Lee just brought out collet style crimp dies for 357, 44 and 45. Have them all but only used the 357 so far. Excellent for tube magazines. Thanks for the vid!
Great video, you are spot on with your method. I loaded the same remedy a few days ago, same, powder, same 8.5grains, same COL, same brass but CCI 300 primers. I used the Missouri #12, 200 grains Cowboy bullets and shot them through my Pietta .45LC Frontier. Excellent performance, super accurate load, impact with authority at 875 average FPS. I went ahead and loaded another 50 rounds with the same load data and off I will be out to the range in a few hours. Unique seems to do a great compromising job as to case capacity versus safe load grains. My all time favorite powder for such loads is Trail Boss, which is almost impossible to find available anywhere nowadays. Thanks again for a great video.
Thanks. I have bumped the charge up to 9.0g now. It blows the case out a little more so it’s not as sooty. Unique is getting hard to find also. I just picked up some shooters world clean shot to try. It’s bulky like unique but is a ball powder.
@@243Outdoors People underestimate 45 Colt in a modern rifle with good brass. I have the Lee 457-340-f that I size to .454 and load over H110. It's a hammer.
I use 7.8 gr of Unique with a 200gr LRNFP form Laser Cast in my Remington/Uberti New Model Army 45 Colt Conversion. They shoot a tight group 4" high at 10 yards. Not bad for a piston and cartridge designed over 150 years ago.
pretty close to my load for the 200 grainers... I am using 8.9gr unique for mine. Shoots well. Glad to see you casting, loading, and shooting in the 45 colt.
If you load a little too light, the brass doesn't expand and seal perfectly, which causes the cases to get a little carbon on the outside and sometimes sends some powder flakes back at you.
I have done a lot (several thousand) of .44 Mag reloading with 429-200-RF powder coated bullets. I have got a Lee FC die, yet I do not use it on these bullets. If a bullet has a crimp groove and is sized properly, crimping in the same operation with seating is as good as a separate roll crimp operation - the bullet has an empty space for the case mouth to go into as it is squeezed by the crimping recess in the die body. Never had any jam or other issue with my reloads, used mainly in a 92 Rossi lever gun. The setting of the seat-and-crimp die takes me about 2 minutes max - seating without crimp for COL, backing up the seating stem, setting the crimp and advancing the seating stem to touch the bullet previously seated, then adding about 1/60th of a turn with the round out of the die. The Lee FC die is for other situations - revolver bullets with a crimp cannelure instead of a groove (like Hornady XTP) or pistol ammo with a straight case and taper crimp - separate operations are advisable because a combined seat-and-crimp means squeezing the mouth into a bullet with no groove while the bullet is moving in the case. This would result in "bulldozing" the jacket or lead of the bullet when the crimping operation advances beyond simple flare closing. 11:35 - with the charging procedure used it would be good to at least mention the need for an additional QC step of checking the charges by looking into the charged cases on the tray with a flashlight, looking for any deviations from a uniform level. The zero - charge - check procedure has a major flaw - one may by accident zero the scale with a case already charged, then double charge - and checking on the scale will not show it. I saw a revolver cylinder kaboomed (3 chambers open, user fortunately uninjured) by exactly this kind of mistake. With Unique and its relatively low bulk density it may be less critical - a double charge would be close to compression of powder and easily noticeable, but if someone uses Titegroup (very dense for such a fast burning powder) - all bets are off.
Enjoyed your video. Only thing I do different is when using RCBS dies, I do not prime until after expanding. Because the RCBS dies can unseat the primers with the air pressure. Something that will not happen with the Lee powder through expanding dies because they will not trap air.
Since everything is assembly-line a person can you get very efficient I like how he uses the powder measurer first and then puts it on the scale ,,cool
I love Unique for mid-level .45 Colt loads, but the real trick is being able to find *anywhere* that has it available at all. I haven't seen it for the last three years at least. 😥
No offense but i only use a reloading block when i am adding powder. the rest of the time i made a case kicker to knock the cases off the press so i only touch each case once per each step. Take care.
OMG, talk about tedious! If a store bought 45LC is about 1 dollar each, can you estimate what the cost of loading one of your own bullets is? Not counting needed equipment or time, just the cost of material for one round. Honestly after watching this, if I were given all the equipment I think I'd still go to the store and buy the ammo... wow, I commend your patience but whew,
