Go by your manuals!!!! Never just assume anything. Load from suggested loads in published manuals like the Speer manuals. A max load for a 230 grain bullet, same powder weight, put a 270 in front of it and, yes, you're going to be dangerously over pressure!
Never assume, never think for yourself, always go by the manuals. There's a reason you can't get loads in 270 grain for .45ACP. When loaded to max OAL, there'd be precious little powder space available in the case. For a load with that heavy a bullet, you need to move up to a .45 Colt revolver or something.
When you up the bullet weight, you have to drop off the powder charge for two reasons. First, the bullet is heavier, is going to spend more time in the case and bore on firing, and is going to build more peak pressure because of the length of time it's in the chamber/bore. Also, the reduced powder space.
Again, if you don't have a good manual like the speer manual, BUY ONE before handloading and READ it! You can get all the manuals from http://www.midwayusa.com
The old axiom is, if you want a .357 Magnum, buy one. Don't try to make it out of a .38 special. However, I do hot rod my .45 Colt hunting loads out of my Contender or my Ruger Blackhawk. There are special loads only for guns this strong in the manuals. You could fire one of these out of a Raging Bull, but not your Tracker in .45 Colt. These rounds involve a 300 grain XTP at around 1200 fps (can go up to 1300 fps in some manuals). They will do anything a .44 magnum will do and the reason I like the old Colt is that Blackhawks are handier than Super Blackhawks. Of course, a S&W mountain gun in .44 mag can do a lot more than the same gun in .45 colt which is too weak for Ruger/TC loads. So, I guess, with the Colt, it just depends on the gun whether you're better off shooting it or switching to .44 mag.
Normally, though, if you need to hot rod your gun, you probably need to step up to a more powerful gun. Auto loaders and especially 1911s cannot handle hotrodding as well as revolvers, either, due to their cycling dynamics. Oh, you can put a stiffer spring in it, a recoil buffer, but it's still going to be hard on the gun. This is why the 10mm is out of favor and there aren't really many magnum level loads other than 10mm for autos that are of reasonable size and of delay blow back rather than gas operation. You can get in real trouble trying to hot rod an auto loader round.
You work up to a maximum pressure for any bullet weight which is mandated by SAAMI (small arms ammunition manufactures institute, or something such, and organization of ammunition manufacturers that sets the standards) . Any bullet weight will be loaded to within SAAMI working pressure for the caliber. If you load a lighter bullet to a heavier bullet's charge weight, you will get less pressure. If you seat a heavier bullet over the lighter bullet's maximum charge weight, you could be dangerously over pressure. Overall length, or the amount of bullet seating also affects pressure as well as do other variables.
By "hot rodding", I mean exceeding maximum working pressure for a caliber. In the case of my .45 Colt loads in the Blackhawk, SAAMI has set NEW pressure standards for "+P" loadings of the old .45 Colt. Maximum working pressure for the old colt round in weaker guns is 15,900 copper units of pressure (CUP). The Speer No 11 manual lists a maximum pressure of 25,000 CUP for their Ruger/Contender only loads. This makes about 300 fps difference in velocity with a given bullet weight. This is what I'd call "hot rodding". Has less to do with bullet weight as to cartridge working pressure.
There's books, volumes of books written about this stuff. You could probably benefit by some reading. Interior ballistics, what goes on inside the gun on firing, is pretty complicated compared to exterior (flight of the bullet) and even terminal (effects of the bullet on flesh) ballistics. The mathematics of exterior ballistics is well known and pretty straight forward and is what we, as handloaders, tend to concentrate on. But, while interior ballistics is quite a bit more complicated, a good a basic knowledge of it is far more important to the handloader just from the standpoint of safety. Basic rule, though, don't argue with the manuals.
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