625 .45 ACP "Pin Hammers"

Joined
Oct 17, 2017
Messages
4,329
Likes
8,164
Location
The mountains of S.E Tenn
Feedback: 6 / 0 / 0
Anyone on here, have experience with anything heavier than 230 gr in .45 acp? Or Auto rim, can't forget that.

I can find load data and probably read about them elsewhere, but wanted to know if there was a braintrust on this here.

Looking at 250-260 grs. 255 seems to be the popular one. Probably be a RN or TC design (for speed loads), no lube grooves

Revolver works fine with 230's, but the whole point of casting and reloading is tailor fitting.

I was looking at it last night (the 625) and its around the break-in point (somewhere between 1000 and 1500 rds), so its time for a gut-and-polish, and possible cylinder throat reaming ( might not need it, still have to measure it) among other things that I've been putting off or have just been either too busy or lazy to do.

Power factor's not an issue. I.C.O.R.E p.f. for ltd 6 is ridiculously low and even 700 fps puts me well over major.
 
Thank you @Michael J. Spangler for the articles.
Excellent read and some good info.

If I can figure out how to do it, I'll post em here. If anyone else is one of those "weird revolver guys" you'll dig it.
Love those articles. Let me tell you I’ve pushed some heavies from the 625 and it’s super fun.
If you do some research you’ll see that the 625 can be “upgraded” to 460 Rowland. All they do is ream the chambers 1/16” deeper. So that gun can handle some hot loads. 45 ACP +P is light compared to the 460
 
Lookin at either one of these for this winter-



Both would be that Hitek coated.
 
Lookin at either one of these for this winter-



Both would be that Hitek coated.
I do like those.
Have you looked at the MP moulds “640” nose style? I’m sure it’s labeled as a 452640 or 454640

I have that nose shape in a 170 grain 38 and it’s awesome.

Are you roll crimping the auto rim or taper crimping?
 
Probably taper.
I have maybe 2 boxes of auto rim someone gave me a while back, but buckets of acp and 50 (?) moon's.
One of those articles points out case capacity, which is what I was on the fence about, but I believe there 1/10 of a drop of water difference with it in favor of the a.r.
The missing 1/10 must be down by the shoulder of the a.c.p., probably due to the rimless design? If I could cut both cases in half I could probably find it.
So mid range load data should be more than fine.
I like the slab-side or the grooveless and tumble lube designs for this (or pretty much anything) because it gives more of a bearing surface for both rifling engagement and for taper crimping, I just don't want to have to push it on the fast side because now its dragging going down the barrel.
I'm most likely overthinking this.

I can say that without a magazine to limit stretching, this is where a good die comes in.

I have one of those Redding Profile Crimp dies, which was recommended when searching around a few years back. Worth the $28 bucks for it.
The proprietary die on the sq deal also seems to work pretty good, haven't had any issues with "growing". Load six, shoot five, pull out the moon and put calipers to it. Good to go.

Completely unrelated- I see that Charter now makes a .380 six shot without the need for moons
 
I loaded some pretty stout loads when I first played with the 625. One of the bullets I had was of a rather soft alloy and dropped about 12 grains heavier than nominal weight IIRC. It was in the 290 range.
I went a little lighter on the powder charge compared to the Handloader article but they were still moving.
with a normal taper crimp they never jumped crimp at all.

I like the moonless revolvers. Some day I’ll score a Medusa 47
 
Found these in the cabinet.
Older guy gave them to me a few years back at a pin shoot.
One of the boxes has a reload data sticker of 2008.
I’m assuming they were all made at once as they all look the same.
Going to try and check zero on the 627 tomorrow, maybe i’ll bang steel with some of these too.
I love buried treasure.
E32C82D7-E907-405A-AB6C-DD6D7F6C089C.jpeg
 
Nice. They look fun! Do they list a velocity?
Reminds me a scored a ton of old Remington 45 AR ammo. 230 RN lead. Who knows if it’s any good. Worth it for the brass though.
Found these in the cabinet.
Older guy gave them to me a few years back at a pin shoot.
One of the boxes has a reload data sticker of 2008.
I’m assuming they were all made at once as they all look the same.
Going to try and check zero on the 627 tomorrow, maybe i’ll bang steel with some of these too.
I love buried treasure.
View attachment 365011
 
Hoooooooooooooo boy, found my new favorite load for this 625.
Little bit more ass than a 230 rn , little less than a 240 gr .44 spl

So I took one of the spent shells, weiged it at 91.9 grs
Took a loaded unfired and it clocked in at 355.8 grs.
Assuming a spent primer weighs as much as a good primer.....................
Subtract...........
CALCULATING!!!!!!!
Beep bop boop

263.9..........

Computing.........

Could very well be a 250-255 gr head. Looks kind of like a Lyman 452424 mold drop or a Saeco 458.

This winters project is to duplicate this into .45 acp. Mostly because I'm too cheap to buy speed loaders and too lazy to pick up brass. So much easier with a moon.
 
