend to stay away from them but an original model 29 or one of the older Smiths in .45ACP might actually trip my switch.

Hello derby _dude
No Problem I appreciate your kind word's. I Bought my First S&W in 1978 while in Alaska. It was a model 28 Highway Patrolman model with a 6" Barrel. That forged the Path for many more to come. About Six Years ago, I Joined the Smith & Wesson Collector's association. Once I joined I started revering my Gun collection to mostly Five screw gun's of Pre-Model stamped variance. My Gun's date from the Mid 1930's to the cut off of Five screw variation's being around 1955 time span. I have found that range of year's to be of the highest quality and all of them back then were hand made and hand fitted so the action's are Buttery smooth and the fir and finish of those style gun's to me was of the highest quality back then. One Great resource Book out there is "The standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson's" by author's Jim Supica and Richard Nahas. There are Three volumes of that book I have all Three and they all are great read's with Ton's of Information on all S&W's Made. Another Great resource book is by Author Roy Jink's & Robert Neil S&W's 1857-1945 as well as History of S&W by author Roy G. Jink's. Both of these book's are out of Print but can be found out there used and are a lot finer detail than The Standard book of S&W. Walter Roper also wrote a couple of Good Book's on S&W's as well as hand gunning and shooting Technic's and Theories of shooting. I hope this helps, TheGeneral

Thanks General.

Just a bump to the top.

I load 8.0 grains of HS-6 behind a 230 FMJ or HP, WLP primer.

I like 800X, too. I "discovered" 800X again a couple of years ago. I had some on the shelf from experimenting with a 10mm from many years ago, and decided to try it again in the 10, and then noticed some load data for the 45 ACP, so gave that a go, too. 800X turns in some of the best accuracy for top velocities in my guns. But I also believe it can be an accident waiting to happen if you don't weigh each load. 800X is a large flake powder and does not meter well. To get the results it can bring, it needs to be used near top of chart loads in my guns. I have an old SAECO powder measure. It throws charges very accurately with most any powder but 800X, so I weigh every 800X charge I shoot. Not a big deal for me, since I weigh most charges anyway, but with 800X I believe weighing each charge is a must from a safety standpoint.

Yeah, 800X meters like mud. It turns in some spectacular groups out of a .41Magnum case,though...


For .45ACP, I've always used 231, Unique, or AA #2, and dallied with HS-6 a bit. I had poor results with AA#5, though. I use mostly 200gr. SWCs, but a stiff dose of Unique and a 185JHP will work well enough.
For cast 230s, I used 6.5gr. Unique, I never loaded any jacketed 230s to speak of.

Buzz,

I used to use nothing but Universal for my target loads for: 38 special, 357 mag, 44 special, 44 mag, 454 casull and my 45acp. I still have quite a bit around but recently tried 231 with 200g LSWC in my Sig XO 1911. I use 4.6g which is the starting load. The brass fall right into a plastic tote bin that I put at 4:00 right behind me. I also like 5.8g of Universal with 230g LRN, but I'm out of LRN and just bought 3000 200g LSWC because they shoot so nice in my gun and make nice clean holes for scoring, and of course, they're accurate enough for my pleasure. I've shot approximately 200 rounds out of my sig since my last cleaning and I can't really say that it's dirty. I'm going to see how it holds up with 500 round through it before I clean it.