Mystique And Legend of The .45 Colt

Mr. Mosin said:

The bit about it knocking an Indian war pony off it's feet at 100yds, etc, etc. So... is there any concrete, historical evidence to back this legend up ?

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I'm pretty sure I haven't heard all of the "legends" surrounding the 45 Colt, but if it, or for that matter any other cartridge fired in a handheld firearm was powerful enough to knock an Indian war pony off its feet at 100yds, what do you think it would do to the person that fired it? Think action and reaction and all that.

Or the cowboy asked why they carry a 45 Colt. “Because the don’t make a 46 Colt”.

I could believe that actually happened. Here's why.....
My daughter shot her first deer in the hind quarter broadside, with a 7.62x39.
That deer was DRT! I mean that thing dropped like a brain shot from a 50 BMG.
Never even twitched after it fell.

Was it because of the energy transferred into it by a mere x39 or disruption of the CNS? Who knows, but it happened.

Could a 45 Colt knock down a horse at 100 yards? Why not?

Mr. Mosin said:

I've been reading some, on the .45 Colt; and it occurred to me- a lot of this cartridge's capability is... for lack of better terms... shrouded in mystery and folklore. The bit about it knocking an Indian war pony off it's feet at 100yds, etc, etc. So... is there any concrete, historical evidence to back this legend up ?

Not questioning it's capability as a stopper of man or beast, just questioning the legends surrounding it.

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No, it's all bs. That's what the Walker was designed to do . . .

Mike

Gun talk almost always create tall tales... as much as fishing poles and barstools do. I don’t know all the folklore... and since it’s connected with the end of the “old West” I’m sure there’s plenty...but you gotta admit for its original era, the .45 Colt was a pretty high-octane handgun round.

It still can be. The old Vaquero and 454 SRH can take some seriously hot loaded .45 Colt rounds that sling 300+ grain bullets at magnum velocity. Not a whole lot of critters can withstand one of those in the boiler room.

Stay safe.

There was some thinking that a cavalry gun had to be stout enough to take out a horse as well as its rider. Not necessarily knock it off its feet, but bring it down, thus disabling its rider. And the horse was a bigger target.
Been fooling with .45 Colt for some years; Trailboss made it easy to load it lightly without the case capacity issues...there was something like 100'sec difference between Unique at the front of the case vs at the back.
My current loads are living in the mid 800s, even in a carbine; we have dangling bowling pins at camp, and those punkin' roller rounds knock the crap out of a hardwood pin. Much more so than a 5.56.
Because of the mild velocity, lead boolits work fine, so it's not even expensive to shoot.
Moon

If you have not fired a .45 Colt with a case full of black powder under a 250 grain lead bullet, you should. It will give you a historical perspective that cannot be gained by any number of printed words.

It is a handful.

When I was competing in IHMSA Handgun Silhouette, the range I belonged to had full size sighter targets mounted on railroad car springs at the appropriate ranges.

The unlimited guns and other various fast movers would hit the 100m pig with a splat and the pig would hardly move.

With a 45 Colt revolver using 255 grain cast bullets, the pig would ring like a gong from a hit and the target would sway back and forth. I'm not sure it would drop a horse in its tracks, but it would sure put some hurt on it. At shorter ranges, the damages would be greater.

I've heard, and it could be as folk lore as dropping a horse at 100 yards with a 45 Colt, one of the reasons the army accepted the 45 ACP 1911 semi auto pistol was that the Calvary wanted a gun/ammunition that would drop a horse. At the time, the Calvary was still the elite of the army and they got what they wanted.

I guess the old Colt saw a lot of use, and anyone with enough experience can tell some odd tales. I wouldn't count on the Colt to knock down a pony any more than I would count on a Sharps rifle to knock down a man at a mile - but again, if you use something enough, all sorts of things can happen.

J-Bar said:

If you have not fired a .45 Colt with a case full of black powder under a 250 grain lead bullet, you should. It will give you a historical perspective that cannot be gained by any number of printed words.

It is a handful.

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I always get a laugh when I let a cylinder of 36 grains of FFF under a 260 grain bullet out of my 7 1/2” Bisley at the indoor range. Not so much the smoke but the boom that brings people to the window to see what just happened.
As far as the horse story goes I think that if the bullet hit it in the right place the horse would drop given the amount of powder that would have been in those loads.

Mr. Mosin said:

the bit about it knocking an Indian war pony off it's feet at 100yds

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Howdy

There is a big difference between incapacitating a horse at 100 yards, and "knocking it off its feet".

Clearly a pony is a bigger target than the man on its back. Now I don't know about anybody else, but at 100 yards I would have trouble hitting a target the size of a horse or a pony with a revolver, particularly if the animal was galloping.

