I shoot brass from Rocky Mountain Cartridge.   I have a side by side, they work great.   I also appreciate anything I can reload using a stick with a nail, a mallet and another stick.  Use 80 grains of ffg black powder, card, wad, lead shot, and card.   Usually top the card with some white glue.

Mogorilla,
You didn't vote, neither did Coffinmaker (one wurd).  We have two Brass shell users who need to be proud of their Luddite tendencies!

I have probably a hundred brass shells, but I don't use them except for show because they hang up on loading and give weaker results without a good crimp.  I saw some of them a week or two ago and thought about cleaning them up and selling them except for one box, I think 3 boxes have never been used or opened.

All in jest... but please vote above.

• Have you ever considered crimping the mouth with a tool like the RCBS die set?   I don't know anyone who does that and I always wanted to ask how well that worked and whether or not the crimp "opened up". 
• Do you anneal your brass if you do?
• Do your shells use 209 primers or Large Pistol?
• I'm not familiar with those shells, are they the ones turned on a lathe?
• If it doesn't ruin the shot column getting out and I might consider Brass shells again, but I would want to build the column height up to actually use the crimp to contain the load and build pressure.
• I'll bet you get lower velocities with 80 grains that we can get out of a plastic wad or fiber wad in a star crimped or roll crimped plastic hull with 40-50 grains.  I don't need more fire or smoke I already use Fg just for that.     
• My experience with Brass hulls is that about half of the powder is ejected out the front with less flame and a lot of unburned  powder lying on the ground.   
• I've tried all kinds of glues and even got some water (sodium silicate) since I was told that was the answer.  I didn't notice better result than a wood glue or Duco cement.

     
Maybe I'll add Brass shells to my list of things to try again.

~Mako

   WHAT??  Curmudgeon??  Extraordinaire??  Why Sir, I'll have you know I strongly RESEMBLE that.    So There.  And I prefer STONE wheels    And Coffinmaker is ONE WURD!!  Take That   

Which brings about one of my Buggaboos and annoyances whilst practicing the Dark Art of Gun Plumbing.  RUGER.  Purportedly the most superb of superb of Single Action tools.  Hornswagel.  I never met a Ruger I liked.  Ruger be famous, or infamous for delivering their marvelously magical Vaqueros with grossly undersize throats.  In any caliber.  What crap.  They ALL needed the throats reamed.

Hummmmm.  Plastics.  Really??  Plastics.  I Am Reviewing The Situation (Stoled famous movie line).  Burma Shave

:)Hey !! 

So how is it then, when we swage a Round Ball down in the Chamber, well sub bore diameter, the stupid thing will group just fine.  Shooting just as accurate as most suppository shooters.  Atz Oxymoron.  Really.  So, why don't we just skip ALL of this super technical fecal matter and just load Roun Ball in our Suppository Shooters???

Harrumpff

Spoken like a true Moss Back... a Curmudgeon extraordinaire... Our Coffin Maker.

When you only get a contact patch like this on these two Ø.454 (or Ø.457, I can't remember now)  Balls driven down the barrel of a a Gen 1 SAA  you can get away with almost anything.  I'll look up the diameters when I get home.  That was 12 or 13 years ago.



The only man I know who uses iron Banded wheels on his truck instead of a pneumatic tires.

And you are correct, there are a few variables.  The Throat probably being number one and the groove diameter being number two in importance.

"There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?"

~Mako

Last time I was in Baltimore I swung by the grocery store to pick up some Tastycake pies and had to pay .05 each for the 2 paper bags I needed. Baltimore County’s silliness. FYI.

Gotta pay for the Bridge some how 

My 625 smith [.452 boolits] is very accurate. When I bought a beautiful used 45colt Anaconda I found that it patterned instead of grouped. Why I got a deal. After much experimenting I eventually discovered that .454 boolits would group, any other diameter would pattern.

Ed,
Five questions:

• Have you measured the diameter of the exit throats on the 625?  I'm curious as to the size.
• And, do you know what general date the revolver was produced/purchased?
• What diameter bullets were you trying in the Colt before you settled on Ø.454?
• I'm assuming those were lead bullets at the Ø.454 diameter, what weight and bullet shape?
• Have you measured the diameter of the Anaconda's chamber throats?

I am not a SAA expert, but I do have one 1st Generation .45 Colt made in 1896.  The only other SAA pattern pistolas I have are a pair of USFAs in .38 spl the kids used.  Too bad they are out of business now.

This I do know:

• The Gen 1 SAA  used Ø.454 bullets (Lead of course)
• Gen 1 ran through 1940 
• Gen 1 rifling groove diameter was Ø.454
• In 1956 with the advent of the Gen 2 the groove diameter was changed to Ø.452 (some say Ø.451) 
• There have been discussions and arguments by both collector and shooters over whether or not all Gen 2 cylinders have smaller throat diameters to accommodate the new smaller diameter bores.
• Gen 3 models began in the late '70s, again I don't know the groove diameter.  (Ø.451 groove diameters?)  Main difference was in the barrel threads and the cylinder bushing.
• There really isn't a 4th Gen of SAA, though some people will call it that because they went back to the removable cylinder bushing, Colt's doesn't differentiate and the collectors usually don't.

Now to the Anaconda, I beg your patience, but I have a short story:
I suspect they were/are still using some of the same (old) tooling and equipment to drill and ream the cylinders for both the SAA and the Anaconda.  In 1998 during a tour of the revolver line they were using a multiple station (at least 3 to my memory) vertical boring/reaming machine (probably custom built for Colt's) with 6 spindles per station. They were using it as a vertical drilling and reaming machine.  It was ancient, it still had the pulleys on it to allow it to be run from overhead shafts.  But, I was told by the accompanying engineer  the machine had been "modernized" after WW2 to have it's own electric motor.  I remember it well because they were using it to only drill one hole at a time, and after the 6 chambers were drilled it was passed to another worker to the right and then he reamed the chambers one at a time.  It was set up for the Anaconda, but I was told they also did SAAs on it.  I remember because of the inefficiency and I mentioned that they could use "DREAMERS" if they were only roughing the chamber and reaming the throat.  I was told by the worker on the machine very forcefully, "I DRILL, he reams".  I was waved off by the engineer I was with and the union steward who was with us began protesting me being there.

So that story was just to let you know I wouldn't be surprised if the tooling is shared between those two revolvers still and further more it wouldn't surprise me if the cylinder throats were Ø.454 or actually larger, which is why your revolver was more accurate with that size bullet.

So, the problem with not knowing the actual groove diameter or the throat diameters really crop up with jacketed bullets.  I don't know of any Ø.454 Jacketed bullets readily available for retail purchase, so you will be limited to Ø.452 max pistol bullets (not .45 Rifle bullets).  The pressures can spike when forcing a jacketed bullet through a small bore or even a small throat.  I don't think you will have any problem with Ø.454 bullets in a pistol with a .452 rifling groove and if that is what it likes then that is what you should shoot.  However I suspect your cylinder throats are probably Ø.454 or larger.

The S&W M1950 was a target pistol used by even the Army shooting team for the ".45 Caliber Pistol" portion of the Bullseye matches and Colts in .38 Special were commonly used in the '50s and '60s for the "Centerfire" Portion.  And, as I reported in a post above, many 1950 and 1955 (25s) had/have Ø.454 throats and they are very accurate.  However those match pistols were required at the time to shoot ball ammo and it was Ø.451 and they are very accurate.  There are a lot of factors and some weapons just like a certain weight or diameter.

I hope I didn't muddle too much or bore you.  Good shooting to you and if you have those measurements it would help me as a student of all things that go "bang".

~Mako

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