By Mark Trope

Article Published Date: 11/21/2007

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Part I

Concept

There’s nothing like taking a walk about the woods, fields, hills, along a waterway or up a mountain.   The company of a good sidearm makes the trip all the more enjoyable (Note1).   Perhaps a bit of plinking, and of course, there are self-defense considerations. 

Generally speaking, the two-legged critter is the most dangerous thing you will most likely have to contend with when out and about.  The last duty station I had, prior to retirement from over 20 years in the U.S Army, was Ft Drum NY.  The local fauna, to include black bears, when involved in a chance encounter out in the brush, usually lost interest in everything except putting space between them and you.  The few snakes around were not of the poisonous variety, and they too were shy and retiring creatures.  They had a “live and let live” attitude that I found refreshing.  After I retired, my bride and I moved the dry, arid plains of West Texas.          

The snakes in West Texas do not share the easygoing nature of their distant, eastern relatives.  Not only are they willing to fight on principle, they can also inflict a bite that has the potential to turn deadly.  For such disagreeable encounters, nothing beats a shotgun when an aggressive snake needs to be swiftly dispatched.  However, a shotgun is neither compact, nor easily hung from the wait belt.   This is where a sidearm shines!

Shot loads for handguns are commercially available.   I recently went to a local shooting emporium, and about gagged when I saw the price of a 10 pack of commercially produced shotshells for a revolver caliber, $8.99 + tax!  Not only that, the brass is berdan primed, not even re-loadable, and those rounds held little shot (later we’ll weigh the shot from one of those rounds).   Needless to say, I passed on that purchase. But, I still wanted shot loads for a wheel gun.

I searched my rather expansive gun book library, and found a few (very few) cryptic references to the practice of loading such ammunition.  Other then hints to use card & lube wads and a roll-crimp; specific, step-by-step instructions simply were not forthcoming.   Most of those words had been penned long before WWII. 

Lately I’ve been working with a pair of S&W revolvers.  A U.S. marked 1917, and a Brazilian contract 1937.  These substantial (N frame) revolvers are almost identical.   Both have 5.5 inch barrels.  They are chambered in .45 Auto Colt Pistol (.45 ACP) caliber.  Now, the .45 ACP is a “rimless” caliber.  That is, the rim doesn’t extend beyond the walls of the cartridge case.  To easily extract .45 ACP round in a revolver, “clips” to retain the ammunition were designed.  The clips also double as a speedloader.  Just drop the loaded clip in the cylinder; and close the cylinder. 

What about those lubricating wads?  Back to my library I went.  Here’s what was recommended: “Take a wool or felt hat, punch out wads and soak them in tallow.”  

Tallow?  Ruin a perfectly good hat?  Mmmm, seems like in the last 75 odd years there must be some advancement.   Wait; let me think, yes, that should work!  Thick, pre-lubed wool wads for 44-45 caliber, black powder, cap & ball revolvers are available.  Those wads should be able to handle the cushion and lubricating aspects of this project.  Traditions has just such a product.

Even though these wads are designed for black powder, cap & ball black powder revolvers, they should fill the bill for this project.  Card wads will be made from the back of writing tablet pads or cardboard ammo boxes.  A resized .44 magnum case can act as a wad cutter.  First things first though, 30/06 rifle brass has to be made to fit the cylinder.

First the combined thickness of the case head and clip must be considered before cutting the brass to length.  The clips to be used for this project are not steel like those originally designed in 1917.  What, not steel?  What could replace steel?  Polymer, that’s what! 

Part II

Production

The length of the cylinder plus the thickness of the RIMZ 25 clip give the over all length  (OAL) for our brass.  On my gun that equals 1.614 inches.  I measured that distance with a digital caliper, added about a 1/16 (the additional length is so there would be sufficient material for final trimming to exact length) of an inch, and marked the brass with a fine magic marker.  Now the brass can be cut.

Cutting can be accomplished by two means.  The fastest is with a rotary cutting tool and impregnated cut-off wheel. However, a fine-tooth blade on a hack saw works just as well, if not as fast.  If you use a rotary cutting tool, wear shooting glasses, or a face shield.  Insure no other person or a pet is in the area while using a power tool for this operation.  In truth, it only added 2 minutes to the final production time for one piece of brass when a hacksaw was used instead of a rotary cutting tool.

I have a L. E. Wilson case trimmer http://www.lewilson.com .  The 30/06 case holder for my Wilson case trimmer would not position cut-down brass correctly.   The cut end of the brass was not protruding out of the end of the case holder.  When doing these types of projects, one has to do a bit of fancy thinking.

I quickly found a solution.  The Wilson  “Fired Brass” (FC) .308 Winchester case holder was a perfect fit (Note.2).  It correctly positioned the cut-down 30/06 brass so the cut end protruded far enough past the end of the case holder so the final cut could be accomplished. 

