Saddle Up with the Latest In Classic ‘Cowboy Ca’tridges’
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Cowboy Action shooting is still one of the fastest-growing shooting games in the country, with participants dressing up in all sorts of outfits, donning big hats, cowboy boots and spurs, fancy dresses and, of course, a lot of sixguns.
To feed those hungry smoke wagons, ammunition companies are wisely throwing plenty of energy into the production of loads in various calibers designed specifically for the sport.
Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to put a couple of new single-action revolvers chambered in .45 Colt through their paces on various projects, one a Ruger New Vaquero and the other a Taurus Gaucho. Both had 5&Mac251;-inch barrels. Sometime in the spring, I’m going to get hold of a Charles Daly single-action made by Pietta, and probably versions of the Taurus and Ruger with 7-1/2 inch tubes for a little project involving a new Hodgdon powder called Trail Boss that you’ll be reading about. All of these guns are basically the same size, with about the same heft and feel as a Colt SAA. The Taurus and Ruger performed as advertised, and the common denominator was ammunition.
These wheelguns, like most of the rest of today’s crop of single-action hardware for wannabe cowpunchers and gunslingers, are not designed to take the higher-pressure loads specifically meant for use in the Ruger Blackhawk and other heavier-framed revolvers, or the Thompson/Center Contender and Encore pistols.
That said, none of these modern firearms is a wimp. I expect that metallurgy used to produce the new generation of sixguns is light years ahead of where firearms were 125 years ago. However, let’s not push our luck.
Besides, the standard .45 Colt load has never been a wallflower, even in the days when they used blackpowder cartridges. The annals of Old West history are filled with accounts of high-smellin’, low-down skunks meeting their demise from the business end of an 1873 Colt Single Action Army. The .45 Colt was the “weapon of choice” for town marshals, Texas Rangers, outlaws, cowpokes and gunmen. Those people depended upon their sidearms frequently for survival, sometimes for food; they didn’t pack that hardware for laughs.
When you get right down to it, a .45-caliber bullet stroking along in the neighborhood of 850-900 feet-per-second (fps) is no more or less a fight stopper, whether it comes from a single-action revolver or a semi-auto pistol chambered in .45 ACP. And make no mistake, some of today’s loadings for the .45 Colt cartridge deliver those kinds of ballistics.
Originally introduced waaaay back in 1873, the .45 Colt (often erroneously referred to as the “.45 Long Colt” for no discernible reason other than the length of the cartridge case, compared to the .45 Schofield and .45 ACP) has a rather pitiful case head that does not project out very far from the case body. As a result, some reloaders have experienced cases being pulled out of shell holders during the resizing stroke. It may not happen often, but once is enough.
However, that doesn’t stop the dedicated shooter from brewing up his or her own cartridges, and there is abundant reloading data available from Lyman, Hornady, Speer, Nosler, Sierra and Hodgdon for anyone wanting to cook up .45 Colt loads for a variety of purposes.
Incidentally, Lyman offers bullet moulds, and the bullet companies produce a very good assortment of lead and jacketed bullets for the .45 Colt cartridge.
A lot of people reload their own cartridges for Cowboy Action shooting, but a lot of them also do not, which brings us around to the subject at hand: Manufactured ammunition for today’s cowboy.
Commercial Reloads
My good pal Harry Thomas, a retired police lieutenant from Ohio now living in Indiana, got into Cowboy Action shooting a while back and tells me that he buys 1,000-round lots of reloads from a company that specializes in that called Ammo Direct. All you do is supply the brass, and the money (of course). Harry shoots this stuff out of his second generation Colt SAA with a 5&Mac251;-inch barrel and a Cimarron Thunderer with a 3&Mac251;-inch bore, and he swears by it.
Others, of course, use the new factory fodder, and there is some very good ammunition available from virtually all the big names. I have lately burned enough of it on the range to say that without fear of being challenged. It is loaded with lead bullets only, and charged to turn in velocities much slower than 1,000 fps in handguns and 1,400 fps in long guns, a requirement for shooters involved in events sponsored by the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS). This significantly reduces the potential for injuries, no matter how slight, to shooters from such things as ricochets.
Officially, the Remington Express 250-grain lead round nose bullet is supposed to leave the muzzle at about 860 fps, while CCI’s Trail Blazer flat nose exits at 750 fps. Hornady’s 255-grainer checks out of the bore at 725 fps, virtually identical to the Winchester cowboy load I clocked at just over 722 fps.
Indeed, I chronographed some of these cowboy competition loads and they all scooted along in the neighborhood of 725-750 fps. If that seems rather anemic, there is a logical reason for it. Cowboy Action shooters aren’t in this game for recoil, they’re in it to win, and when all they need to do is punch a hole in paper or conk over a steel target at reasonably short range, 725 to 800 fps is all the horsepower a shooter needs.
Besides, if they were loaded any hotter, shooters would experience plenty of lead fouling.
All the Cowboy loads I tested were of moderate recoil, and allowed me to re-acquire my sights and targets swiftly.
(Secret: These ballistics are definitely terminal for small to mid-sized game, too!)
