Enter the 480 Achilles: A New Old Cartridge
by Jim Taylor with Lewis Ballard, Aaron Bittner, Doug Mann and John Killebrew
During its lifetime the Colt Single Action Army (SAA) was produced in a wonderful variety of calibers. While the .45 Colt, the .44-40, the .32-20 and others are pretty well known, not very many people are familiar with the largest caliber it was made in—the .476 Eley.

We know the cartridge itself was a British military round and that it was used for only a few years. To say that there has been very little excitement over the .476 Eley would be overstating the situation. It is a dead cartridge except to certain collectors, historians, and those who love to dabble in the weird and forgotten recesses of the shooting world. All of which brings us to the theme of this article—the new 480 Achilles.

Is this a giant step backward? You decide.

The 480 Achilles is the product of five slightly warped minds: Lewis Ballard; Aaron Bittner; John Killebrew; Doug Mann, and I. The project was a collaborative effort upon which we pooled our brains.

The basic idea behind the project was to find a way to build a big-bore, moderate-velocity revolver without going through the expensive and time-consuming process of building a full custom big-bore revolver. We wanted a large bore at moderate velocity, somewhat like the .45 ACP. And we wanted a way to do it fairly inexpensively.

Between us we came up with the idea of boring the .45 Colt chamber straight through (like a .22 Long Rifle chamber) and using a “heel” bullet, like what is used in the .22 Long Rifle. Since the outside of the .45 Colt is not much larger than .475 inch this would put us right at the diameter of the bullet we wanted. The conversion would be a simple matter of rechambering the cylinder and screwing in a new barrel. It doesn’t get a lot simpler than that.

Bittner set about designing the bullet and contacting the mold-maker, Mountain Molds (www.mountainmolds.com), which has on-line mold designing software so you can design your own bullet. Discussions about the length of the heel were ongoing as Bittner worked on the bullet design.

The final design was an ogival flat point with three lube grooves and a heel .200 long. The meplat is 80% of the bullet diameter. The bullet would weigh close to 300 grains when cast of 20:1 alloy. The three fine lube grooves are there to try to provide maximum holding power for dry wax lubricant. We christened the mold the “Bittner 480-290-FNH” (Flat Nose Heel).

The specs on the bullets are:

Naming the Baby
During this time a name for the new cartridge was being tossed around. Eventually we settled on “480 Achilles.” “Achilles” because of the heel, obviously. “480” was chosen because that’s the way it popped out. And it stuck.

During all this deep and heavy brain work Gary Reeder of Reeder Custom Guns (http://www.reedercustomguns.com) was contacted to see if he would be interested in building the guns for us. Since Reeder builds .475-caliber guns we knew he would have barrel stock on hand. And he seemed slightly intrigued by the idea. I mean, at least he wasn’t noticeably yawning on the phone while I rattled on and on about this new cartridge. After some discussion he agreed and ordered the reamers for the re-chambering from Dave Manson of Manson Reamers (http://www.mansonreamers.com).

I wanted to build the gun on a Colt SAA-size frame. Not wanting to modify a Colt, this pretty much meant one of the “clones” would be used. I could have easily gone with a Ruger Blackhawk. The Ruger single-actions have a much stronger frame, excellent springs and are very suitable for customizing. However, I wanted to keep my gun at least somewhat on the lines of the old Colt since we were “re-creating” an old Colt cartridge (at least in my mind). After a few days a friend contacted me that he had a gun for me that would work for this project, a “Cabela’s Millennium” revolver in .45 Colt. These are the cheaper versions of the Colt SAA reproductions put out by Uberti for Cabela’s. The interiors of the guns are identical to the other versions, but the finish is basically just bead-blasted and looks more like Parkerizing than bluing. The backstrap and trigger guard are of brass instead of steel.

I decided to replace the brass backstrap and trigger guard with a steel one. I asked a few friends and John Taffin was kind enough to furnish a Colt backstrap and trigger guard. I included these with the gun when I sent it off to Reeder Custom Guns, along with instructions as to barrel length, grips, finish, sights, etc.

Loading Dies
As far as the loading process, cartridge cases are made by shortening .45 Colt cases to .90-inch overall. The short cartridges can be resized and deprimed in standard .45 Colt dies. The necks can be expanded with normal dies available or a person can make one like I use which is a tapered plug. Priming is standard .45 Colt. Bullet seating can be done with .45 Colt dies by running the seating plug quite a ways out toward the base. All that is needed is the proper nose shape on the end to keep from deforming the bullet. The crimp die was the critical part of the equation.

