I am looking for opinions on whether the .45 Long Colt would make an accurate target round in a low wall Single Shot Rifle. Browning made a run of these a couple of years ago for the Cowboy Action crowd, and I guess there's still some sitting around in gun shops NIB waiting for a home. My Dad has the Browning 1885 High Wall in .45-70 and gets great accuracy using reduced loads (he's 85 -- but still shooting twice a week!)

I'd like a SS rifle to shoot along with him, or to plink at the steel silhouettes at the local gun club, and I have to admit I like the lines of the trim little low wall action. The lower price of the low walls in .45 LC is also better for my budget than the higher-priced .45-70's.

My thinking is, with the right bullet and lube, the shorter case of the .45 LC would give me better load density. So I would hope for decent accuracy, using a tang sight of course. I would plan to load cast bullets with moderate charges, but I don't know whether this round is even worth trying in a rifle (accuracy wise).

I also posted this in the "Single Shot Rifles" forum to get feedback from there. But I posted it here, as some of you may reload this cartridge in other than SS rifles. Any info on its accuracy potential or loading tips for cast bullets would be much appreciated.

Thanks! Old No7

Mostly this cartridge has a poor reputation in rifles, so not many rifles were chambered for it until the C'boy Action stuff started. I have always avoided it, except for revolver use, so I have no personal experience with its use in rifles. I would either shoot jacketed .45 Colt bullets or redisign an existing bullet mould for rifle use, if I ever decided I wanted to try it. You might have good luck, as there are now better powders, and more of them; and I think that the bullet issue might be moot.

I have several molds from www.mountainmolds.com and they shoot very good in my 454 casull pistol. I don't see why they wouldn't shoot just as good in a rifle length barrel. After a CAS shoot last summer, one guy brought out his sharps and started in on the steel buffalo target way out there. 400yds? So I decided to join him, only I used my Seville 45colt 4.5" pistol. Once I got the elevation figured out, I was hitting atleast as much as he was. I don't have a 45colt rifle, but I wouldn't see why you couldn't make it shoot as well as anything else.

You may very well get a mould that shoots well, but lead pistol bullets are generally made with fewer and shallower grease grooves. Rifle bullets are made with bigger and deeper grease grooves so as to provide enuff lube for the longer barrels. A pistol bullet might run out of lube in a long barrel. It happens to rifle barrels, big lube grooves or no, on barrels longer than about 32 inches. It would pay to either use a good over-powder wad or a gas-check design, too. Geo.