Jim Taylor
REMEMBERING
Thursday, July 26, 2018, 05:58

Back in the day ... in the last century ... I was doing some experimenting using the Lyman #457191 300 grain .45-90 rifle bullet in the Ruger Blackhawk .45 Colt. I had gotten some data from Elmer Keith who had used it in the smaller Colt single actions. I worked up a load that felt good ... did not stick the cases in the chamber ... and better yet did not blow anything. I used 2400 powder which was about the slowest pistol powder I knew of at the time. Dad and I did some experiments where he made a reamer to deepen the primer pockets so I could use Large Rifle primers. These seemed to burn the powder real well and shot accurately.

One day I received a phone call from a guy named John Linebaugh. Someone had given him my phone number and had told him I was experimenting with 300 gr. bullets in the .45 Colt. I did not know John at the time and was pleasantly surprised to hear him talk of his experiments with heavy bullets in the .45 Colt. His 5-shot conversions were stronger than my standard Ruger Blackhawk and he was getting some amazing velocities using H-110 and WW-296 powders.

This was back in the day when ammunition manufacturers were telling us that there was no way you could safely run a 300 gr. bullet in the .44 Magnum or the .45 Colt. I had talked to a few people in the industry and they did not even want to hear about what we were doing. Some gun writers were still singing the same old song about the .45 Colt brass being "weak". That story was put to rest a few years later when Freedom Arms brought out the 454 Casull. In the early days it was hard to get 454 brass and we loaded 454 loads in .45 Colt brass. It worked just fine. But at the time some people still had the idea that .45 Colt brass was "weak".

John Linebaugh eventually arranged for me to send my .45 Colt loads to Hodgdon's and have them run through the pressure barrel. (I believe John built one of their pressure barrels for them which helped in him getting access to it.) I sent several loads to Hodgdon and included the ones with the Large Rifle primers. The test results showed my standard load with the Large Pistol primers to be running a bit over 1100 fps with safe pressures for the Ruger Blackhawk. What was interesting was the same powder charge but using Large Rifle primers gave higher pressure but less velocity. It was not unsafe but it was not working the way I thought it was. Apparently the Large Rifle primers caused higher initial pressures that dropped off quickly. Or something like that. Anyway, I quit using them.

I took a lot of game with that early 300 gr. load in the Ruger. It was very accurate and retained good power for a long ways out. I had a 16" truck rim hanging on a tripod at a bit over 400 yards. On a good day I could ring it 3 out of 5. (A great part of that was young eyes.)

Those were fun days and I met a heck of a lot of nice folk, many who are still close friends. John Taffin introduced me to Paco Kelly. Paco got me in touch with J.D. Jones. The Shootists got started during those years and opened up some great friendships. Somewhere along the way I met Gary Reeder and ended up working for him on his website until just before we moved to Africa. There are many more people I could mention. I treasure my friends more than anything I own. "Stuff" can be replaced but you can never replace good friends. When they are gone it leaves a big hole in your life.

If you have been thinking of a friend you have not talked to in awhile, DO IT NOW. None of us know what will happen tomorrow.