ORIGINAL: James B
I am loading some CAS loads for a Blackhawk revolver. Has anyone used a taper crimp die for light loads in the LC? I am shooting 165 grain LFN bullets and there really isn't a crimp grove to roll crimp them. I have a 45 ACP Taper crimp die and it looks like they have a pretty good crimp. I am just shooting 6.0 grains of Tite Group.
Also, As I recall way back when I shot bowling pins with a S&W 45 LC revolver. It seems the diameter of the bullets was 454. Later when I shot single action with the Ruger, it seemed to like 452 diameter bullets better. Did Ruger go 452 instead of the old 454?
I never taper crimp with lead bullets for revolver use! If you are using lead bullets, a crimp groove is NOT necvessary to roll crimp them-the brass will fold right into the bullet whether there's a grrove there or not!
To the best of my knowledge, Ruger never made any .454" groove diameter barrels in .45 Colt. The MAIN consideration is that your chamber throats be not a lot bigger than the barrel groove diameter. I once had a
beautiful Colt New Frontier single action. But it was impossible from the accuracy standpoint. The reason was, I discovered, that the chambers in the cylinder had .458" throats, and the groove diameter was only .452".
The bullets swaged up to .458" going through the chambers, then were squeezed back down to .452" to get down the barrel! Bad news!!