
04-22-2012, 01:48 AM
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Beartooth Regular
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Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 1,236
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There are so many very personal approaches to handloading BP cartridges that "what do I need" equipment lists can vary a great deal.
Many BPCR shooters use fiber wads between the powder charge and the bullet - fiber or plastic or cardboard - so you may want to get a wad punch that will cut .45/.46 cal wads. IIRC, a 7/16" will work. Or you could buy a bag of 1000 Walter's Wads and be set for a while.
Using a "grease cookie" is also popular - two wads with a disc of beeswax in between. Softens fouling in the barrel.
Reminds me - target shooters will often use a "blowtube" to blow into the breech of the barrel between shots to help keep fouling soft. In it's simplest form, it is a piece of 1/2" plastic tubing about a foot long.
Powder - FFg is standard for that cartridge. I like Swiss brand in my 45-70, though I have no problem using Goex also.
Primers - whatever I have on the bench. Other shooters may be more specific.
There is a school of thought amongst BPCR shooters that leads some to put a "wad" cut from a sheet of newsprint over the primer flash hole to keep powder from entering and to soften the flame a bit at ignition. I do not do this. Experiment.
There is continuing debate about whether or not you need a dedicated, non sparking BP powder measure like the Lyman. I have one, so I use it.
Quite a few shooters use "compression" dies to make their powder compression uniform across their loads. I, more often than not, use unsized cases and thumb seat my bullets - hold them in with a light crimp - so a compression die is of less use to me.
you may want to look into Paperpatching bullets for that cartridge; you don't have to but, again, quite a few shooters do PP their bullets for the big BP cases.
Pete
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"Only hunting and mountain climbing are sports. The rest are just games."
Last edited by Pete D.; 04-22-2012 at 02:10 AM.
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