Naturally, if I were going to reload the .45 Colt for a bit more serious work, I would select a bullet weight and powder charge that would boost velocity without screwing me up in the chamber pressure department. If you can cook up loads that are snappy, but below the maximum working pressure of 15,900 c.u.p., then you’re in the berries.
Factory Ammo
But let’s stick to one subject: Cowboy competition and factory ammunition.
For my assorted sixgun evaluations, the first thing I did was to secure quantities of .45 Colt ammunition from various manufacturers. That included samples from Remington, Winchester, and, of course, Black Hills Ammunition. Hornady and CCI-Blazer also offer loads specifically for today’s cowboy gunslingers.
Speer also turns out a Gold Dot hollowpoint in .45 Colt, and Winchester offers a Silvertip, but because these rounds propel jacketed bullets, they are not allowed for use in SASS-sanctioned Cowboy Action shooting. However, a lot of people carry wheelguns chambered in .45 Colt for reasons other than shooting paper desperadoes, so just for the sake of saying I did it, I added both Gold Dots and Silvertips to my evaluations simply to see how well they would perform in the two single-action guns I happened to obtain. The Gold Dots clocked at about 950 fps, while the Silvertips departed in the 850-fps arena, and that’s pretty good for a jacketed bullet fired from a .45 Colt.
Early last year, Gun Week readers will recall, I ran a Taurus Tracker in .45 Colt through its paces, using this same ammunition. Now, the double-action Tracker is no cowboy gun. It’s a five-round, relatively lightweight handgun that could easily be used for hunting, backpacking, and personal protection. But it is also not designed to take a pounding from “magnum” charged .45 ammunition. That revolver worked like a champ with every factory round I fed it, and would be ideally charged with either Gold Dots or Silvertips.
One thing I discovered is that nearly all of this ammunition, with the exception of Hornady’s cowboy load, one of two Remington Express selections and CCI’s Trail Blazer, was topped with 250-grain bullets, even the Gold Dots. Hornady finishes their cartridges off with a 255-grain lead semi-wadcutter, Remington offers a 225-grain semi-wadcutter and the Trail Blazer is loaded with a 230-grain pill.
You will also note, should you mix and match Cowboy factory ammunition, that the Black Hills and Winchester offerings push flat-nosed lead projectiles, while the Remington bullet is more of a true round nose. Does this alter accuracy? Not so much that anyone is going to notice, particularly at the target distances one shoots along the Cowboy circuit.
So, what’s the bottom line here? Simple: Today’s Cowboy Action loads from ammunition companies are simply terrific. If you’re headed to the range, or the Last Roundup shootin’ match, you could do no better than stock up on .45 Colt ammunition from Black Hills, Remington, Winchester, Hornady, CCI and/or Hornady. The stuff goes bang every time, and it will keep you in gunsmoke until the last round goes downrange.
Rsources
Ammo Direct Ammunition
PO Box 341896, Dept. GWK
Bartlett, TN 38134;
phone: 800-266-6347;
on-line: www.ammodirect.com
Black Hills Ammunition
PO Box 3090, Dept. GWK
Rapid City, SD 57709
Phone: 605-348-5150
www.black-hills.com
CCI/Speer
2299 Snake River Ave., Dept. GWK
Phone: 208-746-2351
www.cci-ammunition.com
www.speer-bullets.com
Charles Daly
PO Box 6625, Dept. GWK
Harrisburg, PA 17212
Phone: 866-DALY-GUN
www.charlesdaly.com
Cimarron Firearms
PO Box 906, Dept. GWK
Fredericksburg, TX 78624
Phone: 877-SIXGUN1
www.cimarron-firearms.com
Hodgdon Powder
6231 Robinson, Dept. GWK
Shawnee Mission, KS 66202
Phone: 913-362-9455
www.hodgdon.com
Hornady Mfg. Co.
PO Box 1848, Dept. GWK
Grand Island, NE 68803
Phone: 308-382-1390
www.hornady.com
Lyman Products
475 Smith St., Dept. GWK
Middletown, CT 06457
Phone: 800-225-9629
www.lymanproducts.com
Nosler
PO Box 671, Dept. GWK
Bend, OR 97709
Phone: 800-285-3701
www.nosler.com
Remington
PO Box 700, Dept. GWK
Madison, NC 27025
Phone: 800-243-9700
www.remington.com
Sierra Bullets
1400 West Henry St., Dept. GWK
Sedalia, MO 65301
Phone: 888-223-3006
www.sierrabullets.com
Sturm, Ruger & Co.
1 Lacey Place, Dept. GWK
Southport, CT 06890
Phone: 2o3-259-7843
www.ruger.com
Taurus International
16175 NW 49th Ave., Dept. GWK
Miami, FL 33014
Phone: 800-327-3776
www.taurususa.com
Thompson, Center Arms
PO Box 5002, Dept. GWK
Rochester, NH 03866
Phone: 603-332-2394
www.tcarms.com
Winchester Ammo
427 No. Shamrock, Dept, GWK
East Alton, IL 62024
Phone: 618-258-2000
www.winchester.com
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