Going to put some stuff here for right now (various websites), because I have no way to save it and access it elsewhere and I'm going to need reference stuff-

I used both Speer swaged SWC's and my own cast #454490's and the Unique data for the 250 Speer product in the 45 AR--5.8 grain to 6.2 grains of Unique. These seemed mild to moderate in the wheeler at the time.

I went ahead and loaded some commercially cast 254 grain SWC's over 5.2 grains of Unique

My old Lyman manual lists 452423 over 6.3 gr of Unique as a max.

I used Unique also. I also tried pushing them some with Blue Dot in the Ruger Blackhawk but honestly wasn't impressed with what velocity gains

5.0 grains Unique gave 750 fps, and excellent accuracy (most accurate handload from this pistol). Due to the long exposure of full diam, this load would not chamber in semis without the long transition to rifling or M625 or non-mofified Ruger 45 acp cylinder in Blackhawk. The Lee 255 lrnfp (or is it 250 grain?) would chamber reliably, due to it's reduced diam in front of the crimp groove (bout .447). Tried up to 6.7 grains Unique (a little hot?) at 950 fps, not nearly as accurate.

255 GRAIN BAYOU BULLET LOADED TO 667 FPS (170 PF) MINIMAL RECOIL C.O.A.L IS 1.258" YOU GET A LITTLE BULGE IN THE CASE AT THE BASE OF THE BULLET BUT NOTHING THAT EFFECTS CHAMBERING IN MY CANADIAN MADE PARA P-14. I DON'T RECOMMEND USING AQUILA BRASS. START AT 3.4GR UNIQUE AND WORK UP .1 GR AT A TIME.

I made 3 rounds for each pistol using 4.0 grains of bullseye and an OAL of 1.223. So I backed the charge down to 3.8 grains for the next batch of 15. I chrony'd these yesterday out of my SR1911 and observed between 740 and 757 fps.
 
So lets see.
Got antsy last night while the wife was watching her recorded shows. Had zero interest in America Has No Talent or 90 day finance me.
So I played around a little bit.

Cut open a few cases to see the difference in case capacity. Load data for 255 gr isn't readily available,so I got that going for me. One of the older speer manuals might have something for 260 gr, but thats about it. Internet searches reveal a lot of the same stuff, so here we go. Case capacity is similar, but not exactly the same.
27.4 drops of water for the a.r., 27.3 d.o.w. for the a.c.p according to one of the articles above (graciously provided by Mr. Spangler).
From left to right are-
Black hills, or reloaded black hills, 255gr in Auto-rim. These things are stout, but 24 or so fired without issue, so I'll use that as an o.a.l. baseline.
230 gr rnfp (.452) .45 acp set to 1.230, which has worked pretty well for me so far in about everything I own chambered in .45. Haven't tried it in the 97B yet.
255 gr rnfp .45 (.452) acp set to 1.230. Might be a touch longer, but you see where I'm going.
Note the difference in usable space.
I didn't cut open an auto rim case, but take a look down towards the case.head of the acp. As it gets thicker, it doesn't jive so well with the much longer 255 and the case mouth starts to flare out.
I could pull the Auto rim and weigh the powder charge, but not knowing what powder was used, all I could do is try to figure out what it displaces at, and try to find a similar displacement with a powder I have, and then weigh that. This is where those yellow Lee spoons would come in handy. Project for another day.
Because these will be strictly for the 625, lets see if we can plunge a caliper end down and measure throat length.

IMG_0373.jpg

This is extra yucky, and weave some leading.
I don't have a pic of the forcing cone, but take my word for it, its extra yucky.
625's are famous for having throats of varying sizes. All smiths are famous for having horrible finish work.
I like smiths. I have 5 of em. But these are kit guns at best.
I knew this was going to happen, so I ordered a throat reamer.
Tough to tell with all the schmeg, but the goal here was to see how close the acp sits to the edge of the throats.
Time for a scrubbing.

IMG_0383.jpg

After a few mins with some chemicals, a bore brush and a cordless drill, I can sort of see exactly where the acp's sit (moon clipped) in relation to the throats..
If they're not right against it, then its real close, which is fine. I wasn't expecting a lot of jump like .38 spl in a .357 cylinder.

IMG_0387.jpg

Full disclosure- I am not a gunsmith. I will not pretend to be.
I'll chime in every so often on things I'm familiar with on what I own, but thats about it.
I am also not a machinist.
What I do have is about 28 or so years under my belt as a med/hvy duty mechanic. Which reminds me, I need to recert my master status, but can't get in till Oct cause of the 'Rona. So I have a pretty good idea of how things should work..
Lets cut some throats.
I grabbed a finish reamer from Brownells, and a pilot kit.
This one cuts to .4525. The pilots vary in diameter and go up to .4510 incrementally.
This is where you-tube comes in handy, because a lot of time the manufacturers of various tools will put a vid up explaining exactly what to do.
I once watched some guy fit a 1911 slide to an over sized frame with a mallet, a vice and lapping compound. Don't be that guy.
Indexing the throats is easy. Take a pilot, see how it fits in that throat, write it down, mark that cylinder, and go on to the next one.
Throats varied between .4505 and .4510. Which would explain the leading on a few of the cylinders. So I'm wondering at .452, would the coating peel off in the .4505 throats.
Required zero downforce to cut these. The weight of the tap handle was enough. A little cutting oil and away we go.

