Tag: IMR 4227

A Tale of Three .357 Magnums

By Joe Berk

This blog focuses on an evaluation of the Missouri Bullets 180-grain cast lead bullet with IMR 4227 powder in the three .357 Magnum revolvers shown above:  A 6-inch Colt Python, a 6 1/2-inch Ruger Blackhawk, and the 7 1/2-inch Ruger Bisley. All three revolvers have graced these pages previously (I will provide a link to the earlier blogs below); today’s story specifically assesses the Missouri cast bullet and IMR 4227 performance.

Missouri Bullet Company’s 180-grain truncated roundnose (TRN) bullet. Notice that many of the bullet bases have cast lead overflow (not a situation conducive to great accuracy).

The Missouri bullet is heavier than most .357 bullets, which I like.  I generally prefer heavy-for-caliber bullets.  The jury was out on these, though.  I was not too pleased with an earlier batch due to casting imperfections on the bullet base.  Missouri gave me a credit for that box and I ordered another thousand.  These were better, but still not what I expected (the bullets still had some base smears and runs, as can be seen in the above photograph).

My reloaded .357 Magnum ammo. 14.0 grains of IMR 4227 comes right to the base of the RCBS 180-grain cast bullet.

The Missouri bullets made for a nice-looking load.  I loaded the ammo used for this test on my Lee Classic Four Turret press, which is my go-to reloading setup for just about any handgun cartridge.  I can’t say enough good things about the Lee gear.  It’s been great.

An 8-lb bottle of IMR 4227 powder. I’m just about out of this very good propellant. I hesitate to think what a replacement bottle will cost (it’s probably close to $500).  It works real well with cast bullets in reduced rifle loads, too.

As mentioned above, all loads used IMR 4227 powder.  I loaded in increments of 13.5 grains, 14.0 grains, and 15. o grains.  The 15.0 grains is above what most reloading references list as a max load.  I found a reference to that load on the Missouri Bullets website so I thought I would try it.  It is a very hot load.  I would not advise using it and I’m not including data for it here.

I used brass as identified in the table below, and CCI 550 small pistol magnum primers.  All cartridges were loaded to an overall length of 1.585 inches and firmly crimped with Lee’s crimping die.  My Garmin chronograph recorded all velocities.

How did I do?  The chart below summarizes what I found.

Tough to read, I know. Click on it and a larger version will pop up.
The 6 1/2-inch Blackhawk target. The top two were shot with 13.5 grains of IMR 4227; the bottom two with 14.0 grains of IMR 4227. All shots were at 50 feet with a two-hand, rested hold.  I know it looks like there are only four bullet holes in the lower right target; one bullet went through the same hole as another (it happens sometimes).
The 7 1/2 inch Bisley target. Same thing here; 13.5 grains of IMR 4227 on top and 14.0 grains on bottom.
The Python target. After noticing the 13.5-grain load shot way to the left, I noticed the rear sight problem. After moving the blade to the right, it wouldn’t stay in position, and the horizontal spread increased as the windage blade moved around.

With respect to accuracy, the above loads were mediocre.  Both Rugers did better with the 14.0-grain IMR 4227 load; the Python did better with the 13.5 grain IMR 4227 load (but I wouldn’t take that to the bank, as will be explained in the next paragraph).  None of the loads are what I would call target grade accuracy.  That may have been due to me (I’m not a world class target shooter), or it may have been due to the bullet base imperfections mentioned above.  Note that one particular combination (the 6 1/2-inch Blackhawk with a 14.0-grain load) shot a 0.721-inch group.  Maybe I just got lucky on that one, or maybe those particular cartridges had bullet bases with no casting imperfections.

Colt Python rear sight. The blade that adjusts for windage is on a non-detented adjustment screw. When the sight is in the desired position, the tiny Allen head set screw denoted by the arrow is tightened to secure it. The Python’s rear sight was obviously designed by a guy who doesn’t shoot .357 Magnum ammo very much.

Regarding the Python, I noticed that my shots for the first two groups were way to the left.  That’s because the rear sight blade had drifted to the left.  I unscrewed the tiny set screw that is intended to secure the blade in place, adjusted the windage, but the sight blade moved again when I fired the next two groups.  When I tried to tighten the set screw further, its Allen head socket stripped.  The Python’s rear sight is the gun’s weak point.  I’m replacing it with a Wilson combat sight.  The Wilson rear sight replacement will be the topic of a future blog.

