Why 45 ACP Caliber?

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The army had the 45 Colt. Then they added the 45 Smith & Wesson, aka the "45 Scoefield". This was not an entirely happy situation as neither cartridge worked in the other revolver. The government developed the 45 Government which worked in both revolvers. This cartrdige found its way onto the civilian market where it became known as the 45 Short Colt.
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I dont think i have ever heard the schofield referred to as a short colt, but i may have missed that one. I can tell you for fact though, that you are off on the interchangeable part. You can in fact shoot .45 schofield in a .45colt revolver. Its no different than shooting a .38spl in a .357mag.
 
The army had the 45 Colt. Then they added the 45 Smith & Wesson, aka the "45 Scoefield". This was not an entirely happy situation as neither cartridge worked in the other revolver.
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Not quite. The .45 Smith & Wesson (or whatever name you call it -- there are Army cartridge packages bearing the label ".45 Short Colt") could be used in the .45 SAA Colt. But not the other way 'round. The .45 Colt was too long for the S&W cylinder. As early as 1875 (as I recall) the Army dropped the original .45 Colt and issued nothing but the "Short Colt" which worked in all issue revolvers.
 
45

The 45 S&W or Schofield did not work in the Colt revolver because the rim was too wide. The rims would foul each other or the ratchet. In some Colt revolvers you could load the S&W cartridge in every other cylinder. Not very satisfactory.

The 45 Government was a DIFFERENT cartridge with the case length of the 45 S&W and the narrow rim of the 45 Colt, allowing six rounds to chamber in either revolver although it incurred the risk of getting under the extractor star in the S&W revolver. It was the 45 Government that was known as the 45 Short Colt on the civilian market, NOT the 45 S&W or Schofield.

Today when I pick up modern brass headstamped 45 Schofield the rim looks too narrow to me, I suspect the dimensions are actually closer to the old 45 Government. I should pick up a few pieces and get the micrometer out.
 
The cartridge labeled the .45 Short Colt was the issue cartridge during the 1870s and 80s. It was designed to work in both Colts and Smith and Wessons.

The .45 Colt round adopted with the M1909 Colt would not work in SAAs because the rim was too wide. But that was a generation later.
 
1909 version

The cartridge for the 1909 Model New Service Colt was officially known as the 45 Revolver. (I have a box of them in my collection.) It had the case length of the 45 Colt or even a hair longer. It had a wide rim and would not chamber in the SSA nor will it chamber in my SSA knockoff. It never appeared on the civilain market.

This last cartridge is surprisingly little known today for a cartrdige that was once the US military's first line handgun cartridge.

A while back Starline ran off a batch of what they called wide rimmed 45 Colt brass. I found out about it after thay were sold out. I wish they would run another batch as the wide rim is really better for DA revolvers.
 
after Greneda/Lybia and a few other unpleasant vacation spots they found they were losing incredible numbers of aircrews to injuries from splinter/spalling/flashfires etc that in WWII would not have been an issue. The difference Nylon flight jackets vs Leather.
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Don't know where you got your information, but real Air Force/Army/Navy flight jackets were never made of nylon. They're made of Arimid. A.K.A. NOMEX. Just like NASCAR drivers and firefighters wear. They don't burn or melt. NOMEX fibers are also used to make body armor.

Uncle Sam may be dumb, at times, but he's not that stupid.

Leather flight jackets were brought back for moral and retention reasons, only. It's got nothing to do with fire resistance.

NOMEX uniforms are also issued to armored crew members.
 
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The 45 S&W or Schofield did not work in the Colt revolver because the rim was too wide. The rims would foul each other or the ratchet. In some Colt revolvers you could load the S&W cartridge in every other cylinder. Not very satisfactory.

The 45 Government was a DIFFERENT cartridge with the case length of the 45 S&W and the narrow rim of the 45 Colt, allowing six rounds to chamber in either revolver although it incurred the risk of getting under the extractor star in the S&W revolver. It was the 45 Government that was known as the 45 Short Colt on the civilian market, NOT the 45 S&W or Schofield.

Today when I pick up modern brass headstamped 45 Schofield the rim looks too narrow to me, I suspect the dimensions are actually closer to the old 45 Government. I should pick up a few pieces and get the micrometer out.
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I wont call you a liar, but I think you are mistaken on some of your points. In fact, if you check wikipedia, most of what you are saying is listed right there, and it even says that it isnt documented.

I have shot lots and lots of .45schofield rounds out of a .45 colt revolver, my uncle used to reload them. We shot them as "shorts" at paper. There was no problem with not being able to load every hole in the cyl, etc.
 
