I'm going to try making some .45 acp shotshells. I'm starting with .45 Win Mag brass. I've run some up into a .41 mag die to where they fit just right into my .45 acp case gauge. I have the over powder wads and the over shot wads made. It looks like they will hold right at 140 grains on No. 12 shot. Does anybody know of a good starting load to try. I'm thinking about using bullseye or W231 but have a lot of other powders as well.

I hate to make suggestions, on amounts of powder to use, when there is an unknown. However, in my humble opinion, if you proceed, I would think that a low end/starting charge of a standard .45acp load would be safe enough.

I have made my own for .45 Colt and used a low end charge of Trail Boss and it worked out very well.

Here is a link to a forum where Ed answered this and more about loading 45ACP shotshells:

https://www.shootersforum.com/handgu...ell-loads.html

That is some interesting data. Never knew there was such a "load" I gather they will actually cycle a 45 acp slide?

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Still Running Against the Wind

Years ago I made so some with cut down & neck sized .308 cases fitted to fill the cylinder of my 625 in 45 acp & loaded in moon clips. Loaded with with 5 grs. of WW231 and "lots" of #9's with cardboard under wad & gas check over wad.....Wasn't very efficient....Abandoned project.

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S&W Accumulator

I've got some I made last year in 44mag,45 colt and 38 spl.Havent seen a rattler since,very effective

Okay LOL!

But did you ever test them for effectiveness?

I am confused? If it is 45 ACP why do you use other caliber brass? Is the brass longer to take the place of a bullet or the plastic shot shell, like in factory revolver types?

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Still Running Against the Wind

I'm using the longer brass so it will hold more shot. I'm necking it down to mimic a .45 acp with a bullet. A regular .45 acp will hold around 100 grains of shot. This one will hold around 140 grains.

I had completely forgotten about them and I'm not that old

I've experimented with this quite a bit in my younger days.

First off, an RCBS shotshell die set for .45ACP makes life a lot easier!

You're probably spending to much on the brass by using .45 Win Mag; pretty much anything with a .45ACP sized base will work. that's the vast majority of non-magnum rimless rifle brass: .30-06, .270, .308, .257 Roberts, 8mm Mauser, 7m Mauser, etc. The shorter the parent/donor case is, the thinner the case walls will be at the business end, which is what you want. Most folks use .308 brass.

You're going to be dealing with very low pressure round, so you cane even use brass that would have been scrapped for high pressure stuff. I used to use Israeli .308 blank ammo brass.

I would never encourage you to do anything unlawful but be aware that your patterns will suck because of the rifling However, if you have a shotout barrel with almost no rifling left, you'd get better patterns. You definitely should not take an old worn out shot nearly smooth barrel and run a lap and lapping compound down it to make it smoothbore. That would be a very effective but illegal way to get good groups. Would put you into the sawed off shotgun category.

It's looking good. Ready for testing.

The pattern is pretty consistent. This was at 10 feet.



It feeds fine from the magazine put did not eject completely. I decided to go with some cut down 410 wads. It holds right at 110 grains of shot.

That really looks good. Should turn a snake into hamburger at that range!

Very nice, I'm researching this topic at the moment. I saw a couple ways of containing the shots. One with the paper card board cut out and one with the 410 wad. The paper cut out seems to go with the home made method where a 41 magnum die is used to form the top. The 410 wad is used with dedicated shotshell die set. My question is, can the 410 wad be used with the home made method? I suspect the base of the wad is too big to squeeze in the case for the home made method therefore a paper cut out is used. After making my 45acp, I plan to shot a clay target coming out of the station 7 low house on the skeet field. I think given the pattern shown, I believe the 45 acp shotshell will break the target. Any comments are much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

The .410 wad works just fine with the .41 mag version. You can actually see on the target where the wad hit. It slips right in. I got better patterns with the wad. I tried to crimp with the .45 acp bullet seater die but it was too narrow. I then tried the .500 S&W seater die and it worked perfect. I made the overshot wad out of a gallon plastic water bottle. Using a necked down case that was chucked in my drill press. It cut right through the plastic after putting a heavy chamfer on the case. I did this because I wanted an all weather round without using any type of glue.

I had ejection problems with the case hanging up in the ejection port. Increasing the powder charge slightly didn't make a noticeable difference. I believe it was due to the casing being too long. I may shorten one just a little to see if that helps. They did feed fine from the magazine. Although for my purpose ejection isn't necessary it would be icing on the cake.

I just ordered some 10mm Magnum brass and hope to work on a 10mm shotshell in the next week or so.

If you're using 45acp Magnum brass, it's 1.20" long, which will work in some guns, but not most. That length causes the case mouth to crash upwardly into the barrel hood and deform. I've trimmed mine to 1.195" and the problem was solved. According to C.E. Harris, 6.2 gr of WW 231 is the ultimate powder charge for this load when using the 410 wads.

Thank you for that information. I will give that a try. I had suspected that might be the problem. I started at 5.0 grains of WW231 and worked up to 6.0 grains. I will try the 6.2 grains.

It's understandable a longer case can cause ejection problem. What is the minimum overall length? Reason I ask is that while waiting for the dies to arrive, I've been cutting up 308 brass. Most of them are in the 1.18 to 1.19 range. I have a few that are1.16.

How about annealing? I think it is a good thing to do. Question is : annealing before or after the neck forming?

