1909 Colt and ACP?

[Jim Watson]

Seems to me that if you put a .45 ACP/AR cylinder in a .45 Colt revolver, all that would happen at the little cylinder stop lug would be that the ACP cylinder would come back a whole .030" before fetching up against the stop and the extractor pushing the clip full of empties out. I don't think .030" is enough slop that the gun will fall apart. Is it?

 

[Jim K]

Probably it would work that way as far as unloading, but the cylinder ratchet would hang up on the latch when trying to close it unless the cylinder is pushed forward or the muzzle held downward.

Jim

 

[BobWright]

As I recall, that distance is far greater than .030". Seems more like a 1/4" travel. Long enough to be disconcerting, I'll tell you that!

Bob Wright

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

.030 is the correct number. A double action revolver chambered for 45ACP has about .030 more head space than a revolver chambered for 45 Colt. That is to allow for the thickness of the moon clips that ride in the extractor groove of the 45ACP rounds. When the 45 Auto Rim cartridge was developed in the 1930s it was designed with a rim that was nominally .090 thick, as opposed to the nominal .060 thick rim of the 45 Colt. The extra .030 was to take up the space reserved for the moon clips.

In this photo, from left to right the cartridges are 45 Colt, 45 Schofiled, 45 Cowboy Special, 45 Auto Rim, and 45 ACP. You can see how much thicker the 45AR rim is than the 45 Colt rim.







This photo is a little bit out of focus, but you can see the thicker 45 AR rims in the space behind the cylinder in the S&W Model 1917 at the bottom of the photo, as opposed to the thinner 45 Colt rims in the Colt New Service at the top of the photo.



.030 of extra material would need to be welded onto the ledge on the side plate of the New Service if a 45 ACP cylinder was installed. No, the gun would not fall apart, but it would not function properly if the .030 of new material was omitted.

 

[Jim K]

In #27, I wrote "the cylinder ratchet would hang up on the latch when trying to close ... the cylinder."

Did you folks think I would make that statement without having tried it?

FWIW, the cylinder stud of the M1909 measures .121", the Model 1917 is .162" or closer to .040 than .030, but close enough. The cylinder lengths measure 1.620" for the 1909, 1.593" for the 1917, or .027", again close enough to .030.

Once the 1917 cylinder was closed in the 1909, it functioned and timed perfectly. (I did not fire the gun, but saw no reason to think it wouldn't work.) The reverse won't work, because the longer 1909 cylinder won't come back far enough in the 1917 to close.

Jim

 

[badfiddler]

I don't usually resurrect zombie threads but I think I have some useful info. I have a Colt Mod. 1909 that has what I believe to be a 1917 .45 ACP cylinder fitted to it. The serial number on the butt of the gun and the one on the cylinder crane DO NOT match each other. As the story goes, I believe my grandfather carried this as a doughboy in France in WWI. I assumed it was designed to shoot .45 ACP until I did a little research and found out it was originally chambered for .45 LC. The barrel is NOT tapered (so it is a 1909). I have indeed shot .45 ACP with and without half moon clips with this (required some manual extraction of casings as I remember without clips). It is a blast to shoot. Probably shot it last about 20 years ago. Frame serial number puts the year of production at 1911 and crane serial number puts cylinder production at 1920. I have read on several forums of the possibility of some of the 1909s being fitted with 1917 cylinders for use in the first world war, this may be the case. I have not tried putting any .45 LC cartridges in the cylinder but my guess is they're too long.

Scott

P.S. I have fired this single and double action and the timing is spot on.

 

[Jim K]

Since this "zombie" has been revived, I will note that I have seen nothing about the military modifying Model 1909's to use .45 ACP. The Model 1909 was issued during WWI, but only to troops in the U.S.; none were sent overseas because of the ammo situation. In April, 1915, Frankford Arsenal was ordered to produce 2 million rounds of Model 1909 ball. There is some question as to whether that order was filled, but if it was, there should have been no shortage of Model 1909 ammunition for the limited issue of those revolvers.

Jim

 

[BSA1]

Given the high demand for handguns in W.W.1 I wonder if this gun was manufactured with a 45 ACP cylinder to meet early wartime production numbers. As the Government needed large quantities on revolvers I doubt if the inspectors cared if the gun was a 1909 or 1917 as long as it passed inspection. I also doubt that Colt would have tossed the frame of a previously made 1909 that was laying in inventory in the trash when it could easily have a 45 ACP cylinder fitted (as badfiddler commented). While it's accuracy would leave some to be desired it would probably have "minute of trench warfare" when in close quarters combat inside the trenches.

However if it was a early wartime wouldn't it have military proof and inspection stamps? Were 1917 revolvers stamped "U.S. Property"?

The golden rule when buying a old gun is to "buy the gun, not the story." However this gun does have a possible interesting background.

 

[Old Fuff]

The Colt model 1909 was nothing more nor less then a commercial New Service revolver chambered in .45 (Long) Colt. The serial number stamped on the frame behind the crane (swing out the cylinder to see it) was Colt's serial number within the regular New Service series.

The number stamped on the butt is an Army number, based on the purchase contract, and started with "1".

During World War One the Army might have considered changing them to .45 ACP, but if so they didn't go forward with the project - and in any case if they did any number on the cylinder would have matched the one on the frame. If the cylinder has a different, unrelated number it's because someone made an aftermarket conversion using a cylinder that was previously fitted to a different gun. During the years between the two World Wars this was not uncommon on .45 Colt chambered New Service revolvers.

 

[Jim Watson]

The 1917 cylinder and crane having a serial number indicates that they came off a working gun which does not support the theory of a factory alteration. And Grandpa sure wasn't carrying a 1911 gun with a 1920 cylinder in 1918.

I think this most likely a case of a surplus cylinder being installed to let the gun be shot with cheaper ammo.

 

[Jim K]

There were no Model 1909's "laying in inventory in the trash" at Colt at any time. Like all military contract firearms, all were delivered to the Army. Colt made the New Service up to WWII and .45 ACP was a standard caliber, made, like the M1917, for the use with clips. There were even a thousand or so actually marked "Model 1917" on the barrel but they were for the civilian market.

Part of the reason was that under NRA rules, the Service Pistol match could be fired with a .45 ACP revolver and there was also a .45 Match that could be fired with the revolver. Many shooters at that time preferred a revolver to the 1911 pistol, so both Colt and S&W accommodated them.

Jim

 

[rcmodel]

There were still a few guys shooting .45 Revolvers in NRA Bullseye Centerfire in 1968-69-70 when I was shooting with army AMU.

Everybody else was shooting 1911 wad guns, or a few K-38's.

But there was one old Army reserve guy who shot a S&W Target .45 ACP that nobody could hardly beat.

rc

 

[BSA1]

Jim K,

You're right. I should have said laying on a shelf or parts bin .

O.P.,

Did you check to see if a 45 Colt cartridge would fit?

 

[Vern Humphrey]

O.P.,

Did you check to see if a 45 Colt cartridge would fit?

In the original post, he said:

And, it has a shoulder inside the cylinder that prevented the 45 ACP from going too far into the cylinder and did not require clips.

That's clearly a .45 ACP chamber, obviously fitted to the revolver after it left the factory.