IMG_0388.jpg

Throats are cut
This is where a cylinder hone comes in handy to take out any chatter marks.
I do not have one that size.
So its a wooden dowel, some 1200 grit wet sand paper, and then ultra fine scotch-brite pad and some metal polish.
I don't need a mirror shine.
No pictures for that process. Metal polish gets everywhere and I used a lot of it. Add a cordless drill and the end result is probably what a porn shoot gone horribly wrong looks like.
Heres the end result of that.
I can see the cases reflecting in the throats, and for me and what I'm doing thats good enough.
And the fired cases dam near fall out of the cylinder under their own weight, so thats a plus.

IMG_0389 (1).jpg
IMG_0392.jpg

Next up is chamfering the cylinder.
I'll probably just get the master handgun kit from brownells because I have 5 cylinders to do (.22, .38/357/, .40/10mm and .45) and its less expensive than buying them each individually. And I'll ream those throats too, just not today.
I should have brought one of those 255's to see how they fit int the throats, but forgot to. I'll check it tonite.
 
Last edited:
Great work man!

As I said before this gun is often converted to 460 Rowland by just teaming the cylinder deeper. So don’t worry about those warm loads. The gun can handle that and more.
Look for +p 45 ACP loads and for something a little warmer you can try 45 Super. Then the top end is the 460 Rowland.

The Rowland is 1/16” longer case but is seated to the same OAL with a 230 grain so it’s the same case capacity/case fill.

Slightly thicker brass on the Rowland it’s more akin to the Starline 45 AR brass.

Then again if you’re crafty you can snag from Rowland brass and trim it to ACP length and load it hot for use in that gun.
 
For right now I'll stick with acp brass, for no other reason than I have a bucket full of it and 30 or 40 moonclips.
I think even the +p or hot loads top out at 20k psi? I don't have any books in front of me right this second. Hodgdon site might tell me something.
I was trying to cross reference some numbers and burn rates last night. Although I probably should have looked at velocity too.
So what I NEED is about 647 fps to make major p.f. I'm shooting for 675-700
Titegroup, Bullseye, 700X all seems too fast
I'm thinking between the diameter and the weight, my best bet is a slower burning powder. Burn rate charts (all over the place) seem to point to Win 231/HP38 and then Unique. I just looked at what I had, theres plenty other options out there.
I have H110 and 4227 which are great for mags but I've never seen load data for .45 in 230 for it, nevermind 255.

So this is where I'm going to lean on you and Mr. @EddieCoyle for any advice. For a large diameter, heavy projectile, would a slower handgun powder be ideal for this application.
 
For right now I'll stick with acp brass, for no other reason than I have a bucket full of it and 30 or 40 moonclips.
I think even the +p or hot loads top out at 20k psi? I don't have any books in front of me right this second. Hodgdon site might tell me something.
I was trying to cross reference some numbers and burn rates last night. Although I probably should have looked at velocity too.
So what I NEED is about 647 fps to make major p.f. I'm shooting for 675-700
Titegroup, Bullseye, 700X all seems too fast
I'm thinking between the diameter and the weight, my best bet is a slower burning powder. Burn rate charts (all over the place) seem to point to Win 231/HP38 and then Unique. I just looked at what I had, theres plenty other options out there.
I have H110 and 4227 which are great for mags but I've never seen load data for .45 in 230 for it, nevermind 255.

So this is where I'm going to lean on you and Mr. @EddieCoyle for any advice. For a large diameter, heavy projectile, would a slower handgun powder be ideal for this application.
From what I’ve read the middle of the road powder like unique and universal are the way to go with heavy weights. The slower being too slow and too low pressure to work well.
IIRC Brian Pierce had his highest speeds with Universal.
Though I would imagine you could push that with 231 easily. It’s not that fast.
 
Nice job!

And my wife is obsessed with that 90 day fiancé show. Basically anything on TLC...I can't stand that shit either.
 

Thats is fantastic.
Everytime I punched in " .45 acp 255 gr load data" or "255 .45 autorim" it brought up threads from castboolits from years back, and various other forums.
This is the first published data I've seen.
Was upstairs flipping pages and doing math. Schofield case length minus acp case length = X, Schofield o.a.l. - X = acp oal, which puts me (theoretically) on the halfway point on the front driving band @ 1.260? Which is really close to that link you just posted.
We may have lift off.
 
I like Oregon for weird data. I think western had some weird data too like 230 grain 38 cal for pin shooting and +p load data for all kinds of stuff.
 
Back
Top Bottom