Since the S&W revolver has a headspace shoulder in each chamber, the gun could fire the .45 ACP round without a clip (though empties would have to be poked out with a pencil). That headspace shoulder means we have to partially size the case so it will fit the front part of the chambers.  A .44 Special/Magnum carbide re-sizing die will easily handle this job.

The mouth of the cases will need to be flared slightly.  This is so the wad and cards can be easily seated.  A .44 Magnum expander die could be used to flare the case neck.  However a .44 Magnum expander die will also expand the case neck as well as flare the case mouth (this is so a bullet can be seated).  For this project it is better to flare the case mouth without expanding the case neck.  There is no better tool I know of for this then a Lee Universal Case Mouth Expanding Die.  All that’s required is a hint of flare on the case mouth.   Once a slight amount of flare is indicated, the die lock ring can now be set, and the rest of the cases flared.       

I found I could produce a finished case in about 5 minutes (using a rotary cutting tool with an impregnated cut-off wheel).  If I used a hacksaw with a fine-tooth blade, it took about 7 minutes produce a finished case (Note.3).  Now we are ready to actually load our shot shells.   Seat any standard, large pistol primers in the cases.  I used Magtech primers.  The next consideration is powder.

After priming comes powder.  My favorite powder for handgun use is Herco. Herco was originally designed as a shot shell powder.  It has a good pressure curve, and burns a bit slower then Unique, another Alliant powder.  Herco has found much favor with handgun shooters in upper mid-range to magnum loads.  Herco and hard, cast lead bullets were made for each other.  Herco’s burn curve doesn’t damage the base of lead bullets (in correct loads) as some other popular powders often do.  I loaded 6 grains of Herco in the bottom of our newly made shot shells (Note.4). 

An over-powder wad is next.  Over-powder wads were cut from the solid cardboard of an old ammunition box.  The back of a writing tablet or desk blotter would work as well.  A resized .44 Magnum case was used as a wad cutter.  I put a bolt in my drill press and used the head of the bolt to press the .44 Magnum case through the cardboard.  A soft piece of pine placed under cardboard made cutting the wads easy.  I also found I could hammer the wads out too.  Then I remembered an old, large diameter, hand operated, 3-hole punch machine I had.  It too cut nice card wads!

A pencil pressed a cardboard wad firmly onto the powder charge.   Next came the thick, lubricated wool wad.  The lubricated wool wad serves as a cushion and lubricates the bore.  Now another cardboard wad is seated over the wool wad.  Our cases are now prepped to receive the shot charge.

A light coat of soft wax was pressed over the top of the completed round to act as waterproofing and to further lubricate the bore as the shot charge travels down it.  

Part III

Range Time

Time to head to the range and find out exactly what I have.  Traditional shot shells have a plastic shot cup to protect the pellets, furthermore, those shot charges travel down a smooth bore in a shotgun.  Shotguns also have choked barrels.  My loads have no shot cup, and will travel down a rifled 5.5 inch barrel that will impart spin to the shot load.  Um, what have a gotten myself into?  Sure, I loaded a nice, light, safe charge of powder. The light powder charge will not only to protect my gun, and myself; but also (I hope) help to not “blow” out the shot pattern.  But, other then knowing the load was safe, I had no idea if these shot loads would work out as I hoped.

The “snake” was shot from a distance of 8 feet.  I simply held the gun at my side, raised it quickly and pointed it.  I did not aim per se.  The first thing I noticed was almost zero recoil!  It felt like shooting a .22!  Then I noticed the torn area in the center of the pattern.  Since the paper the “snake” is drawn on is taped to a thick cardboard backing, the card wads and wool wad must have torn the paper and dented the cardboard.  I could not locate either the card wads or wool wad (nor did I expect to find them).

The “bulls eye” target was shot from a distance of 5 feet.  Again, I held the gun at my side, raised it quickly and fired.  Again, neither cards nor pre-lubed wool wad was found. The pattern is tight at this distance.

Part IV

Reflections (Yep, pun intended)

Well, this project is a success!  I was easily able to develop shot loads that held way more shot then factory loaded rounds.  Not only that, but the bore of my revolved did not show evidence of leading or other trace material.  Factory loaded shot shells for handguns are shot “dry”.   I feel the combination of card wads, pre-lubed wool wad and wax kept the bore of my gun clean.  The thick, pre-lubed wool wad seemed to cushion the effect of ignition, and gave sufficient protection to the shot charge.   

Looking at the pictures of the shot loads shows how much more the shot the firearmreflecions.com load holds.  However, any rifled arm that doesn’t have a choke will disperse the shot pattern rather fast.   Look at the pattern differences between the two targets. Getting 3 feet closer made a huge difference in the pattern!   I liked the fact that instinctive point shooting worked; it’s like pointing your finger.  Since recoil was almost nil, additional shots can be gotten off in a hurry.

For those field wanderers and mountain stumblers that like wheel guns; and may have a serious social encounter with a poisonous snake; consider the firearmreflections.com revolver shot loads as a viable alternative to lesser, factory-loaded fare.  Your very life could depend on it.

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