45 colt shot load?

[Rocky Raab]

If you could get exactly the right size shot, so that it could be hand-packed in the capsule, it would work, sorta. Pack them in layers, three pellets per layer (exactly like 12 ga OO buck loads) and you might get 15 pellets in there. That's not a lot to hit something with.

I'd actually trust the two-ball load a lot more. For those coming in late, my two-ball load uses two pure lead muzzleloader balls .454" diameter seated over 5.0 of Unique in the 45 Colt. lightly crimp the top ball right at its equator, and you can rub a ring of bullet lube between the two balls.

Oh, and the short-barrel thing? Most guesses are that the slick plastic capsule "slides" a ways up the bore before the rifling starts to grip it. So a short barrel spins it less, and therefore patterns better. It seems to work, whatever the reason. My 3" Bulldog .44 fires a really good pattern - no hole in the middle as a spinning shot load seems to make.