With respect to velocity, the differences in barrel length between the 6 1/-inch and 7 1/2-inch Rugers can be seen (the 7 1/2-inch Ruger was faster).  The shorter 6-inch Python did well, most likely because it’s very tight barrel-to-cylinder gap, a slightly tighter bore (I’ve read that Pythons have a marginally smaller bore diameter than most other .357 Magnums), and a more polished bore overcame the longer-barreled Rugers’ length advantage.

I think IMR 4227 is a good powder in the .357 Magnum.  It gives velocities comparable to Winchester 296, another great choice for this cartridge.  The Missouri bullets do not provide, in my opinion, target grade accuracy.  I may load some of these with the 14.0 grain load using bullets that I screen for good bases (i.e., no casting defects) to see how they do.  I think these bullets are good enough for hunting, though, and I plan to use the 14.0-grain load in my 6 1/2-inch Blackhawk on my next pig hunt.  Stay tuned.

Our earlier blogs on the Python, the Blackhawk, the Bisley, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff are here.

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A Few More Colt Python Loads

By Joe Berk

Man, I love my Colt Python.  I thought I’d get that out of the way first in case anyone had any doubts.  The Python is one of those things that just feels right.  I’m glad I bought it and every time I take it to the range I feel good because I know I made a good decision.

I’ve been on a kick lately developing different loads for the Python with a focus on 158-grain and 180-grain jacketed bullets, and different propellants (including Winchester 296, Bullseye, IMR 4227, and Unique).   Not to be combative and before you get your inner keyboard commando up, let me state at the outset that I can hear the comments already: What about 2400, or Power Pistol, or (fill in with your favorite powder).  You go to war with the Army you have and I had to put a cap on the development work (and the above listed powders are what I had).  If you want to see more development work with other powders, hit the donate button below and send me a note.  Or start your own website.

158-grain DKC bullets, .357 Magnum reloads, and the Colt Python: A marriage made in Heaven.

I keep a stash of Hornady jacketed bullets as my preferred projectiles in the .357 Magnum, mostly because of their consistent quality and accuracy.  Recently, I received an email from Raven Rocks for DKC 158-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullets, so I thought I’d try those.  DKC is a Turkish bullet maker, and I know from prior defense industry experience that the Turks usually do a good job on armament components.  You may recall that I recently tested some of DKC’s 147-grain 9mm bullets in three different handguns and I wasn’t too impressed with them (that blog is here).   I wanted to see if the DKC .357 bullets were any better than the 9mm bullets (spoiler alert:  they are).

For this testing, I fired all loads at 50 feet, I used my Garmin chronograph to measure the velocities, and I used my Lee classic four turret press and Lee’s .38/.357 four-die set for loading the ammo.  I believe in Lee reloading gear, and when it comes to getting a good crimp on hot revolver cartridges, the Lee dies work best (you can read about that here).  That’s especially critical on the Colt Python, which has a very short cylinder compared to some other sixguns).  Making sure the other bullets in the cylinder don’t jump forward under recoil is critical with the Python (see our earlier testing).

So what’s the bottom line?

It’s 15.0 grains of IMR 4227, CCI 550 primers, and the DKC 158-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullet.   Here’s how I got there:

I know the table’s font is too small to read as presented here.  If you click on the table, a larger table will appear.   You can thank me by clicking on the Donate button.

Oh yeah! A 50-foot target shot with the 15.0-grain IMR 4227 load. Point of aim was 6:00 on the orange bullseyes.

As stated above, I found that 15.0 grains of IMR 4227, a magnum primer (I used CCI 550 primers), and the DKC 158-grain bullet gave the smallest groups, but several of the other recipes were not too far behind.  Just about any load combo worked well.  But that 15.0-grain load…wow, it was a honey.  The velocity (which averaged 1140 fps) was what I would consider moderate for a .357 Magnum.   The recoil was correspondingly moderate.

Every gun is different, and it’s interesting to see what works best in different guns chambered for the same cartridge.   The Unique load at the top of the table above was the accuracy load for my 6 1/2-inch blue steel Ruger Blackhawk.  The 158-grain Hornady jacketed hollowpoint load with 16.7 grains of Winchester’s 296 worked best in my 6 1/2-inch Ruger stainless Blackhawk and it was stunningly accurate in my 8 3/8-inch Model 27 Smith and Wesson 40 years ago.  But 16.7 grains of 296 makes for a religious experience type of load.   Recoil is impressive and steady servings of those cartridges beat both the stainless Ruger Blackhawk and the Smith  Model 27 to death.  I only tried a few of those monster loads in the Python, and I’m glad they weren’t the accuracy winner.

