92' 45 Colts.

RBHarter

West Central AR
I use a pair of these made more or less 30 yr apart by Rossi .
The high points......low points maybe, are the chambers that were cut Monday morning after the soccer world cup with a roughing reamer for maybe a .480 into a .450 groove. It yields a .490 body with a .480 neck that chambers a .454 bullet readily. The twist at 1-32" also sucks but it works for cowboy stuff and inside 75 yd . They are built on the magnum actions used for the 44 mag and though not available the 454 C .

Neither would feed RP brass or nickle cases which is ok I guess because the RBH doesn't like it either . I was just on the brink of offering a straight trade for about 200 RP cases for short Hornady cases but while I had the trimmer set up to trim the 20 I have I went ahead and cut down 6 RP just to see if the 1917 S&W 45 S&W would get along with them . In accordance with lore these are infact 45 short Colts being S&W length with a Colts rim .

In any case I thought what the heck and I stuffed them in the 92' . Actual Schofield brass will only allow 3 into the magazine that will take 10 Colts . The good news is they feed great. The bad news is that it's awfully hard on the astray like NOE version 454424 HP . The NEI .453-230swc also feeds well. Both carbines had 6 of each as a single group and mixed 3+3 . It didn't occur until just now to see if they would take 11 .

I don't know if the 1917 is going to like the 424 HP in terms of it doesn't like them as solids so there's only 6 of those , there are 21 of the chopped Hornady cases loaded with Herco and the NEI bullet.

I wish I had another source of data for the S&W other than Lyman it would appear from past work that what I thought was a good solid charge of Unique is apparently below book start loads .
As these will only be in a 45 ACP based arm my design on a maybe 18kpsi "hot"/+P type load is in no danger of finding it's way into a lesser arm . I went ahead and loaded the Herco based on what I could gather up with 5.9 gr .

I guess I'll know more after a range trip .
 

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
I had one of the Rossi lever actions chambered in 38/357 but let it go in a trade many years ago.
The rifle worked but the interior looked like it had been machined using rocks and broken drill bits as cutters. After spending some time cleaning it up, it functioned beautifully. I regret letting it go but such is life.