Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Warm/hot .45 Colt loads in a S&W .460

So I'm the proud new owner of a gently used .460 XVR. I currently am working on getting some .460 dies and brass, but I do have .45 Colt dies and some fairly warm loads that I had worked up for my Ruger Bisley a while back. Considering the massiveness of the cylinder and frame of the .460 it doesn't seem logical that there should be any risk shooting such ammo in it, but what do you guys think? Shouldn't the .460 be able to handle pretty much any of the .45 Colt load data that's published for Ruger/Freedom Arms?

While I dont have any experience with the .460 revolver, I have a Ruger No#1 in .460, I've shot heavy .45 Colt as well as .454 Casull in it. Those rounds felt like .45 Colt cowboy loads compared to factory .460 S&W loads. So, I feel you are able to fire the highest .45 Colt and .454 Casull PSI loads in the .460. The ceiling for the .460 is 65,000psi. I know, rambling, but hoping this helps.

That seemed/seems reasonable to expect, but I've known weirder things to not go as "reasonably expected".

Only issue I have had is the longer cased rounds (I.e. 454 casuall and the .460) tend to get “sticky” in the cylinder
After firing .45lc
You won’t have any issues running hot .45lc through it.

Yeah, assuming that you're talking about carbon buildup from the shorter rounds, I figured on having to clean the chambers after shooting such.

Yep, I was referring to the carbon build up.

I shoot a 460 revolver as well. These will handle any reasonable 45 Colt load you care to try. The pressure limit for the 460 is way higher than anything 45 Colt, and the gun is obviously desiged to handle that.

The thing to consider though is what the bullet does between the mouth of the 45 Colt brass and the cylinder throat; with most bullets that jump is large enough for the bullet to wander around for a while before it gets there, while letting a lot of pressure leak past it. My observations have been poor accuracy, leading, and reduced velocity. I suggest trying it, but expect to do some cleaning after seeing the poor results.

In the future, if you want to shoot 45 Colt level loads from that 460, you'll be better off just loading down in 460 brass.

Yes, very valid points. Now that I could compare them (I just bought/received some 1x-fired .460 brass from a member here) the Colt brass is MUCH shorter, significantly more so than the difference between, say, your typical 38/357 or 44Spl/44 Mag scenario.

65,000 psi +/ a few:..

Regardless, the gun will handle the top of the .45lc load plus some.... no prob.

I’m a bit “late to the party”, but not too late to “give my 2 cents worth”!

I’m “not” a big fan of using the shorter (45 LC) brass in my 460. My reason is only from the potential fouling of the cylinder area where a 460 case will need to fit! Not a real issue....except that I’m lazy, and don’t clean as often as I should. For my “lightloads”, I use 460 brass, loading 300 grain bullets to around 1000 - 1050 FPS....which would be a “pretty stiff” 45 LC charge!

* Completely off topic, but, I’ve made some “pretty sweet” shotshell loads for my 460....using 444 Marlin brass (full length) and 1/2 ounce #8 shot. Using 410 load data! I wouldn’t try it dove hunting, but for snakes and close shots on small game ....it’s pretty effective! memtb

Do you use plastic .41 wads to contain the shot? If not, how does the muzzle brake handle the shot as it rattles past the open ports?

Jcon72, Yep, I use wads for 2 1/2” 410. I was concerned about the shot “changing direction” in the brake, but, apparently the plastic wad column contains the shot until leaving the bore/brake. Though, I think that the wad column imparts spin/rotation on the shot, as the groups open pretty quickly! Beyond 20 feet or so, there are getting to be some pretty big holes in the shot pattern!

Loading them is a little tedious, requiring several more steps than conventional loading. But, it’s not like I shoot a lot of them! memtb

I think you'll almost always find such slinging of the pattern whenever using any rifled barrel with shot. Considering its intended use, however, if you have a usable pattern up to a 20 feet range it sounds effective to me.
Just a little curious, though, how fast the shot column sheds the wad after leaving barrel.

Jcon72, I shot patterns from 5 feet to 25 (if I recall correctly). Again, using my feeble memory, at 5 feet, it seems that the wad left a distinct hole in the paper (sheet of freezer paper) .....within the pattern. At 10 feet, the wad still left a hole in the paper......but was veering away from the pattern.

If your interested in making the shot shells, PM me and I can give you step by step details, of my method. If you use the 444 brass, they reach within a few thousands of the cylinder end. You must slightly bottleneck the case , or it will not fully chamber..... as it hits the forcing cone in the end of the cylinder. memtb

I do the same in my 460 - shortened (slightly) 444 Marlin brass, .410 shot cups, and I use an RCBS 45 Auto Shotshell seater die to crimp the case mouth over a thin card wad (I cut the cards from primer boxes).

In my experience, the pattern can vary a lot with the load, and pushing them too fast generally blew the patterns up.

I do not remember if this pattern below was from 7 or 10 yards (it's been a couple years at least, but I do mean 20-30 feet) but it was somewhere in that range, and looks like maybe 2 shots on paper? Although it could be just one shot, I forget. Regardless, this is the best shotshell load I've come up with for any handgun. Part of that is simply because the 460 can hold so much shot.



Here are the loaded shot shells. The case mouths require annealing every shot to avoid splits because of that deep forming process from the RCBS die. As you can see I've shortened the 444 brass more than memtb, but the results speak for themselves. Using any sort of heavier wad or gas check over the shot blew up the patterns a lot more in my loads.

Just for fun, the 460 can also do this. The target below (my perfect sketch of a turkey, lol) is just one shot with six pellets, but one of the pellets stacked on top of another. These are 82gr wadcutters that can be stacked on each other; the 460 will hold 6 of them. That's 492gr total, but a relatively mild load at 1,000 fps.

It does take a while to seat all the wadcutters in each case; they have to be seated one at a time so each round goes through 6 seating operations. It would be nice to make a sliding sleeve seating die to handle all 6 at once.

Yondering, I’d forgotten how successful you were with the 460. Your pattern is better than mine! Perhaps I’m pushing mine a bit hard.....what is your powder and charge for the 1/2 ounce load? I used standard 410, 2 1/2” load data! memtb

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm using 200gr of shot in a .410 wad (I'm using a shorter OAL shell than you, and am cutting 1/4" off the petals of the .410 wad) over 5.2gr of Bullseye for 1,000 fps. I did see a big difference in patterns between using a thin card over-shot wad and a .45 gas check over the shot; the gas check opened patterns considerably. Also, even just going down to 4.5gr Bullseye opened up the pattern a bit; 1,000 fps seems to be the sweet spot for that load in my pistol.

The reason I'm using a shorter case than full cylinder length is because of the 45 ACP shotshell die set I'm using - that die set forms the end of the case to approximate a 45 bullet's dimensions, with the result of a "shoulder" in the case at max cylinder length as shown in the pics above. In order for that shoulder to end up at max cylinder length, the max case length has to be as the pic shows. I need to figure out a sizing die combination that will form that shoulder for me in a separate step, so I can leave the case at max cylinder length.