450Bushmaster.net

For me, Siringo's recipe, Barnes 275gr solid copper in front of 34.5grs of Lil'gun.

Mine too! I just picked up some 325 gr 45-70 FXT's and am going to resize them to .452 and give them a push.

Siringo wrote:Mine too! I just picked up some 325 gr 45-70 FXT's and am going to resize them to .452 and give them a push.

Me Too. I picked up a couple hundred, but I won't be able to start on them for a couple of months. That second crimp grove, on that bullet, was in part, put in for us 450b drivers to side crimp into. If we get good results they may make us a dedicated heavy weight. This bullet was made for the hot loaded 45-70 and dangerous game, like Moose and the big Bears, as opposed to a muzzle loader bullet, so if we can get it going, and I believe with guys like Siringo, this will be like falling off a log, the biggies will respond. So there ya go, you are now the Official Field Testers, of course all good factory things came from our crowd and always have and the eyes of our industry are on this site already.

With the heavier bullets, they may require slower powder, I plan to start out with 296 and then try AA1680. 1680 was absolutely the powder of choice for the 45 Pro, if high end performance was the goal, but not now. When I go from 296 to 1680, in the 450b, the speeds fall off at least 300fps. I had hoped that the increased bullet pull from the side crimp would have done the trick for 1680, but it didn't. With this heavier bullet, 1680 might make sense, time will tell.

Lets start a separate thread related to loading the 325. I will start it today.

To date my best load, (all of my loads are geared toward hunting), has been 37 grains of LilGun under the Hornady FTX. This has shot consistantly, with the best group being a one hole 10 round string measuring 1.5" from 10 O'clock to 4 O'clock with a width of 3/4". I've also had some pretty good, consistant groups with the 250 grain Nosler JHP 43013 over 39 grains of H110 of about 1 inch. However I can't seem to get a 10 shot string going without at two flyers, and the corresponding low velocities, that open things up. IMHO these are bullets jumping the crimp.

I'm not a believer in 3 shot groups as an indicator, unless you can repeat them at will. Variation in shot dispersion can produce a one hole three shot group out of any ten shot string. So why would we trust any three shots?

In my mind a "good load" is a load that will stay at POA over a .1 grain of load variation, and 100 deg of barrel heat variation. A good example of this was a load work up I shot in my .270 WBY with RL 25. The whole work up, 25 shots over a two grain powder charge spread, stayed under 1 inch at 100. I use a Varget load in My DCM that follows this same pattern. I much prefer a load that will keep every single shot in the same inch and a half circle, to the load that will produce an occasional 1/2" group, but throws a flyer every 4 or 5 rounds, or spits out the first shot from a cold barrel.

I'm still feeling this cartridge out and loading in 1 grain increments. I'm not even close to getting down to "brass tacks" for accuracy testing.

BD