Caliber advice for a SAA. Help me decide.

[CraigC]

The .357 is a whole lot of noise without quite enough bite for my tastes. If you're looking at energy figures, you're betting on a meaningless number. Analyze the formula, it puts way too much importance on velocity, very little on bullet weight and zero on diameter. It is absolutely dependent upon expansion to be effective. The lowly .45Colt, pushing a 250-260gr cast bullet at 900fps produces a paltry 450ft-lbs but will penetrate any deer that walks end to end. A lightweight 110gr .357 may produce much more energy but which one do you really think is "more powerful"? Which is likely to produce a shallow wound and which one is likely to break a shoulder and completely traverse your average critter? So perhaps energy is not a good indication of effectiveness???

...but 45 Colt doesn't seem to be popular enough.

On what planet???

I don't know about other planets with a different gravity, but on this planet, an SAA in a small caliber weighs a whole lot more than one in .45 Colt.

4¾" .38Spl - 42oz
4¾" .44Spl - 39oz
4¾" .45Colt - 36oz

IMHO, the best rifle/SAA combo is not .45 Colt, but .44-40, like the old days.

The .44WCF is a great cartridge but not without its own set of difficulties. Lack of carbide dies and thin case necks for one. Limited bullet selection and mismatched dimensions for another.

The .45 Colt is not a good rifle round today for the same reason it was not a good rifle round in 1873 - the rim is too small for really reliable extraction and ejection.

A great many cowboy action shooters would probably disagree. It was not a good rifle round originally because cases were made from folded copper or brass and had no extractor groove. Modern solid head cases solve this problem. I've never heard of folks having any issues with them and I've never had an issue with mine. That said, my preferences are different. As one might ascertain, I'm not the biggest .45Colt fan that ever lived, even though I own five of them.

 

[56hawk]

The .357 is a whole lot of noise without quite enough bite for my tastes. If you're looking at energy figures, you're betting on a meaningless number. Analyze the formula, it puts way too much importance on velocity, very little on bullet weight and zero on diameter. It is absolutely dependent upon expansion to be effective.

Well, if penetration is what you find important. There is a good correlation for momentum divided by meplat diameter (see link below). Just looking at momentum, a 250 grain bullet at 900 fps has less momentum than a 180 at 1400 or a 158 at 1500. Of course this is assuming that big game hunting is your basis for comparison. For self defense 20+ inches of penetration doesn't help a whole lot and a lighter weight expanding bullet is going to be way more effective.

When I was saying that 45 Colt wasn't very popular I was talking about as a self defense round. Not anywhere near as many options for ammo, and not very many people have bothered to do ballistic tests with them.

http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/methods.html

 

[CraigC]

We're talking about Colt SAA's and you're talking about self defense testing???

Just looking at momentum, a 250 grain bullet at 900 fps has less momentum than a 180 at 1400 or a 158 at 1500.

Which makes a bigger hole???

 

[56hawk]

We're talking about Colt SAA's and you're talking about self defense testing???



Which makes a bigger hole???

I guess we should just be talking about cowboy action shooting in which case it really doesn't matter. Except of course the 45 Colt will make a bigger hole in paper as long as you are shooting semiwadcutters.

If you are not talking about cowboy action shooting, the hole size is going to depend on the meplat diameter or the expanded diameter of a hollow point. But then you are going to loose the penetration depth you were bragging about.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

IMHO, the best rifle/SAA combo is not .45 Colt, but .44-40, like the old days. The .45 Colt is not a good rifle round today for the same reason it was not a good rifle round in 1873 - the rim is too small for really reliable extraction and ejection.

Yes, there are a lot of Cowboy Action shooters who would be very surprised to here the 45 Colt is not a good rifle round today. It is a very popular rifle round today. Yes, when first developed 45 Colt had a miniscule rim. Not really a concern since the cartridge was designed to be ejected by a revolver ejector that poked it out from the inside. No need for an extractor claw to grab it. Here is a photo showing some antique 45 Colt rounds from my collection. Some of them have rims as small as .505 in diameter. Not enough for an extractor claw to grab. The round all the way on the left is a modern round, meeting the modern standard of .512 in diameter. Plenty of meat for a rifle extractor to get a grip on.



Regarding reloading 44-40, yes lubing the cases is required, as there are no carbide dies available. You can't make an affordable carbide die for a tapered round. But lubing cases is really no problem at all, no need to lube each case on a pad, a quick shot of spray lube with 50 rounds in a loading block lubes them all in seconds.

Yes, the thinness of the neck can cause problems when reloading if one does not set one's dies precisely. Here is one I crumpled on purpose to illustrate what happens when the dies are not properly set up.




Here is what a round looks like when the dies are properly set up.




I have never had a problem finding 200 grain bullets for 44-40, but yes, the bullet selection is somewhat limited compared to 45 Colt. And yes, there are problems with many revolver manufacturers getting chamber throat diameters to match up properly with rifling groove diameters. That is why I don't own any revolvers chambered for 44-40. But I have five rifles chambered for the round. It is a terrific rifle round. (So is 38-40 by the way, I just picked up an antique Winchester chambered for 38-40.) The real beauty of 44-40 is that same thinness of the neck makes it expand beautifully in a rifle chamber, completely sealing the chamber. The bee's knee's for shooting Black Powder in a rifle. No fouling blows back past the case into the action. The same cannot be said for 45 Colt in a rifle. Lots of blowby with 45 Colt in a rifle because the brass is thicker and does not expand as well under relatively low pressure.

 

[gazpacho]

For self defense in 45 Colt, I like Speer's 200gr "Flying Ashtray".

http://www.chuckhawks.com/45Colt.htm

In an SAA or similar revolver, it's pretty darn accurate, and the recoil is still pretty mild.