I keep a stash of the .38 Special standard target load (2.7 grains of Bullseye with a 148-grain Hornady hollowbase wadcutter bullet) on hand.  It is a one-hole load in my Model 52 Smith, and it’s been accurate in other .357 and .38 Special handguns.  I wanted to use it in the Python as a standard of comparison, and it surprised me.   It was the least accurate of any of the loads tested in my Python.  Like I said above:  Every gun is different.

After settling on the 15.0-grain IMR 4227 load, I wanted to see how it would do at 25 and 50 yards.  I went to the West End Gun Club on a beautiful Sunday morning and set up targets at both distances.

I first shot at the 25-yard target and shot a great group, but it was high (it’s the group circled in red in the target below).  The rear sight only had four more clicks left in the down direction, so I dialed those in and fired another five rounds.  That produced the group circled in green in the target below.  I used a 6:00 hold on the black bullseye for both groups.

A 25-yard target with my 15.0-grain IMR 4227 load. Two groups…one in red before lowering the rear sight, and one in green after lowering the green sight.

After firing the first 25-yard group, I shifted to the 50-yard target before adjusting the rear sight.  That produced the group outlined in red in the target below.  After lowering the rear sight, I shot the group outlined in green in the target below.  It was a good group at 50 yards, but still too high (I was using the same 6:00 bullseye hold mentioned above).  Because I was out of adjustment on the rear sight, I tried to hold about 4 inches below the bottom of the bullseye, and I shot the group outlined in yellow.

I couldn’t get the rear sight low enough at 50 yards, so I dialed in a little Kentucky droppage to get the group in yellow.

I’m pleased with these results.  I might need to move the rear sight a scosh to the left, but I want to shoot a few more groups to confirm that.  That will happen in the near term.  I am also thinking about a taller front sight.   The rear sight is already in its lowest position; a taller front sight would bring the point of impact in line with the point of aim.  We’ll see.

What’s next?  I’m thinking a trip to Arizona for some more pork.  I’d like to see how this combo works on a pig, and I think there’s enough energy and accuracy to humanely take next year’s stash of bacon.  Well, okay, you got me:  I’m just kidding about the bacon part.  There’s no belly fat on a wild pig.  There’s plenty of other meat on one of those Arizona hogs, though, and I’m already thinking about a cookbook featuring recipes for the same.

Stay tuned.

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More Python?  You bet.  Here are our earlier Python related posts:

Python versus Blackhawk
110-Grain Python Load
Python TJ Trigger
Python Update
New Python Range Test
New Colt Python
A Colt Visit
Boudreau Bullets
A Pair of Prancing Ponies

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A .45 Colt Six Shooter Trio

By Joe Berk

I tested four different .45 Colt loads in three different six shooters yesterday.  The revolvers were an 1873 Taylor-tuned Uberti SAA with a 5½ inch barrel, a stainless steel Ruger 4 5/8 inch Blackhawk, and a 200th Year Ruger 7½ inch Blackhawk. Conditions were way less than ideal: It was windy and I was there in the afternoon, which meant I was shooting into the sun on the West End Gun Club’s 50-foot handgun range.

My Uberti with a Schrade stag-handled large folding knife. Both are elegant.

Every time I shoot the Uberti, I’m reminded how elegant the 1873 design is. The Ruger Blackhawks look good and shoot well, but they are a bit “clunky” compared to the old Colt design.  The 1873 SAA just feels graceful.  It’s a delight to hold and to shoot.

Ruger’s stainless steel, 4 5/8 inch barreled Blackhawk chambered in .45 Colt. It’s a slick sixgun.
A 200th Year 7 1/2 inch Ruger Blackhawk, also chambered in .45 Colt. I bought it about 15 years ago; I fired it for the first time in this load evaluation.

As I was unlocking the gate to get into the range, a low-rent-gangbanger-looking, dirty, tattooed guy pulled up behind me in a beat up old white Honda.  He obviously had been waiting to follow me in.  Even though I’m armed, I’m always a little nervous when I get out of the car to unlock the gate because it’s desolate out there and it’s a good ambush spot.  The guy sure didn’t look like a Republican to me. I asked him to show his membership card and he went into his “no habla” routine. I told him I wouldn’t leave the gate open without seeing his membership card, and he suddenly had enough “habla” to understand that. He turned around and left. A recent WEGC email explained that these guys steal brass and other stuff from the range, so I’m guessing that’s what this dirtball wanted.

The three propellants used for this test series: Hodgdon Trail Boss, Hercules Red Dot, and IMR 4227.
The 200-grain cast bullet, the 185-grain Winchester jacketed semiwadcutter, and a loaded .45 Colt cartridge.