Schofield Cartridge

The 45 S&W or Schofield did not work in the Colt revolver because the rim was too wide. The rims would foul each other or the ratchet. In some Colt revolvers you could load the S&W cartridge in every other cylinder. Not very satisfactory.

The 45 Government was a DIFFERENT cartridge with the case length of the 45 S&W...
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Your source for that? Here's something on the Schofield cartridge. Page down. Nothing about that here.

Within a couple of years after the U.S. Army adopted the Colt single action revolver and its .45 Colt cartridge as their 'standard' handgun and cartridge in 1873, the salesmen at Smith & Wesson had managed to secure a contract from the Army for 3000 of its Schofield revolvers. The shorter .45 Smith & Wesson cartridge would chamber in the Colt Revolver but the .45 Colt cartridge was too long to be used in the Smith & Wesson revolver, so the Colt cartridge was dropped in favor of the Smith & Wesson cartridge, which was designated the .45 Colt Government and issued for use in both revolvers.
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Take a look at the headstamps on the old cartridges.

http://www.oldammo.com/march08.htm

Or here; this is a good read:

Our first full-blown official metallic pistol round was known as the .45 Colt (since it was developed by Colt, it seemed only fair I suppose). All went without a hitch until a certain Col. Schofield came into the picture. He was much impressed with the break-top loading and ejecting system utilized by Smith and Wesson. This system, he felt would be a much better and faster system for the galloping Cavalryman to reload aboard a horse than the somewhat laborious side loading and ejecting system of the Colt. While he no doubt had a point, S&W chose to utilize their standard "big bore" top break pistol frame, which was a bit short to accommodate the full length .45 Colt Cartridge. S&W designed the "Schofield Smith" to use a cartridge they called the .45 S&W (again, only fair). The U.S. Army bought a number of these pistols in 1877 and they were issued and essentially interspersed with the venerable Colt with no thought of the ammunition problem they were creating. Much like the .38 special which will chamber in the .357Magnum, but not vice versa, so it was with the .45 S&W and the .45 Colt. To solve this dilemma, the government simply adopted the .45 S&W as standard and called it the .45 Government Pistol Cartridge. This rather interesting solution has resulted in a cartridge misnomer that has lasted for over 100 years. Virtually everyone has heard the .45 Colt called the .45 Long Colt, but of course as you now know, that is not and has never been the official name of the .45 Colt cartridge. As the Schofield models found their way into the civilian market in the late 1800s (Wells Fargo even used some of them), the owners had to come up with suitable fodder for their sidearms. Walking into the local gunsmith’s or hardware store asking for a few .45 pistol cartridges would no longer do. Those using a .45 Peacemaker didn’t want the less powerful .45 S&W stuff when going in harm’s way, even though they would shoot just fine in their Colt self-protection hardware. Thus it became customary to call the Peacemaker round "The .45 Long Colt" to differentiate it from the shorter S&W round.. The pesky .45 S&W cartridge has long since disappeared from the scene, but the misnomer of ".45 Long Colt"
seems to survive despite all attempts to educate its users to the fact that they are REALLY using the .45 Colt…
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http://www.odcmp.org/1201/ac.pdf

And nothing about it in John Walter's The guns that Won the West, either.

On the other hand, the .45 Auto Rim cartridge had a rim that was too wide for .45 SAA Colt chambered in .45 ACP.

Also, as Vern Humphrey points out, the .45 FA cartridges issued for the Model 1909 revolver were too wide for the SAA:

The issue ammunition was the Revolver Ball Cartridge, Model 1909.

When the Model 1909 was first tested by the Army, they found that the small rim of the .45 Colt (which had been no problem in the rod ejection Model 1873), caused ejection problems in the Model 1909. So the Army made its own cartridges at Frankford, giving them a larger rim. There was no contract production and no cartridges were ever made for the civilian market. But the Army did not issue .45 Colt cartridges or the .45 Army cartridge (the round made for use in either the Model 1873 or the Schofield) with the Model 1909 revolver, only Model 1909 cartridges.

One note of interest is that except for the larger rim, the Model 1909 round is identical to the .45 Colt, but cannot be used in the SAA Colt unless loaded in only every other chamber, making the old "six shooter" into a "three shooter."
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http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2822529&postcount=8

Now, there are recent (mostly 21st century) references to Schofield cartridges with a larger rim (requiring a different shell holder) all over the place, but I think it likely that this all came about with the advent of reproduction Schofields and new production ammunition better sited to the extractors. I've never seen anything about it in historical literature.
 
"...if you check Wikipedia..." Wikipedia is full of Internet nonsense. Anybody with Internet access can post there.
 