I suppose if I took the time to sit down, brace my back against a tree, and held the revolver with both hands between my knees a la Elmer Keith I could do it. Maybe I would need a couple of shots to walk up to the target. Cavalrymen generally did not have an opportunity to do that. They would have been armed with a single shot Trapdoor carbine, probably firing the watered down version of the 45-70 cartridge with only 55 grains of Black Powder under a 405 grain bullet. Probably the only time they would have drawn their Colts is if a band of hostiles broke through a defensive line. At close range, with a well placed shot a 250 grain bullet propelled by 40 grains of Black Powder from a 7 1/2" barreled Colt would certainly have incapacitated a horse, if it was hit in the vitals. Knock it off its feet? Probably not.

J-Bar said:

If you have not fired a .45 Colt with a case full of black powder under a 250 grain lead bullet, you should.

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I have done this a bazillion times. This is a photo of the recoil of a 45 Colt round fired from a 4 3/4" Colt. My standard load for 45 Colt is about 35 grains of FFg Schuetzen under a 250 grain bullet. The original 40 grain load is difficult to duplicate in modern brass without compressing the dickens out of the powder. Modern brass has less case capacity than the old copper cased, Benet primed, Frankford Arsenal 45 Colt rounds.






I think it was in the John Wayne movie, The Sons of Katie Elder where actor Jeremy Slate is shot as he is jumping in the air. The shot doesn't just knock him down, it knocks him completely backwards. Clearly, he was attached to a rope, and as the scene was shot, somebody yanked the rope to pull him backwards. Pure movie baloney. .308 Norma is correct. If my loads were powerful enough to knock a 1000 pound animal off its feet, the equal and opposite reaction would knock me off my feet and into the next county.

I shoot these rounds all the time. Recoil has not knocked be off my feet yet.

The original U.S. Army Ordnance Boards selection test for what became the .45 ACP cartridge and pistol were decided upon a priority requirement that the round had the ability to kill a enemy cavalryman's mount (or at least put it on the ground - remember, soldiers still rode horses in those days). I have no doubt that a .45 Colt cartridge could drop a horse with ease if the shot was properly placed.

Like @J-Bar said, fire the .45 Colt loaded to the original BP loading or simulate the original 255 grain load at 900 FPS with smokeless powder and it will give you a different perspective.

Horses were still being used a lot in WW2. Especially by the Germans. And any round would cause a horse to suffer pain. That pain could cause any number of reactions from the animal. Most likely it would turn, buck, spin and just plain panic if shot. That doesn't make the 45 Colt a horse killer per se. While the 45 Colt is a powerful handgun round its way behind even the weakest of any battles rifles that were being used.

I think it’s possible.
At a run if you hit a horse in the front leg or shoulder and shatter a bone that horse is going face first into the ground.

Same with any central nervous system shot, down like a sack of bricks.
Those would be hard shots to make intentionally but if you shoot enough horses your going to make them and see that reaction some percentage of the time.

Mr. Mosin said:

I've been reading some, on the .45 Colt; and it occurred to me- a lot of this cartridge's capability is... for lack of better terms... shrouded in mystery and folklore. The bit about it knocking an Indian war pony off it's feet at 100yds, etc, etc. So... is there any concrete, historical evidence to back this legend up ?

Not questioning it's capability as a stopper of man or beast, just questioning the legends surrounding it.

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This kind of stuff has been making the rounds for longer than any of us have been around about a great many cartridges.

Sir Isaac Newton says if you're going to knock a war pony/horse off it's feet that weighs 10 times or more than the human pulling the trigger, said human is going to be in a world of hurt. Might just as well put the barrel under his chin when he pulls the trigger, if that's the case.

Most such stories are just that...stories.

Now...sometimes a critter will perform some amazing death feats when shot in the brain or some such, where a final spasm may cause quite a leap due to the nervous system response. But that has nothing to do with the "horse power" behind the bullet itself.

American Handgunner THE COLT WALKER .44 - American Handgunner

"The first revolver with Samuel Colt’s name on it is today called the Walker and it appeared in 1847. Here’s how it came about. A former Texas Ranger turned U.S. Army Captain of Dragoons (The army’s name for mounted troops at that time.) named Sam Walker remembered how well those Paterson revolvers served for Indian fighting. Because Samuel Colt had gone bankrupt with the Paterson, Sam Walker had to travel back east to find him so they could put their heads together. He didn’t go empty handed. He had authority from the U.S. Government to order 1,000 revolvers. It was a meeting of one mind who knew how to make things and another who knew how to use them: i.e. the inventor and the fighting man."

ontarget said:

Was it because of the energy transferred into it by a mere x39 or disruption of the CNS? Who knows

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Kleanbore said:

Anyone in my 11th grade physics class who had seen anyone shoot a .45 would have known that

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"Anyone" in Kleanbore's "11th grade physics class who had seen anyone shoot a .45." That's who knows it wasn't "because of energy transferred into it."
I know it too, and I wasn't even in Kleanbore's 11th grade physics class.
BTW, 10 years ago I watched our grandson kill his first deer - a mule deer doe. Like your daughter, he was using a 7.62X39. He didn't manage to disrupt her CNS with the shot, although he did hit her high in the side of her chest at probably 80 yards. She stumbled forward a few steps, and fell down dead. It was kind of obvious the bullet had clipped a major blood vessel or something because her chest cavity was clear full of blood when we gutted her.

