Charter Arms .45 Colt +P?

[Fuel Fire Desire]

Yep.....it’s a handful, even with moderate loads.

I put some 200gr LRN at 630 fps claimed by the manufacturer (Aguila cowboy) through it. Very reminiscent of a .38. I also put some of my 200gr plated LRN at 1075 fps (by the book) through it, and it had a surprising amount of recoil. More recoil than the full house 125gr .357’s I was testing through one of my 4”. Not snappy, but a lot of blunt force right into the palm. Kind of like my softer .454 casulls out of the toklat. The Pachmayr was the right choice. The gun would be unpleasant with the factory grips, but these softer wider grips make it tolerable.

Had a few light primer strikes on both my reloads and the aguila. WLP’s in my loads. I might look into a heavier hammer spring, as the factory one does feel a bit light with a svelte hammer. I’m pleased with it. A lot of energy and mass on tap out of a pocketable gun.

[thedonn007]

How much are these things? I'd like a pocket carry .38.

[Fuel Fire Desire]

The .45 colt is uncommon, it’s not even listed on their site or product list in the manual, but it’s priced the same as the .44spl and .45acp. I paid $400 in a LGS, but online they’re listed between $360-$385, but out of stock everywhere.

It’s no Smith, and not even a Taurus...but it’s also a $400 revolver.

I went through and polished up the contact surfaces inside the gun on the hammer, hammer pivot pin, and crane, and it feels significantly better, but it’s still on the rough side. Plenty good enough for a beat around carry gun, though not a “precision” made gun by any means. Shockingly accurate.

It feels like a cheap rough made revolver that missed the final finishing processes on the assembly line with a fair amount of chatter marks all over, but it goes bang, and hits the target. The only option for a pocket DA big bore revolver at the moment too.

For $400 I’m happy with it. If it said Smith or Taurus on the side I’d be REALLY upset, but it’s a Charter...and I knew what I was getting in to.

I think I’ve settled on a wildlife load. 20 grains of 4227 under a 255 grain Keith cast bullet. It’s the upper end of what many consider to be safe for SAA guns, even though modern manuals list 20.4 grains as the beginning of Ruger only loads. Definitely not something I’m going to plink with, but plenty safe and powerful enough for woodland critters. I need to run it through a chrono to see what it does out of a snub, but SAA’s produce about 975-1100 fps with that.

[Fuel Fire Desire]

This is me thinking out loud, and convincing myself that I’m not creating a hand grenade with my goal of 250gr lead at 1000fps.


After looking around for a while, I was able to FINALLY find pressure data on the 20gr of 4227 under a 250gr bullet that is very common with .45 colt reloaders.

Granted, this is for a XTP and not a cast, but lead SHOULD produce less pressure compared to jacketed.





23,500 CUP.


Using a rough conversion of (CUP x 1.516)-17902 = PSI, I came up with 17,724 psi for the 20/4227/250 load. Standard .45 acp which this revolver is also offered in is 21,000 psi, and +P .45 acp (the card in my box claimed the revolver was “+P Rated”) is 23,000 psi. So it appears that my desired load recipe is not only well under the +P levels it’s claimed to withstand, but also well under standard .45 acp levels. So I think I finally have an answer. Not exact of course, since that number is based on jacketed instead of lead, but it’s significantly under what Charter expects the revolver to experience in the .45 auto version of the same revolver.

Again, not exact here, but with a difference of 5200 psi under a known pressure the gun is rated for, I’m confident enough that I’m not going to loose fingers with this load. I’m still not going to feed it a steady diet of the stuff, and will keep the plinking ammo to standard/ traditional 45 colt, but as a carry round shot sparingly, it will do.


Any thoughts? Or am I still playing with Fire here?

[Ol` Joe]

Just to express personal opinion and not to argue the safety of the load discussed in this thread this is just my opinion on extrapolation and things mentioned here. Just to set the record straight I have loaded 18.5gr of 4227 under a 255/260 gr Keith style bullet in the past and used a similar load of 2400 with the same bullet in a old style Ruger Blackhawk without a problem. they did bark pretty stoutly.
I believe I found the data I used in a old magazine article by Kieth, or claiming it was a load Elmer Keith used. I’ve no idea today if that’s true, the old rememberer has trouble recalling breakfast some afternoons.

Here's somedata from Hodgdon's website:

.44 Magnum handgun--
240 cast/ 22.0 IMR4227/ 33,300 CUP
240 jacketed/ 22.0 IMR4227/ 28,400 CUP

.38-55 rifle--
250 cast/ 27.0 H322/ 27,000 CUP
255 jacketed/ 27.0 H322/ 25,500 CUP

250 cast/ 24.0 IMR498/ 36,200 CUP
255 jacketed/ 24.0 IMR4198/ 31,400 CUP

Please not that even though the jacketed bullet in the .38-55 weighs 5 grains more, pressures are less with the same powders charges. And in all the above instances, the STARTING load with jacketed bullets is the MAX load with cast bullets.

From https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth...24/type/thread

“Mule deer” is John Barsness the gun writer, he is the poster of the quote above. I’ve heard a few times lead can produce higher pressure then jacketed going back as far as the 1970s and tend to believe it. I also look at conversions from CUP to PSI with a grain of salt. Everything I’ve read except from the guy who has “developed” the conversion formula have claimed there is not a apple to apple value to the two measurements and they can not accurately be compared compared. One is a measurement of force over area, the other measures deformation of a piece of copper and assigns it a value.

[Fuel Fire Desire]

Yeah, I knew the CUP>PSI equation was an estimate since the figures aren’t compatible. I really hate deviating from published manuals and this it why....there’s no exact answer.

I suppose there are other routes to take to get to that level of power without being so close to max pressure. Ramshot shows AA#5 under a 255gr SWC right around the same velocity with significantly less pressure. The best part....it’s published.


The pressure figures are in PSI.


AA#5 is a powder I currently use, so I might give it a try and see how it performs. I just happen to use the 20/4227/250 load quite a bit in my 1894 and Toklat, so I have hundreds already pressed out.