are they a difference in 45acp and 45 automatic?

[BluesBear]

This article needs to go in the Gun Whoppers Hall Of Fame

Paco also states that his "research" shows that the reason no one made a .45 Colt rifle was that Colt had a patent on the cartridge and wouldn't let anyone else use it.
For this reason Smith & Wesson didn't chamber it as well as the fact that their cylinders were too short.

¡ HORSEHOCKEY !

Why then didn't Colt chamber it in their own lightning rifle?

Smith & Wesson lengthened their chambers to accept .44WCF and .38 WCF so the .45 Colt WOULD have fit.

The reason no one chambered a rifle and no one chambered an automativc ejecting revolver for them was the fact that the original .45 COlt cartridge was damn near rimless ! It wouldn't EJECT. And ejection is somewhat important on a repeating firearm.

When Colt finally chambered the New Service in .45 Colt for the US Army in 1909 the ammo companies had to increas the rim size so they would eject.
In fact they went too far and the new ammo could only be loaded every other chamber in Colt single action revolvers.

Patents had NOTHING to do with no one else making guns in .45Colt.


Sheesh! With poppycock like this we have much better things to e-mail him about then wether of not he actually has a certain box of cartridges?



Besides if he DID have them he would post a photo just to rub Taffin's face in it. So I'm calling BS on the box of ammo too.

For the record I occasionally call it .45 Long Colt too.

 

[BluesBear]

In case anyone misunderstood my previous post. I am not saying that .45 Long Colt is correct or incorrect. Just that .45 Short Colt is. I know that Colt, on occasion, has advertised their revolvers as being in caliber .45 Long Colt.


Jim Taylor, whose opinions I DO respect wrote here about short .45 Colt rounds.
Notice that no where does he say that anything is actually marked .45 Short Colt.

Arguments have gone on over the years as to whether it is proper to call the cartridge a LONG Colt. As it is pointed out, it was never so named by the manufacturers. And, say some, there never was a .45 SHORT Colt. However, popular usage over the years has termed the Colt cartridge to be the .45 Long Colt with good reason. When the .45 Schofield revolver was brought out as a military sidearm in 1875 the government had to go to a shorter cartridge since the Smith & Wesson would not accept the longer cartridges in it's short cylinder. The .45 military cartridge that was introduced was only 1.12" long as compared to the 1.285" of the "Long" Colt shell. The shorter cartridge held but 28 gr. of blackpowder as compared to the 40 gr. of it's longer brother, and the short round used a bullet of only 230 gr. weight compared to the 255 gr. heft of it's larger kin. The short .45 Colt round was produced by the Army until 1892. Most all of the major ammunition producers made the short .45 rounds. Remington produced them until after WW I, though Elmer Keith states in his writings that they were never popular. The third edition of "Cartridges of the World" says the short .45's were produced by various manufacturers up into the mid-1940's.

I have a partial box of short .45's that was given to me years ago. These are made by Winchester and are marked ".45 Colt" on the headstamp. The box says they are for "Colt Single Action and Double Action Revolvers." The lid of the box [which long ago deteriorated] states they are ".45 Colt Government" rounds. Since these are marked ".45 Colt" and since they ARE short, they are .45 Short Colts! Some years ago I pulled one apart and measured it. The cartridge case is 1.12" in length. [The "long" Colt case is a nominal 1.285"] The charge was approximately 28 gr. of black powder. The bullet was .454" diameter and weighed a bit over 230 gr. with the lubrication on it. The lube looked sort of chalky white. I fired one through my Ruger .45 single action and it clocked 752 fps. Later on I used one of these cartridges to kill a nice coyote, then I retired the rest of them.

I can easily imagine some handgunner walking into a hardware store in years past and telling the clerk, "Please give me some .45 Colt shells. Not the short ones, I want the LONG COLT shells!" Thus through popular usage the term most likely came into being.

 

[redneck2]

Jeez....

poor guy asks a simple question and gets dragged into the never-ending Long Colt vs Short Colt

good thing he didn't say "Why are Glocks the best pistol ever??"

or "Why are 1911's better than _____? (Sig, Beretta, Glock, etc)

or "Why is Dillon better than Hornady??"

or "Why is a 9mm so much better than a .45???"

or Ford better than Chevy???

 

[Swamprabbit]

Just do what I do at the ammunition counter at the store:

Me: "A box of 45 hydra-shoks"
Clerk: "These?"
Me: "No, those"
Clerk" "Theses?"
Me: "Yea"

Feels more comfortable than trying to get the cartridge name right.

 

[Mike Irwin]

I still want to know why this particular cartridge, and no other cartridge, seems to give people the equiv. of flaming gasoline enemas over the inclusion/deletion of a single adjective...

 

[dav]

No, I want to know why Dillon is better Hornady.

Is it because they have higher chrome content in their dies?

(just kidding)

 

[mete]

First the 45 long colt originally had a bullet diameter of .454" ,it was later changed to .451". The 45 long colt was also called the 45 colt. When the S&W Schofield was introduced it had a shorter cylinder and could not take the 45 long colt . It used the shorter 45 S&W also called the 45 colt gov't. The military used this 45 colt gov't since it could be used in all the revolvers. The 45 colt used 255@855 and the 45S&W used 250@710. All you have to do is read the history books .

 

[Majic]

If you read the history books you will see that Colt named the cartridge .45 Colt. Then the US Calvary started also using the S&W Scholfield which used the .45 Smith and Wesson cartridge which had a shorter case. Ordinance would fill the orders for .45 caliber cartridges with which ever one was grabbed. Units isued SAA's had no problem as they could chamber either cartridge, but those with Scholfields couldn't use the longer Colt round so the word "Long" was added to differenciate between the two in ordering. Because of this problem the Scholfield was dropped by the US military.

 

[BigG]

LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG !!!!

There - I said it.

The story about the gomit settling on the shorter 45 ctg as it would work in either the Colt or S&W revo is correct. Also the assertion that the original 45 Colt ctg had such a dinky rim it would not work reliably in a repeating rifle.

Don't know why people get their BVDs so twisted over calling a cartridge 45 LONG COLT.

 

[BluesBear]

All you have to do is read the history books

If you had read the history books you'd have learned it was called the .45 Government cartridge and NOT the Colt Government cartridge.

 

[mete]

My source is Hatcher's Textbook of Pistols and Revolvers, 1935. "though it was originally known as the 45S&W, afterwards became known as the 45 Colt Gov't, under which name it is listed in a recent Winchester catalogue"....The 45 Model of 1909 - this is the same as the 45 "long "colt except that the rim is larger. It was designed for the Colt New Service which has a larger cylinder. It can only be used in a Colt SAA if loaded in alternating chambers....That's one of my history books.

 

[Rebeldon]

are they a difference in 45acp and 45 automatic?

ALL YOUR BASES ARE BELONG TO US