An obscure western hunting guide by the name of Elmer Keith, who sometimes dabbled in handloading, seems to have always preferred a lead semi-wadcutter ("Keith style") in all calibers for all purposes. I don't recall if he used gas seals but he apparently knew what he wanted and was satisified with the results. Only he preferred revolvers.
Could a lead semi-wadcutter be a good all-round bullet for the .45 ACP? I put this thread here because it mainly concerns the 1911 and other .45 automatics but it applies to your model 25 and model 1917, too. Everything hangs on whether this round will work in your particular automatic or not, naturally, but they did in mine, mostly.
This all centers around handloaded ammo. If you don't think handloaded ammunition is a Good Thing, then read no further. I am even aware that some think that handloaded ammuntion, as opposed to factory ammuntion, is a Bad Thing for anything other than recreational use and I understand the reasons. Only it seems like there is no factory ammuntion with hard-cast lead SCW bullets. There might be some custom reloader making some but essentially, that amounts to the same thing: not factory ammo.
One of Keith's principles was find a good load and stick with it. For that matter, he believed the same thing about his guns. Factory ammuntion was not good enough for him and he was an experimenter like nobody else (other than Phil Sharpe and a few others, now almost all forgotten). But the idea here is to have a single handloaded combination (bullet and powder, that is) to be used for everything. Is that a good thing? Or not? I expect the biggest objection is the handloaded part.
This also hangs on whether or not a hard-cast lead SWC will do it all or not. It will certainly makes nice, neat holes in paper but what about other things? At least when compared with other bullet styles. Is this about when you are thinking of going back to your large frame revolver? Or is a 1911 automatic a reasonable handgun for everything?
Although I have loaded 158 SWC (swaged, in this case) bullets for 9mm, which worked well enough (but frankly not worth doing-but they worked), I somehow don't think the same logic will transfer to a 9mm automatic.
Could a lead semi-wadcutter be a good all-round bullet for the .45 ACP? I put this thread here because it mainly concerns the 1911 and other .45 automatics but it applies to your model 25 and model 1917, too. Everything hangs on whether this round will work in your particular automatic or not, naturally, but they did in mine, mostly.
This all centers around handloaded ammo. If you don't think handloaded ammunition is a Good Thing, then read no further. I am even aware that some think that handloaded ammuntion, as opposed to factory ammuntion, is a Bad Thing for anything other than recreational use and I understand the reasons. Only it seems like there is no factory ammuntion with hard-cast lead SCW bullets. There might be some custom reloader making some but essentially, that amounts to the same thing: not factory ammo.
One of Keith's principles was find a good load and stick with it. For that matter, he believed the same thing about his guns. Factory ammuntion was not good enough for him and he was an experimenter like nobody else (other than Phil Sharpe and a few others, now almost all forgotten). But the idea here is to have a single handloaded combination (bullet and powder, that is) to be used for everything. Is that a good thing? Or not? I expect the biggest objection is the handloaded part.
This also hangs on whether or not a hard-cast lead SWC will do it all or not. It will certainly makes nice, neat holes in paper but what about other things? At least when compared with other bullet styles. Is this about when you are thinking of going back to your large frame revolver? Or is a 1911 automatic a reasonable handgun for everything?
Although I have loaded 158 SWC (swaged, in this case) bullets for 9mm, which worked well enough (but frankly not worth doing-but they worked), I somehow don't think the same logic will transfer to a 9mm automatic.
