"Dude-amatics" and cowboy foolishness

American Handgunner, July-August, 2004 by Charles E. Petty

I know recoil is not our friend but you simply have to have some to push a bullet down a barrel. I have always been an advocate for moderate loads, regardless of the cartridge, but even moderation can be taken too far.

Cowboy shooting is becoming gamey. I guess that's to be expected--though not necessarily applauded--as shooters try to find anything that might be interpreted as an advantage. Lighter recoil is such a thing and one of the masons why the .32 H&R is prospering right now. But we've also seen attempts to lighten-up the more mainstream cartridges. Bullet weights have dropped and so have charges, but I just experienced way too much of a good thing.

I was given a handful of .45 Colt handloads and asked to chronograph them. This is something I gladly do when I've got the chronograph set up. The first shot registered 440 fps from a 6" barrel and didn't even make it to the backstop 70 yds. away. I fired a couple more and noticed some variation in both report and recoil, although the final average of five rounds was 450 fps. This wasn't a good sign so I reloaded and pointed the revolver straight down--just as it would be in a holster--and carefully raised it to a level position without disturbing the powder position. The result was a reading of 250 fps and one of those "quit before you mess something up" moments, as I was ill-equipped to get a stuck bullet out of the barrel and wanted to shoot some more.

During shooting there was all occasional whiff of smoke at the rear of the cylinder and examination of the fired cases found them covered with soot from end to end. It's perfectly normal to see a little but when it's excessive like that we know there wasn't even enough pressure to obturate the case at all. [Editor's Note: Charley coulda' said "expand" but obturate sounded so technical and stuff we really liked it and wish he'd use more words like that.] By itself the soot is mostly an inconvenience, but if you then shoot some normal loads all the crud in the charge hole is going to make extraction stiff. It is a very visible signal something is wrong and you don't need a chronograph for proof.