The crimp is essential to keep the loaded round from “pooping.” By that I mean that without a crimp it is quite possible for the bullet to be moved from the cartridge by the force of the primer before the powder charge has ignited. Proper pressures will not be developed, nor will they be consistent; all which are detrimental to accuracy. With a heeled bullet like the 480 Achilles it is all the more critical since you have the major portion of the bullet outside of the cartridge case. Thus the cartridge itself does not help much in the way of adding to the force required to get the bullet moving—“bullet pull” in technical terms.

A standard crimp die will not work since the bullet is the same diameter as the cartridge. This presents a real problem, but eventually we worked out a way to convert a Lee 45-70 collet-type crimping die so it would make a proper crimp for the 480 Achilles. The conversions are now done by Belt Mountain, Box 353, Dept. GWK, Belgrade, MT 59714.

Silk Purse—Sow’s Ear
While the experiments were still on going in the effort to develop a proper crimp die, Reeder called and said the gun was finished and that he was shipping it back. The next few days I was on pins and needles waiting for it to arrive. I don’t usually get this anxious but I was excited about getting my hands on this gun.

One Tuesday as I was on the shooting range, I noticed the UPS truck coming my way. I went to the gate to meet him and he said he had a package for me. Love that brown truck! I took the package, opened it up and found a completely new gun. I had sent a Millennium revolver to Reeder and I got back what looked like a custom Colt SAA. It was beautiful. And it did not bear any resemblance to the gun I had sent off.

The gun had a 7-1/2 inch barrel with a custom front sight. The grips were of Screwbean mesquite and nicely finished. Reeder had fitted the Colt SAA backstrap and trigger guard and mated them perfectly. There was enough engraving on the gun to really set off the deep black finish. On the left side of the barrel it was marked “480 ACHILLES;” on the top were the names of all the team that worked on it: “BALLARD-BITTNER-KILLEBREW-MANN-TAYLOR. The right side of the barrel was marked “PROTOTYPE” in gold lettering.

I immediately went to the shop and grabbed about 30 rounds of ammo I previously loaded. On the range I fired the first shots and found the gun to be extremely pleasant to shoot. Recoil was very mild. Reeder had the sights centered and I found it easy to hit hedge apples (about the size of a softball) at 25 yards offhand.

I did not do any testing at this time. I was just enjoying shooting the gun too much. That would wait for a later day. Right now was a time to bask in the enjoyment of a plan coming together. Reeder had indeed taken a “sow’s ear” and turned it into a “silk purse.”

This is not a “magnum” nor is it intended to be “magnumized.” In the Colt-sized guns one could quickly get past the safe point should one try to hot-rod it. As stated at the first, our goal was a large bore bullet at moderate velocity. That we have achieved

The loads in the 850 to 900 feet-per-second (fps) range are my favorites. I used one such load to take a nice Javelina sow opening day of the Arizona Handgun, Archery and Muzzleloader Season. (See story elsewhere in this issue.) The shot in the right rear ham as the pig was running away from me shattered the leg bone, penetrated full length through the body and exited low on the left chest, then through the left front leg and on out. Not bad performance though admittedly the Javelina is not a large critter.

Last
The name of the gun is “480 Achilles.” Note that there is no “.” in front of “480.” This is not a caliber, just a name. We have copyrighted the name but not to keep folks from using it. We could not do that anyhow and we do not want to. Any gunsmith who builds one can put the name of the gun on the cartridge or gun without violating the copyright.

We are copyrighting it as a reminder to folks that we would like a donation of $20 from the purchaser of each gun to go into a Missions Fund to help Missionary Paul Moreland. Paul is an avid sixgunner and a great guy as well as a good friend. He is working in impoverished areas in Colombia, South America. He can use all the help he can get and we hope by this idea to make folks aware of his work and, in a small way, help him in his endeavors. You can check Moreland’s work out at http://www.sacm.net. Tax-deductible donations if you build a gun can be sent to: Paul Moreland, PO Box 1593, Dept. GWK, Joplin, MO 64802.

Hopefully this will not only be a fun project, but a useful one also.

For a full account of how the cartridge and bullet were developed, along with the loading data and other information, go to http://www.leverguns.com/480/default.htm on the web.

So far our loading data covers only a few powders with the cartridges tested in one particular gun for information only. Do not attempt to duplicate these loads without consulting more experienced advice. If you do attempt to use this data, back off power loads by at least 10% to start, and increase gradually.

All loads use CCI Large Pistol Primers
All loads with the Bittner 480-290-FNH bullet (290-grain heel bullet)
All fired from 7&Mac251;-inch barrel
7 feet from muzzle to first screen
All velocities are averages

I tried lubing the bullets with conventional alox-based lube in the lube grooves. One thing I found was that we designed the bullet with grooves too small to hold enough lube for conventional lubrication. Over 800 fps and leading occurred. But by using the Lee Liquid Alox, coating the bullets entirely and letting them dry for 24 hours, we have no leading problems at all.

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