.45 Colt cases

[Skinny 1950]

I have some reloading equipment on order and have been gathering brass for .45 Colt. I bought 60 rounds of Hornady Cowboy Action Loads (255 grain RNFP),50 rounds of American Eagle 225 grain jacketed soft point and got 300 once fired brass from a scrap yard.
In the picture on the left is the Hornady Cowboy brass and on the right is a sample of the 300 fired brass, there are a couple of differences between them.
The Cowboy brass is .053 inches shorter and the other sample has a crimp around the case about .44 inches from the end.
I am wondering if the brass with the crimp is suitable for reloading or is it too weak at the crimp line???
I imagine that the dies will have to be adjusted for the different lengths as well,anyone have any thoughts on this...thanks ...Skinny 1950

 

[daBear]

Looks like those ba**ards art Hornady strike again. They did the same thing with their 45-70 Leverevolution ammo when it was introduced. Mainly due to their proprietary bullets. So you need to pay attn to OAL when loading 'cuz if u set it deeper to the normal crimping groove, you will most likely increase the pressure significantly.
Cheers
dB

 

[daBear]

I just checked both the Hornady 45Colt and 44-40 Cowboy loads against the Winchester cowboy loads and there was no difference in cartridge lengths. Yours may be brand new and they're in the process of changing..Weird..
dB

 

[ckid]

Don't worry about the casing with the cannelure in them... I had 1 batch of WW .45 colt that looked just like that and they are still in use after 10 or so years...

Having to deal with 2 different lengths of cases will be a pain in the @ss though... You will need to change your over all lenght and and crimp so everything comes out properly (so the case mouth crimps into the crimp groove)...

 

[Skinny 1950]

Thanks for the help with this....I will start with the 300 cases (some of them are WW) that have the crimp as they are all the same length (haven't got the press yet).
I am going to load black powder as the gun is a black powder frame 1873 SAA replica.
The Goex website suggests 43 grains of FFG which seems a bit much,I am thinking of starting with 30 grains of FFFG (which I have for cap and ball revolvers) with wads to make up the space and provide slight compression.
Anyone else loading black powder cartridges???