The loads used Trail Boss, IMR 4227, and Red Dot powder. I had been loading .45 Colt with Trail Boss because it is what the Cowboy Action Shooters use and it was presumably a low velocity load. To my surprise, the Trail Boss velocities were only very slightly below the other powders’ velocities.  I loaded with two different bullets (Winchester’s 185-grain jacketed semiwadcutter and a 200-grain cast roundness bullet with a truncated ogive).

The results of my testing are in the table below.  The table’s font (as it appears in the blog) is tiny, but if you click on it, the table will open with a larger and more readable display.

Here are the inferences I make from the above data:

There are some large groups sprinkled in the above data (above 3 inches); that’s probably due to the poor shooting conditions and me. My first group was one of the worst; I attribute that to me settling down for subsequent groups.

I used Alco’s target with four mini-silhouettes. Shooting conditions were less than ideal.

I also noticed that one of the cases had split, and the bullet from that case would have been a flyer.  With the exception of the one case that split, none of the cartridges exhibited any pressure signs.  All cases extracted easily (other than the one that split) and none had flattened primers.

It happens. This cartridge case had been loaded one too many times. When this occurs, it results in a flyer.

The Lee cast bullet reloading manual shows the 200-grain truncated roundnose bullet accuracy load to be 5.6 grains of Red Dot, which is at the very bottom end of the range. I went with 5.9 grains because the Red Dot loads don’t occupy much of the case volume and I felt uncomfortable with that. I might try the lower load of Red Dot (i.e., 5.6 grains) next time I’m reloading, but I think I’m going to just stick with 5.9 grains.  It works well enough in all three revolvers.

The Trail Boss spreads and standard deviations were large, which surprised me. I’ve had good accuracy at 50 feet with this powder, but the large standard deviations mean that at longer ranges the accuracy will be poor.  I could feel the difference in recoil with the Trail Boss load; one round would give a sharp crack back, and the next might be much lighter.  The Trail Boss chronograph data supports that subjective assessment.

I have a lot of Red Dot propellant, so I wanted to evaluate it in the .45 Colt. It did well. In general, the Red Dot velocity spreads and standard deviations were lower than those with Trail Boss or IMR 4227.  That was a surprise, too.

Overall average group size (all guns, all loads) with the cast 200-grain bullets was 2.275 inches. Overall average group size (all guns, all loads) with the full metal jacket semi-wadcutter Winchester bullets was 2.125 inches. That’s not much of a difference.

You might be wondering why I didn’t try the IMR 4227 loads in the Uberti SAA. I thought these would be a lot hotter loads because the load data was for Ruger revolvers. Turns out the velocities were in line with the Trail Boss and Red Dot loads. I could have shot the IMR 4227 in the Uberti, but I didn’t realize that when I was on the range. I was very surprised at the huge velocity spreads and standard deviations with IMR 4227.

Recoil for all the loads listed in the table above was not oppressive.   But I wouldn’t characterize the recoil as light, either.  The .45 Colt is a big cartridge.

As expected, the 7 ½ inch Blackhawk velocities were slightly higher than were those for the other two shorter-barreled revolvers. The longer sight radius on the 7 ½ Ruger didn’t make much difference in accuracy.  That’s counterintuitive.  It may just be that the wind and shooting into the sun masked any advantage the longer sight radius offered.

Overall accuracy for the revolvers with all loads was essentially the same (see the last column in the above table).  I could repeat this evaluation under better range conditions, but I think I have enough information to select a good load.  While the groups were not stellar (they were in the 2-inch+ range), the above convinces me that Red Dot is a good powder in .45 Colt. I’ll probably standardize at 5.9 grains of Red Dot with the 200-grain cast bullet.  The velocity is high enough for my purposes and I love that low standard deviation.

I’m a student of the Gatling gun and as you tell from reading this piece, I’m a big fan of the .45 Colt cartridge.  After finishing this blog, I briefly wondered: Were any of the original Gatlings chambered in .45 Colt?   The short answer is no.  Even though the .45 Colt was a prevalent cartridge during the era of the original Gatlings, none were built for this cartridge (they instead used the much more powerful .45 70 rifle cartridge).  That was then, though, and this is now.  You can buy a current reproduction of the Gatling chambered in .45 Colt.  That would be cool, but it would be expensive to keep such a beast fed.

Crusader’s .45 Colt Gatling Gun.  It’s only $8149.99.

If you want to know more about Gatling guns (including their early history, the transition to modern weapon systems, and their current applications), pick up your copy of The Gatling Gun.

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