curacy. I once had a colleague who was a serious competitor in target matches. He bought a new Colt 45 autoloader and shipped it to a premier pistolsmith for accuracy enhancement. When the pistol came back, it had with it a target that showed a fi ve-shot group at 50 yards fi red from a machine rest. That group measured less than 1.5 inches. So the issue with the 45 Auto is not so much about its inherent accuracy but rather shooting it accurately. That concern is related to the shooter, not necessarily the gun or the ammunition. As eventually adopted for military
Handguns chambered for the 45 Auto such as this S&W 4506 can be effective for taking varmints at short range.
with my favorite in the latter category being the Ruger P345. Because I have these guns available often, I wanted to do some loading with the possibility of using the 45s for dispatching varmints should the situation arise. I should point out that the fi rst few groundhogs I took with a handgun fell to my Smith & Wesson Model 15 Combat Masterpiece 38 Special. The shots would not have qualifi ed me for any yardage club, but the handgun was what I had with me, and it certainly did the job effi ciently. When fi red in an appropriate pis- tol, the 45 Auto delivers outstanding ac-
use, the 45 Auto utilized a 230-grain jacketed bullet at approximately 850 ft/sec. That load has a muzzle energy of 370 ft lbs, but for sporting use, par- ticularly on varmints, a different type of bullet should be employed. Fortunately, factory loaded ammunition is avail- able with bullets that span the range in weights from about 155 grains to 250 grains. If necessary, I easily could get by using factory ammunition, but like a lot of other varmint hunters, I wanted to do it my way. Because my intent was to evaluate potential varmint loads for the 45 Auto, I arbitrarily selected bullets weighing 185 grains. There is no reason to limit the choice in this way because trajectory is not likely to be an issue by the average shooter at ranges suitable for using the 45 Auto. However, the fl atter trajectory and lower recoil given a lighter bullet are desirable as long as accuracy does not suffer. Although the 45 Auto is normally
considered to be a handgun for defense, it can be used on varmints when hollow- point bullets are selected. Other styles
Instrumental Velocities for 185-grain 45 Auto Loads in a Smith & Wesson 4506 with a 5-inch Barrel.
Load 1 Bullet
Nosler HP Nosler HP Nosler HP
Powder Unique
Power Pistol Acc. No. 5
Remington G. S. Unique Remington G. S. Power Pistol Remington G. S. Acc. No. 5 Sierra HP Sierra HP Sierra HP
Unique
Power Pistol Acc. No. 5
Gr. Vel. f/s 6.7 895
7.3 872 8.5 873 6.7 908 7.3 901 8.5 899 6.7 904 7.3 892 8.5 888
Load 2
Gr. Vel. f/s 7.2
7.8 9.0 7.2 7.8 9.0 7.2 7.8 9.0
935 930 914 968 963 952 937 934 939
These loads were safe and reliable in the author’s pistol, but neither the author nor the publisher accepts any responsibility for their preparation and use by others.
Page 42 Winter 2012
might be satisfactory, but the lighter bullets have wide cavities, and they expand well. There are some personal defense loads in 45 Auto that utilize 185-grain bullets, but I wanted to de- velop my own. When it comes to accuracy, it is
necessary for each shooter to assess that attribute with respect to the pistol and load being employed. Assuming that the pistol is being used with open sights, a factor that is often overlooked is the effect of the sight radius. In the case of a short barrel, the sight radius might be as short as 6 inches. If that is the case, the effect of a small error in sight align- ment translates into a sizeable error on a target at even 25 yards. For example, if the sight radius is 6 inches, an error of only 0.01 inch in placing the front sight correctly in the rear notch becomes an error of 1.5 inches at 25 yards! For this reason, a full size 45 Auto pistol with a longer sight radius is likely to be fi red more accurately by most shooters, espe- cially if they don’t see better than I do. Having said that, I acknowledge that I carry my polymer frame Ruger P345 much more often than I do the S&W 4506 because the difference in weight is 11 ounces.
Doubtless, the most popular style
of 45 Auto pistol is the 1911. Such pis- tols are produced by a large number of manufacturers, both foreign and domes- tic. But I prefer the double action models with the decocking feature so I do not have a 1911-style pistol. However, my S&W 4506 has a 5-inch barrel so the results that I obtained should just about duplicate what would be obtained in a 1911-style piece. One of the limitations of the 45
Auto is the curved trajectory. Even a 185-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of 950 ft/sec has a midrange trajectory over a distance of 75 yards of almost 3 inches. Moreover, the point of impact is then almost 6 inches low at 100 yards. The most effi cient arrangement is to sight in at 50 yards which allows the bullet path to be at most about 1-1.5 inches high at shorter ranges and to be only about 3 inches low at 75 yards. Unless the pistol has a scope mounted, the open sights will limit the effective range for most shooters to less than this distance. With open sights on a pistol, I consider my practical range limit to be about 50 yards, at which distance I can
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