I often encounter ruffies when wallking in the woods during deer season and though I have been fortunate to take a few with a 45 caliber head shot, I have missed more than a few as well. I got to thinking about a way that I could make a quick change to a shotshell to up my chances and came up with this idea just to see if I could get a decent pattern from the 6" revolver.

I started with some 356 Win brass because I had it, but 460 brass would have been better. After expanding and trimming to about 1/16" shorter than the cylinder length I ran the cases through a 44 mag sizer until they would chamber in the 45 Colt cylinder throats. I dropped in 12 grains of True Blue (similar to HS-6) and then placed a 1/8" cork wad over the powder. I filled the case with some #7-1/2's (about 1/2 ounce) and seated a 44 mag gas check over the shot. The case on the right in the above picture is what they look like after being fired.

The above target was shot at 5 paces distance.

Then at 7 paces.

And then at 9 paces, where the pattern starts to open up a bit, but not too bad. The black target spot is about 1" diameter. I'd like to try some #6's, but all I had on hand was what I use for trap shooting. I also shot a 1/2" thick piece of plywood @ 7 paces to check penetration and a few pellets did pass through.

There just may be some potential here.