WB
I’m certain I produced the “ugliest” .450 BM loads
Monday, November 09, 2026, 07:24

I bought a cheap rig to play with. Uppers are found on sale for around $200-225, why not?! I have a .350, .450, and the .400 is tempting just to round things out. These young folks have no idea that those rounds mimic the old .351 and .401 WSL from early last century. The .450 has some promise for fun as it is simply a .45 ACP stretched to 1.7” and loaded hot. Some specialized loads with solid alloy bullets 230 gr. can reach 2600 fps in rifle barrels. Resized .45/70 bullets at .452” work perfectly. It’s not that far from a .458x2” (young loaders don’t know what that is either).

I was needing some subsonic cast loads and had neither common bullets nor load data. These old 240 gr. Lyman bullets from last century ahead of 13 gr. Unique were just a bit fast at 1350 FPS from my 10.5”. I can drop a couple grains and try again. I need to cast some 340’s or 405’s. Not enough inertia to function semi-auto, but that’s fine, I didn’t chase brass in the leaves. Very surprisingly they did feed through the mag.