45-70 and .45 colt

[jamesb]

Could a .45 colt be shot out of a single shot, like a sharps, or a lever gun chambered for 45-70, in a pinch if you had ran out of ammo. They look similar enough looking at the 45-70 and the .45 colt and eyeballing, I do not have calipers. Is the diameter different enough to cause spliting cases?

 

[Quigley]

No the 45/70 is .458 caliber I believe the 45 long colt is .451.

 

[rcmodel]

I would say yes, in a pinch!
(Like a PO'ed Indian is climbing over your dead calvery horse, intent on scalping you!)

The case size differance is .025" just in front of the rim. So, it would be a loose fit, but probably not as dangerous as the Indian.

The catch would be whether or not the rifle in question would fire it & extract it.

The case rim on the .45 LC is much smaller then the 45-70.
In many rifles it might set so deep in the chamber the firing pin couldn't reach it.
But if it did, it would certainly work & be close range deadly, in a pinch!
Especially the old black-powder loads.


rcmodel

 

[mainmech48]

There're enough differences to cause more potentially serious problems than just abysmal accuracy.

A quick glance at the dimensional drawings of the two cartriges in about any reloading manual ought to give you some idea of why this isn't a good idea.

0.024" difference in diameter at the base, for one. More than enough to cause splitting, and even outright ruptures. The 0.010" difference in rim thickness is enough to change headspace from "Go" to "No-Go" and then some. If you're lucky, this'd be enough to keep you from getting a .45 Colt round to fire. The 0.096" difference in rim diameter will pretty much make the extractor useless in removing those ruptured cases, so take a nice long range rod along with you if you decide to try this anyway.

Considering where your face is in relation to the breechblock on a Sharps Rolling Block, 1895, etc. and where the escaping gasses and metal particles would have to exit, I'd also recommend using the very best shooting glasses money can buy.

Just my $0.02.

 

[mpmarty]

Two Words:

Hell No!

 

[Jim Watson]

Agree with RC. If my sixgun was broken and my carbine out of ammunition; I would certainly poke a .45 Colt cartridge in my Trapdoor and hope for the best.

Otherwise, no, not even as an experiment.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

I believe the 45 long colt is .451.

Modern day 45 Colts are .451 and lead bullets are normally .452.

Older models, I think somewhere in the twenties was where they changed, they were .454.


Like RC said, in a pinch it will probably work once but you'll likely play heck extractly the spent case.

 

[gunnerh]

Back in the 1870's the .45 long colt was touted by Colt as being able to be fired from 1873 trap-doors. I have never tried it but I might in a pinch. Wearing shooting glass is always a must with any gun.

 

[pit-sitter]

The tiny rim is why none of the original Lever guns were 45 Colt.

 

[rcmodel]

Well that, and black-powder fouling binding up the straight .45 Colt case in a lever-gun. The bottle-neck or tapered WCF rounds extracted much easier when the chambers became fouled.

And Winchester & Marlin didn't want anything to do with paying Colt to use it's name or cartridge.
There was a whole lot more company brand name & Trademark stubbornness going on back then then their is now.

Marlin called it's version of Winchesters cartridges the "whatever-whatever" Marlin.
Colt called it's version of WInchesters cartridges the "whatever" Colt.
So, the .38 WCF and .44 WCF was called the 38-40 & 44-40, or just barrel marked .38 or .44 by Colt. NO reference made to Winchester, or the correct WCF caliber designation.

And there was also a long-running agreement between Winchester & Colt that Colt wouldn't make rifles and Winchester wouldn't make revolvers.

Had Winchester decided to chamber a .45 in it's lever-guns, they could have easily done it and made the rim bigger and called it the .45 WCF.

But then, the rim would have been too big to fit in Colt & S&W revolvers, and Black-powder fouling would still have caused problems anyway!

As it turned out, the .38 WCF / 38-40 and .44 WCF / 44-40 worked in everyones guns, and everyone went away happy.

Except perhaps the .45 Colt six-gunners that still wished they could get a .45 Colt Winchester to go with their .45 Colt revolver, and couldn't, because of the corporate politics & black-powder of the day!


rcmodel

 

[iamkris]

Not a definitive test by any means...but...

First pic is a .45-70 next to a .45 Colt...note not only the length difference but also the rim size differences



This pic is that .45-70 dropped into the chamber of my 1874 Sharps. Note the engagement of the extractor and the distance from the mouth of the chamber to the base of the rim.



This last pic is the .45 Colt in the Sharps chamber. Note that the extractor doesn't engage, and there is quite a long distance from chamber mouth to the base of the rim.



The .45 Colt cartridge rattles around quite a bit until is stops...my guess is that it would expand quite a bit. I have pretty serious doubts that the firing pin will protrude enough to reliably detonate the primer. If I get adventurous over the weekend, I'll make up some primed cases in .45 Colt and see if I can set them off in my Sharps and Trapdoor