Making/Shooting Blanks

[Uncle Buck]

Don't know why, but I want to make some blanks for my .45 Colt.

Someone must have done this before and could share their experience. I do not want to have to re-invent the wheel.

I am thinking that if I take the primed .45 Colt shell and load it with powder, all I will have to do is place a couple of pieces of card board over the powder and crimp it. Maybe I can seal it in place like you do with a shotgun shell.

What are the dangers involved and what should be avoided?

What types of powder should/should not be used?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas.

 

[Sport45]

Loading Cowboy Blanks

Above is a recipe, sounds like it would work if you don't mind black powder... You'd have to use a pretty fast smokeless powder and let it build pressure with some kind of restriction (wad?) to get a bang. Black powder explodes without as much confinement.

 

[Unclenick]

Blanks normally use special blank powder, which is faster burning than anything sold for reloading. I've never tried it with a fast smokeless powder, like Clays, but wouldn't be surprised if it just pushed the cardboard out before it burned significantly and went "pop" rather than "bang". You'll likely find firing a magnum primer with no powder or wad is louder.

As suggested, you can make blanks that go bang from black powder. Just be ready for the clean-up afterward.

 

[oneounceload]

You could load up wax bullets with fast powder - might work OK

 

[Unclenick]

Also might not be a blank. Wouldn't want to be shot with one. Wads are dangerous, too, if you are too close to them.

 

[griz]

You can also use cornmeal or grits over top of the powder with a cardboard disk crimped over the end. I have done this to make a load for popping balloons from about 10 feet away.

The problem is there is no published data so you are on your own with figuring out the proportions. And as with wax bullets, they are dangerous at close range.

 

[kraigwy]

My wife likes to play at Mounted Cowboy shooting, (shooting balloons on stakes while horse back)

I load dab of black powder held in place by a wax wad. Its all you need to pop the balloons yet safe if you screw up. (peppering a horse' ear is bad enough, you shoot off his ear and you're in for a rodeo).

To determine how much, figure how far you want to shoot the balloons, work up your load until you can pop them with every shot.

Here is the problem. Most light loads without bullets cause the primer to back out jamming the revolver. To over come this, I enlarge the primer pocket to 1/8 inch. This of course will be dangerous if you load the case with full loads. I modify my cases for blanks to they can easily be separated.

I cut them down so you can plainly see the difference.

 

[Unclenick]

I think you meant you enlarge the vent (flash hole), but yes, that's a necessary step. I know a number of folk have played with loading the NT cases with larger vents with standard primers, and report no problems. I just don't have any idea how far you can take that? It might make for an interesting experiment. I'd expect with short cases, like .45 ACP, you'd get to a width where the primers kept unseating the bullets faster than the powder lights and MV would get erratic. But that's just speculation on my part.