The origin of the .45 caliber serviuce pistol goes back much farther than that. Reports of the Chief of Ordnance in the National Archives prior to the Civil War document requests from Col. Samuel Walker for a heavier revolver than earlier .36 cals., "powerful enough to take a man's horse out from under him." He specified that the Dragoon's revolver should handle heavy powder charges of up to 50 grains and be of bore size "not smaller than 50 round balls to the pound" (about 140 grains), and ideally take "bullets weighing 32 to the pound (218 grains)." The result was the Colt Walker. The various Dragoon models followed later as refinements to the concept.

While the Army pushed for a more handy revolver for use by infantry officers, the effectiveness of the larger bore was well established and "stuck" into the cartridge era. The British .450, .455 and .476 revolvers developed along similar parallel lines. In frontier days the Army .45 revolvers, such as the Colt Single-Action and the Smith & Wesson Schofield developed their reputation as reliable man-stoppers. After the Schofield revolver was adopted in 1875, the Army standardized on its shorter 1.10” long case at 1.43” overall cartridge length, Schofield cartridge ".45 Revolver Ball", to replace the longer 1.60” overall cartridge length “Revolver Cartridge, Caliber .45, M1873.” Schofield ammo was issued for both revolvers because the shorter .45 S&W was also useable in Colts, but not vice-versa.

The .45 S&W Schofield was loaded with 28 grains of black powder and a 218 grain flat nosed bullet, (later 230- grains) at a velocity of about 730 f.p.s. The .45 Schofield service cartridge is the one upon which “the .45” gained its deadly reputation. A half ounce of lead, producing 272 ft.-lbs. of muzzle energy, penetrated five 7/8” pine boards near the muzzle, producing a mean extreme spread of eight inches at 100 yards, with 16 inches of drop, and penetrating 3-1/2 inches of pine way out there, according to the Army Ordnance Pamphlet. That is still useful performance for a service handgun, old or new.

When the .38 Long Colt Model of 1889 revolvers failed during the Phillipine campaign older .45 revolvers and Schofield ammunition were placed back in service. The M1909revolver cartridge was simply an accomodation to the Colt Newe Service revolver, which was a limited stop-gap measure. When the Army sought an automatic service pistol to replace its revolvers, it specifiied a .45 caliber cartridge approximating the performance of the familiar Schofield and later M1909 service rounds. The rest is history.
 
I also have read that the original .45 S&W Schofield rim diameter was too large for the SAA and that the .45 Government had a compromise rim, small enough to load in a Colt, but large enough for reliable extraction in a S&W. But I doubt there is much of the large rim design ammo around. The difference would have been noticed the day they tried issuing .45 Schofield for use in both guns. By 1877 the ammunition was definitely compatible with both revolvers.

David Chicoine has a sealed box of original 1875 FA "Revolver Ball Cartridges" and you could find out for sure for $1475. He had an opened box but it has already sold. Maybe the new owner or other advanced collector would measure a rim for us.

The matter is definitely above CotW level of detail.
 
.......a 9 may expand

but a 45 will never shrink

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how it got to be the way it is, is interesting.

more simply, it works
 
Don't know where you got your information, but real Air Force/Army/Navy flight jackets were never made of nylon
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Actually the flight jackets in Vietnam which were green/ orange WERE nylon. However since the late 60's flight jackets have been made from Nomex. The B-2 jacket was brought back for recruiting perposes in both the Airforce and Navy. All issue flight gear is fire resistant as issued today, including body armor.
 
I
also have read that the original .45 S&W Schofield rim diameter was too large for the SAA and that the .45 Government had a compromise rim, small enough to load in a Colt, but large enough for reliable extraction in a S&W.
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Any idea where you read that, Jim?
 
"...if you check Wikipedia..." Wikipedia is full of Internet nonsense. Anybody with Internet access can post there.
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Excellent way to pick through my post and miss the point! If you would have kindly read what I wrote, I was implying that he was quoting from wikipedia himself. Lets try reading my post together, shall we?
I wont call you a liar, but I think you are mistaken on some of your points. In fact, if you check wikipedia, most of what you are saying is listed right there, and it even says that it isnt documented.
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So, I think now that we have re-read what I posted you will in fact see that I did not claim wikipedia to be anything resembling truthful, simply that he was posting what was there.
 
Found a piece of 30-06 range brass, took it home, and broke out the dremel. I cut it in half and when I went to trim it the case guide would not go in the shell due to the case being too thick. So I do not believe you can load a 45 ACP bullet in a 30-06 casing. I thought it would be cool if you could though.
 
That used to be the standard method to make .45 Super brass (until Starline brought some out), although it was more common to cut down the .308 for that purpose.

One advantage of making brass like this is you can leave a ledge inside the case. The base of the bullet sits on the base and isn't so likely to be shoved back into the case.
 
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