Gallery loads for .45Colt

[Blitzfike]

Terry, have you been hit by any balls bouncing back from the gong? When I first started shooting black powder, I had an 1851 navy colt reproduction in 44 cal. I was showing some of my cousins in swink what it would do and shot an old oak fence post about a foot square. Ball bounced back and whacked me right in the forehead.. We shoot gongs with both pistol and rifle, but try to stay far enough back to avoid most of the trash coming back. I've been wounded twice by pieces of steel coming back, once from about 80 yards.

 

[Pulp]

Swink, Oklahoma huh?

I find the bullets flattened out under the gong. I guess the bullet impact swings it out just enough to bounce the remnants straight down. The only time I've ever been hit by a bounce back was shooting into wood. I had one of those .45 caliber Philadelphia Derringers. I shot it into a old cabinet we had hauled off. Reloaded, aimed at the first bullet hole and fired. The ball bounced back and hit me in the ball of my thumb. I went down to the cabinet and found that the bullet went through the plywood door, hit a 2X4 in the back of the cabinet and bounced straight back, through the same hole and to me. It almost seemed like if recoil hadn't twisted my hand up and to the right, the bullet would have reloaded itself. Later I shot the gun at a tree, bullet bounced off and hit me square in the sternum. I put that gun away, and haven't even seen it since that day.
Steel targets need to be smooth steel, no bullet holes or bolt holes, and angled forward a bit. Shotguns are the worst offenders in CAS. It's not unusual to be hit by pellets fired from two or three stages down from you.

 

[Blitzfike]

We found out that all the steel targets need to be made to hang as a slight angle to deflect the bullets down. Experience can be a hard teacher... The loads on that old navy colt were pretty light as I remember, I was new to black powder and didn't trust the steel at that time. I later loaded it to max so many times that the brass frame is deformed from the cylinder slamming back into it that there is a large gap between barrel and cylinder now. I still have it as a wall hanger. I also learned the hard way about sealing the front of each chamber very well with crisco or some other lube to keep chainfires from happening...