Black Powder 45acp

Recently did a Wild Bunch match where I used black powder 45acp loads, which isn’t a new concept, seems darksiders have been doing this for years.  But was more curious to see what it felt like, and how the 1911 functioned.  Plus it would be cool to see all that hellfire and brimstone belching from a self loading pistol.

The cartridges were filled with FFg (FFg was used cause it delivers more flames then FFFg), loaded to the base of a 200g lead semi wade cutter boolit (melted down from lead weights) and lubed with a 50/50 split of beeswax and olive oil.

To back step a bit, before shooting black magic through this pistol, I had to field strip it, and clean out all the smokeless residue, and petroleum based gun lubes. and relube with Olive Oil.  I’ve heard stories of people phoning it in, and ending up with caramelized mess, that can take weeks to clean out.  Black works at different operating temps, so you need lubes that can handle it, and not get funked up.  Olive Oil works for me, other folks have used axel grease, or even light weight motor oil.

The first thing obviously noticed was that the pistol functioned fine, there was two hiccup’s, not due to the loading, but likely due to the shape of the semi wade cutter bullet.  My 1911 is the Springfield GI 45, and doesn’t digest semi wade cutters the best.  It gets heartburn.  None the less, the polishing tools and equipment will come out this week to further polish the ramps.

When shooting black powder cartridges, you notice that it’s more of a *boom* then a *bang*, so shooting a 1911 with black magic loads rapidly is easier since it’s more *thuddy* then *stingy*.  It’s sorta hard to explain, but you get the idea after shooting five rounds.

Most importantly, some flames went two to three feet out from the muzzle.  Way cool.

Now the fun stuff.

Here’s what the inside of my barrel looked like after 40 rounds >

And the frame >

I wasn’t able to get a good photo of the slide and all it’s innards.

If we used FFFg, the fouling might not have been as bad, since it would have burned cleaner.  But on the downside there’s slightly more recoil.  The BIG drawback is almost a total lack of flames though.  And I’m all about hellfire spittin’ outta my muzzle.

Looks like a bitch to clean, but actually, HOT water washes away 99% of the funk, then a patch or two of Windex w/vinegar, finally Ballistol, and voila’, clean as new.  Not sure if I’ll be shooting smokeless or black magic through it next, so I haven’t properly lubed it.

And there you have it.

The real bonus was that I noticed how much my handling of my 1911 has improved, I don’t think I missed a single pistol target.  I gave up using two hands, so I stick with duelist shooting, and now I find shooting the 1911 so much more satisfying.

UPDATE:  Here’s the only video I was able to find

UPDATE:  Here’s a photo of a 1911 spittin’ flame…….