Thanks

Here's the article from Handloader 80 magazine published in 1979. The author, claims a case length of 1.9" is maximum. I guess it's dependant on your individual gun. This will answer many of your questions and helps to get the most from this fun project:
Handloader #80 45 ACP Shot Shell

I have several more articles on this subject but not all are jpgs that I can post. The original by C.E. Harris, a member here, was first printed in the American Rifleman and then added to the NRA's 45 ACP manual. I will try to digitize them for those who are interested,
Arthur

Here's a link to the best videos I've seen on the subject. The producer uses the RCBS forming and loading die set and in a later episode, uses less costly 41 Magnum dies for forming. Wach both of them for a greater understanding:

I was ordering some 35 Rem brass from a guy in AZ that makes the brass from 308.
JUST before I went out to send the M.O.,, I noticed he offered the 45ACP shot shell brass for $0.25 each,,,
These are also made from 308,,,

I added $5, and asked him to send me some of the shot shell brass.

Well,, the brass has arrived, and looks great,, I think it will be a cheap way to test if I like 45 shot shells,,,
All I need now is to find some shot,,, I might cut open a 12 gauge to get some preliminary shot,,,

Sounds good, but I would first ask if you have dies to seat/crimp. If so, you're on your way to fun shooting. Do you know if the seller makes his reformed brass from military or commercial cases? I ask because military brass has thicker walls and will disallow the use of the 410 shot cups. No big deal if you can't use shotcups excepting for the shot patterns enlarging from the rifleing effect. Good luck and enjoy your new project,
Arthur

I have done this and have found at 7 yards the only mark on the target was from the wad-- I use 308 brass, which I have an over abundance of -- More work is needed here. In the meantime, I have an extra set of dies for this operation and plan on selling them. ---- these days it seems they are a bit hard to find-- maybe-- Anyway, I need to figure out where my current load failed??

Seven yards(21') is stretching the intended range of this loading. 10-15 feet is the normal effective distance. When you say wad, are you referring to a top wad of gas check, or, are you using shotcups? If not, the donut hole at 21' would be very large as a result of the shot engaging the rifleing. Were you using military 308s as a donor case? This too would lessen the capacity for shot as well as the shotcup and the pattern would be negatively impacted.

If you're not going to use them very much; I would suggest buying them loaded off the shelf. I'm sure they are available. I have some in .357 mag that I bought years ago. Check with Midway USA. Good luck, dogwalk

A few photos of the 45acp shot shell brass would be appreciated.

The pre loaded shotshells using the plastic capsule to contain the shot (Speer?) are to be avoi8ded in a 1911 or other semi auto. I was going to take some on a Prairie Dog hunt, and testing them out the first one fired, and the second one attempting to feed in cracked open and dumped all the shot inside my Series 70 Gold Cup. It locked completely up, and it took me an hour to clear it and then had to detail strip as some shot had gotten down inside. I'll never use again. I made up some 44 Special loads with the shot capsules, and they work fine in my 24-3 with #11 shot, one heck of a dense pattern at 10-12 feet.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

These are Shot Loads off the shelf. I only use them on snakes and pesty critters, so I don't go thru many a year, maybe a box, which is 10 rounds. They come in 10 round packs and cost $12.95 last Oct./Nov. at a LGS, so I bought 4 packs at the time.

BTW, at 7' / 10' they are devastating on snakes, etc.

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Just want to share some quick results. I finally broke some clays with the bullets I made. I made around 20 rounds. Tested for feeding and ejection on paper targets. I tried to shoot the low house from station 7 on the skeet field thinking it is the easiest shot to make but the barrel is too short to be effective. After realizing it, I called for the high house on the same station and managed to break 2 out of 4.
Need to capture that on video. None on YouTube that I can find.
Thanks

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It is not illegal to smooth bore a handgun barrel (see below added info). in the late 60's- early 70's there were any number of articles done on building shot loads and several of them suggested smooth boring and choking. The authors did a check with ATF BEFORE suggesting this. One article was done using a Colt P model in .45 colt . They used .410 shotgun shells cut down and loaded to chamber length. They worked very well in a rifled barrel and much better in the barrel that he had modified.I wish I still had the magazine it was in but it along with many others I had saved were burnt in a mini storage I had them temporarily stored in. You could probably do an internet search and find the article.

Is the Thompson Center Hot Shot barrel rifled ?

Eddie

I just rechecked the above mentioned authors ( not named ) ATF check and he was either wrong at the time or the law has since changed . Section 8 lists a revolver either originally made as a smooth bore or changed to smooth bore as an AOW and not illegal but subject to a $5.00 fee and filing with them for permission to own it before you ream it out. This could have been the case at the time this article was current but was not mentioned by this author.

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Grumpy Old Man With a Gun

The C.E. Harris article is quite dated, but it may remain the best information on .45 ACP shotshells. For those who aren't familiar with his work, Harris has been among the very best of gun writers, though I don't think he does much, if any, of this work anymore.

He's certainly a long-recognized authority on all aspects of cast bullets.

I took a Taurus Judge with a 6 inch barrel and took all lands and grooves out of the first 5 inches BACK from the muzzle and left the last 1 inch of rifling in. This satisfies the law and acts like the old Paradox system. You can absolutely shoot hand thrown clays with it. Lotsa fun.

That's a lot of shot.

Maybe I'll try it on grouse. Fire for effect.

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That's just somebody talkin.