old .44 special black powder remington ctgs

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mec

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Stopped into BlackPowder Inc in Clarksville Arkansas and found this box of cupro-nickle jacketed specials

They were marked Black Powder and the bottom said they were for the "Smith and Wesson Hand Ejector and others." I told the proprietor that he had something of interest to revolver wonks and he flat gave me the box. Since it was a full box, I couldn't see running tests on it so, I turned it over to Jim Taylor from New Gun Week. He said it might either go to John Taffin or to one of the Shootists who have just had a batch of .44 Specials made up. Everybody guesses the age between 1907-20.

There were several of these boxes there but containing reloads One was dated 1938 and was loaded with a keith type bullet over six grains of #5.
 
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my eye's just about popped out of my head! I have not seen to many full boxes that old let alone in that good of shape!
 
What do you mean "marked black powder"? The .44 Special was invented to be a modern smokeless powder round, and the Hand Ejector was the latest S&W sixgun, not needing to have black powder.

Isn't it likely that these are smokeless powder?

Bart Noir
 
Well, the end flaps are labled " Black Powder" in bold letter. Only the word "Powder" remains on the one in the picture but both words appear on the other end.

Factually, the .44 Special was brought out as a black powder cartridge. It was an elongated .44 Russian holding a few more grains of black powder and capable of more efficient performance with smokeless. Factory loads -whether smokeless or black, were kept at about the same velocity levels as the earlier Russian. The .44 special was, like a lot of other cartridges, loaded with both smokeless and black for a number of years. The Tripple Lock was a larger version of earlier handejector revolvers on the same design as the .38 special M&P. Like the .44 special, the .38 special was designed for and loaded with black powder- 21 grains as opposed to the earlier .38 Long Colt loading of 18.
 
Elmer Keith

Is frequently cited about this. In his book "Sixguns", in the history chapter he discusses the Tripple Lock- which he calls the New Century.

"They designed the .44 Special cartirdge fo the arm with 26 Grains of black powder instead of the 23 used in the .44 Russian."
 
Mike-

Right you are, and Elmer also liked the black powder .45 Colt loads, which he said were more powerful than smokeless ones. Of course, his handloads remedied THAT problem! Damaged some guns, too, alas, which is why he mostly switched to the .44 Special for hot loads, as I'm sure that you know.

I feel sure that Taylor or Taffin will be able to tell you about these rounds, or you can check with Mike Venturino, who is now at, "Rifle" and, "Handloader". He specializes in old ammo, and his books are excellent references on 19th Century guns. The guy actually shoots vintage Russian and Schofield S&W's...

Lone Star
P.S. Thanks for mentioning, "Gun Week", which many shooters never see, as it isn't on many newsstands. The on-line edition is at www.gunweek.com but offers only a mild overview of the many articles in the print edition.
 
I figured Jim Taylor would be a right recipient for these and since he was standing right outside my motel room, I handed them over. He will either pass them along to taffin or include them with a special run of 44 specials their "Shootists" Clique is having made. Taylor's guess along with a couple of others who know about these indicate the rounds were probably 1907-20. I was a bit surprised by the c/nickle jackets though I have run across some old .38 specials loaded with them.

I check by the online NGW every so often just to see what Taylor and RK Campbell are up to.
 
The other end of the Box- BLACK POWDER
 
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44 Specials & BP

The 44 Special is neither a black powder cartridge nor a smokeless powder cartridge, but a hybrid. The term "Special" originally meant a cartridge designed from its inception to be used with either black or smokeless powder. The initial concept was that the factory would load it with smokeless while the home reloader would reload it with black. Smokeless powder was not generally available to the reloader and when it was, they were unfamiliar with it and accidents were known to happen by because the reloader simply filled the case with smokeless as he would do with black.

Some die hards insisted on black, so the factories loaded those as well.

We have the 38 Special, the 32 Special, and the 44 Special. I'd be hard pressed to come up with another. The transistion from the BP era to the smokelss era was fairly rapid.

There is the 41 Special, but that doen't enter this discussion as it's a modern wildcat where the term special is meant to indicate it's shorter than the 41 Magnum.
 
The .44 Special is indeed a 20th century product having been introduced in 1907. Early smokless powders were much bulkier than the powders we use today. The .44 Russian loaded with early smokless powder had a lower velocity than what could be achieved with black powder.

