Sweeney - Gun Digest Big Fat Book of the .45 ACP

Gun Digest
BIG FAT BOOK
of the
.45 ACP

Patrick Sweeney

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2009923228

ISBN-13: 978-1-4402-0219-3
ISBN-10: 1-4402-0219-2
eISBN: 978-1-44022-403-4

Designed by Dustin Reid
Edited by Dan Shideler

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

A s always, to Felicia. You can thank her for my meager skills at writing and the fact that my spell-checker and grammar software does not explode before my editor gets this.

To Dan Shideler, who goes through the text and makes sure I dont repeat my jokes too often and that the package arrives on time.

And to two fellows with unending interest: Charley and Oberon. From the amount of talking Ive done while walking them, on this and other books, youd think they would understand it by now. But they dont, they just wag their tails and look longingly at the squirrels I wont let them chase.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T he firearms industry, except where the people in charge arent really firearms people, is surprisingly free and easy with information. You can ask a question of someone in the biz, and unless what you asked concerns a proprietary process that the maker spent a lot of money to figure out, youll usually get an answer. If its something that a real goof could get himself in trouble knowing or attempting, the engineer, ballistician or a PR guy might remain a bit closed-mouth about it.

But a whole lot is out there to be known, if you just ask.

In the course of writing this book I worked with many in the ammunition and firearms manufacturing industries. Among them, Jason Nash at ATK, Steve Johnson at Hornady, Ken Alexander, Fernando Coelho now of Eotac gear, Peter Pi and Mike Shovel of Cor-bon and Hunter Pilant of Starline as well as his dad, Carroll Pilant, from Sierra.

Id also like to thank the folks at both Lapua and Sako for giving me a tour of their ammomaking plants while on vacation in Finland. The very idea of allowing a technically-educated person loose in a manufacturing plant with camera and notebook strikes fear in the hearts of many an American MBA or business consultant. But the Finns are made of sterner stuff. (Just ask the Soviets.)

Im sure there are technical details that Ive left out, at least left out where the desires of some readers are concerned. For instance, the subject of cast lead bullets and what they should be for various applications is quite usefuland more than this book was meant to be or could be. If you want the lowdown on that particular subject, you can either read Veral Smiths Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets or wait until I do the planned handgun reloading book.

If you want to know just what the pressure limits are for the .45 ACP, so you can take advantage of all the unused pressure capacity of the .45, you really ought to lie down with a cold compress on your forehead. You wont find out how to magnum-ize the .45 here. Nor will you find it in the handgun reloading title to come. Some things are perfect as they are, and attempts to make them more are fraught with peril should be avoided.

An example comes to mind: I once met a fellow shooter who was inordinately proud of his truck. He had taken his beaten-up, high-mileage Ranger, and managed to wrestle a V-8 engine into ita 351 Cleveland as I recall. He had shoehorned it into the engine compartment. Yes, I had to trim the radiator and ducting, reroute the wiring, it needed bigger shocks and springs and the transmission had to be rebuilt. But boy does it run, he told me. And every time he goosed the throttle, the whole truck tipped and twisted on its suspension as the torque increased.

No, if you want that kind of performance, you should go to a different vehicle, be that vehicle a .44 Magnum or an F-150.

I did not begin my shooting and reloading with a .45 ACP. I started with a .38 Special and then branched over to the .357 Magnum before I owned my first 1911A1. But once I went to the big bore, I didnt look back for a long time. So thank you, gentlemen at Frankford Arsenal and John Moses Browning. If not for you, wed all be the poorer.

INTRODUCTION
The Beginnings

T here is a building in Rome called the Pantheon. I risk over-using the word unique (which doesnt seem to bother a whole lot of people these days) but it is unique in a whole host of aspects. First, it is perhaps the oldest building that has been in continuous use since it was constructed. Erected (actually re-built, but lets not quibble) in 125 A.D. by the Emperor Hadrian, it was built to house all the gods. Latin is a grand language, and much of English is based upon it. Many words we use today are recognizable Latin. Not that Julius Caesar would recognize what we speak, but many of the words remain the same.

Pantheon is a word derived from Greek, and in Latin means of all the gods. The idea was to assemble shrines for all the gods into one building, instead of having each in their own temple scattered across Rome. There, the one-stop shopper could visit as many gods as needed to solve their particular problem. Not that the old temples were abandoned or torn down, no sirree. The others continued in use, but the Pantheon was meant to be a place for all of them.

The building itself is a construction and architectural marvel. It is a dome 142 feet across, made of cast concrete. Imagine a sphere with a diameter of 142 feet. Now, take the equator of that sphere and turn it into a cylinder, extending to the ground. That is the shape of the Pantheon. It is what architects call a pure building. You dont see many buildings shaped as cubes, nor rectangles of the golden proportion, but the Pantheon is a sphere perched on a cylinder. When it was made, it was the largest domed building made. Since then, there have not been a whole lot of domes built bigger. Five hundred years later, the church of Hagia Sophia was constructed in Constantinople. While taller, at 182 feet above floor level, its dome is smaller in circumference at 102 feet. It is bigger?

Some will argue yes, others no. In Florence in 1296, the city fathers began work on their magnificent new cathedral. By 1419 they had finished all but the dome, 42 meters in diameter (same as the Pantheon) over the otherwise finished building. Fillipo Brunelleschi won the competition to build a dome on the cathedral. Why did it take so long? Because at that time, no one had figured out how to make a dome that large. Brunelleschi solved the problem, but his dome isnt a dome like the Pantheon. It is actually eight arches leaning in on each other. Still, it is big, as wide as and taller than the Pantheon.

In 1547, Michelangelo took over work on the barely begun St. Peters Basilica in Rome. When he was done, the dome design was finalized. It measures 136 feet in diameter, a few feet less than the Pantheon. It is much higher, however, as it rests on four immense pillars, such that the crest of the dome is 448 feet above the floor. It took almost 1,400 years to beat the Pantheon. I cant help but point out that the St. Peters dome is not just a series of arches tipped in on each other like Brunelleschis, but is actually a dome within a dome. Yes, Michelangelo cheated, making two domes in one to save weight. Yet, the Pantheon remains the largest spherical, cast concrete dome in the world. And it is not likely to be surpassed as other construction methods are less expensive and less massive.