Cheap and Easy Jacketed Bullets for the .475 Linebaugh

This load uses a fired .45 ACP case AS THE PROJECTILE. It actually began as an experiment in barrel cleaning. I had leaded the barrel heavily with some cast bullets I was testing and was looking around for an easy way to clean the barrel when it came to me. The outside diameter of the .45 ACP case is the correct size to fire down the barrel of the .475 Linebaugh!! I grabbed an empty .45 ACP and shoved it into a .475 case that had 10 gr. of Unique in it. Firing the .45 cartridge base-first as sort of a large all-metal wadcutter did not work. Halfway down the barrel the primer blew out of the .45 case leaving it stuck in the middle of bore.

Not to be undone, I drove it out of the barrel and reloaded, this time with the .45 ACP case base-down in the .475 case. KaWHAM! Success! It blew a nice hole in an oak door that I had laying in my shop. I spent the afternoon loading various powders and charges and blowing holes in things. It was wonderful. On the range they proved fairly accurate. I have not shot them over 30 or 40 yards but folks I know took the idea to new heights and is doing some (fairly) long-range shooting with them at velocities a little over 2000 fps.

Shooting my loads into a telephone pole, they penetrated 6" or so. I was only running them 1700 fps but they seem to work nicely. I used them to shoot the chicken targets on the handgun silhouette range and they worked just fine.

Since you can find fired 45 ACP cases laying around a lot of shooting ranges, this is a cheap and easy source of jacketed bullets!

No. I did not shoot the hog with a 45 ACP case bullet. I used a cast 400 gr. LBT at about 1300 fps. But I did use the 475 Linebaugh.