What would be a good defense load using a 185Gr. JHP, using either Unique, W231 or Universal?

What would be a good defense load using a 185Gr. JHP, using either Unique, W231 or Universal?

I think the powders are fine but why such a light bullet when 250 gr is normal for a 45 Colt.

Bob

I inherited a bunch of 45 LC that were reloaded for my father in law and the boxes were marked, 185 Gr.JHP at 1100 FPS, and no powder info, so I removed the bullets and powder charge to start over, it seemed a little hot for a 45LC.

It's likely that 1100 fps with a light bullet may not be such a problem. In any event, if you want a house gun I would store those 185 gr things for later use and reload with 250 gr ones. You can remove the decaping pin and resize and go from there.

There is good data for unique and 231. I had been using 9.0 gr of unique with lead bullets till the new data suggests a max of 8.0 gr. A max for 231 is about 7.0 gr.

Bob

If the information was correct, the load was probably OK. The original load, I believe, was a 255 grain bullet at about 900 fps.

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Big bang, much smash'em.

Don't know diddley about the lightweight 45 bullets, but IF you should decide to try some 250s, that 6.8-7.0 load of W231 that Venturino touted for a good while (and jrplourde alluded to, above)is a good'n in every LC I've tried it in.

Rich

And the Industry push to slow down continues...next year they'll make up some reason why 9.0 grains is dangerous.

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Geoff. Since 1960.

geoff40,

You are so right about the wimping of our load data!

John Linebaugh has suggested a great working load of 8.0 231 with a 255-260 Keith for the .45 Colt. He wrote a great piece about using that load to kill deer and antelope sized game with no problem out of his 4" 25-5. I have it saved if somebody wants to read it.

WD

I think the 185 gr would be good for home defense, they will put any felon down, but won't over penetrate like the big heavy lead bullets do. After all you don't want to shoot through the bad guy, the house wall and kill someone walking their dog.

My "One Book, One Caliber" manual has Sierra Bullet's 185 gr. loads of from 9.0 gr of Unique (950fps). through 12.0 gr (1150fps). So lets say you used 10.5 gr. that should get you about 1050fps,not exactly a wimpy load. One thing is that the bullets look to be made for a .45 ACP and have no canalure(sp?).

Thanks to everyone for the info.

I agree that a zippy 185gr JHP sounds like a great HD load for the 45 Colt! A 185 JHP at 1100fps, which should be easy to obtain within SAMMI standard 45 Colt pressure limits, certainly at less than 21-23K psi which most modern S&Ws can handle, would have a lot going for it.

A moderate velocity 250JHP would work fine as well, but a LSWC or RN 250 is likely to overpenetrate in a HD situation, particularly if much over 950fps. The Win SilverTip is a decent factory 45 Colt load.

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" I said, good DAY! "