The black powder 45 Colt cartridge, it's performance and the guns it was fired in, form a subject that occupied my time and energies years ago and it continues as a subject of interest today. In trying to know about it you have to realize the cartridge had a split personality back then.

First there was the original Ordnance round, 40g of FFg under a 255g RNFP for ~910 fps from the issue SAA's 7-1/2" barrel. This was intended, not to topple a horse but to wound bad enough for it to be hors-de-combat. Interestingly that load was sufficiently punishing for the troopers (who literally got no training or practice) that by late 1874 it had been reduced to 30g of FFg under a 250g RNFP. This was considered still deadly to a horse or Indigenous Person (remember this was the height of the Indian Wars). That lasted until 1875-76 when the whole Schofield business came about, ultimately ending even the neutered the 45 Colt as a military round and replacing it with a government version of the S&W 45. A 230g RNFP overe 28g of black powder for about 830 fps. And yes, a 230g 45 caliber bullet @ 830 fps should sound familiar as it will be introduced again by Ordnance around 1911.

On the civilian side the 40g/255g load lasted long enough to get past the folded copper case into what became known as the 'balloon head case'. This still held 3-4g more black powder than our modern brass today and was loaded variously with 30g, 32g, 35g and 38g. The latter two being considered the full power loads and with either 250g or 255g bullets. An 1888 catalog for the UMC company lists the 40g FFg load still being offered and no less than Elmer Keith mentions it still being available after the turn of the century and still rated as a 910 fps loading.

As mentioned earlier, a full charge load driving a 255g around 900 fps, depending on barrel length, is something anyone interested in this should experience. The first thing that will come to mind is 'magnum performance'. The blast, the flame, the smoke, and the recoil is nothing like what the CAS people know as a 45 Colt. It's a step back in history and an eye opener as well as a lot of fun.

Dave

cfullgraf said:

I've heard, and it could be as folk lore as dropping a horse at 100 yards with a 45 Colt, one of the reasons the army accepted the 45 ACP 1911 semi auto pistol was that the Calvary wanted a gun/ammunition that would drop a horse. At the time, the Calvary was still the elite of the army and they got what they wanted.

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During that period, the Cavalry was also reminded that it was the carbine, not the revolver, that was the arm of the Cavalry.

As a matter of interest, the Cavalry wanted a pistol that engaged a safety after each shot, so that the trooper had to disengage a safety before firing the next shot. This to insure everyone's safety from "...a green trooper on an unruly horse."

The Cavalry Board also wanted a pistol with an internal magazine, as if the "clip" (their words, as I recall) were dropped, the pistol was useless.

Bob Wright

Have no pistols in 45 Colt, but I do have four rifles for it. I can hit the swinging targets with it and instead of the back and forth like most rifle hits, 45 Colt makes them spin. At 200 yards I can hit the gong there at will with a splint second delay between the boom and the gong. Fun rifles all of them.

Having never shot a black powder .45 Colt round, many years ago I bought a can of 3Fg powder and decided to rectify the situation.

First of all I found I could not get 40 grs. of powder into my cases, so settled on 38 grs. I loaded a few hundred rounds and went to the range, using a Ruger Bisley Blackhawk, 7 1/2" barrel. Now the morning was early, still and damp with the morning dew, a beautiful fall day.

My first shot and my first reaction: "How did they get so much smoke in such a small cartridge?" I could not see the bullet impact the berm downrange. Smoke curled up from the dew-wet grass, and sort of clung around me. When the smoke cleared enough, I touched off a second shot, adding more smoke to the already clouded area.

With a paper target, my first shots were in the black at twenty-five yards. But the..........my group began to climb as the burnt powder fouled the bore. I quit firing when it seemed my shots would go above the paper. Firing some 185 gr. JHPs with HS-6 brought my groups down gradually as my bore was cleared of fouling.

I soon ran through that experience and decided "nevermore." One of those things I'm glad I did it, but will never do it again.

Bob Wright

P.S. Water on hands coated with powder fouling makes a mighty slick grip!




the bore.

BobWright said:

During that period, the Cavalry was also reminded that it was the carbine, not the revolver, that was the arm of the Cavalry.

As a matter of interest, the Cavalry wanted a pistol that engaged a safety after each shot, so that the trooper had to disengage a safety before firing the next shot. This to insure everyone's safety from "...a green trooper on an unruly horse."

The Cavalry Board also wanted a pistol with an internal magazine, as if the "clip" (their words, as I recall) were dropped, the pistol was useless.

Bob Wright

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So..... basically they wanted a SAA in a different form?