DuPont even sold a smokless powder named "Bulk" until the late 1950's or early 1960s.

At the time of the .44 Special's introduction black powder was actually more stable and reliable after long term storage. Early smokless was even more hydroscopic than good black powder.

WRA Co. and UMC both offered black powder ammo well into the mid 1920s.

I recently shot some US Military .45 Colt ammo dated 1915 that turned out to be black powder! I'll tell you that was quite a surprise but all four rounds went BANG! (cough, cough)
This ammo had been horribly stored and the cases were starting to erode.
After firing the gun smelled like week old deviled eggs. Boy am I glad it wasn't mine and I didn't have to clean it.
 
45 Colt BP?

<< I recently shot some US Military .45 Colt ammo dated 1915 that turned out to be black powder! I'll tell you that was quite a surprise but all four rounds went BANG! (cough, cough)
This ammo had been horribly stored and the cases were starting to erode.
After firing the gun smelled like week old deviled eggs. Boy am I glad it wasn't mine and I didn't have to clean it. >>

I'm curious about this one. Was that really 45 Colt or was it 1909 Colt 45? The 1909 Colt 45 cartridge was adopted by the US military in 1909 and I had been thinking it was a smokeless loading. The 1909 Colt 45 was the first line handgun cartridge for the US military from 1909 to 1911 when the 45 ACP was adopted. At the same time the 45 Colt was also still in use by the US military as a third rank cartridge. (The 38 Colt was the secondary cartridge.)

The most obvious difference between the 45 Colt and the 1909 Colt 45 (Aside from the markings on the box.) is the wider rim on the 1909. The New Service revolver was meant to use the 1909 cartridge while being able to use the 45 Colt when the 1909 cartridge was not available.
 
Speer Reloading Manual #3 1959

Page 206
"This is reportedly the best of the large handgun cartridges and the guns in which it is used providefine accuracy,probably better than any others above .38 caliber. Although it started out as a black powder cartridge, it burns smokeless very well and good performance can be obtained with a variety of loads...."

Speer Reloading Manual #9- 1974:
" ...The .44 Special was an outgrowth of the shorter .44 Russian cartridge introduced in the 1870s, which was then considered by many the finest target cartridge. The .44 Special is a slightly lengthened version of the Russian and was introduced with Black Powder loading in 1907

Amazing. There is not and never has been a separate and distinct 1909 .Colt 45 Cartridge. There is a .45 Colt that came out with the Colt Model 1873, There was a shorter .45 cartridge for the Smith and Wesson Break-top revolvers. There is a .45 automatic colt pistol cartridge that came out in 1905 with an early semi-auto pistol. Revolvers have been chambered for the .45acp with moon clips and the .45 auto-rim came along with an extra thick rim to be used in chambers that were designed for moon clips.

The .45 colt has been loaded with a huge variety of smokeless and black powders. The earlier cases had smaller rims than the present ones. The older cases had folded heads instead of the modern solid head. There was not ever a separate and distinct .45 Colt or Colt .45 cartridge made for the 1909 Colt. The 1909 Colt was almost identical to the New Service revolvers and 1917s.

"Smokeless powder was not generally available to the reloader and when it was, they were unfamiliar with it and accidents were known to happen by because the reloader simply filled the case with smokeless as he would do with black."

No. Smokeless canister grade powder has been available since before 1900. Unique was first marketed by Laflin and Rand sometime during the 1890s.-
Speer Reloading Manual #3
"Hercules Unique-This powder was first marketed ina about 1890 by the old Laflin and Rand Powder Co. under the name 'Infallable....'"

Speer Reloading Manual Number 11
""Hercules Unique,introduced under another name in 1898 is appropriately named..."
Hercules Bullseye was also available by the late 1890s or 1900. Most sources cant agree on the exact date but all have Unique coming out prior to 1900 and marketed commercially to handloaders. One of the speer manuals mentioned finding an old supply of Unique from the 1890s and testing it.

I am really sorry I posted the picture of black powder .44 specials. I don't suppose there is anything of earth shaking importance in early cartridge esoteria but I did start it.
 
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unspellable, I was (am) slightly mystified by the ammunition myself.

Unfortunately there was no box for identification.

The rim was slightly larger than most of the balloon head .45 Colt ammo I have encountered but it didn't have the obvious large rim of the 1909 ammo I have seen. I had thought of 1909 when I first saw it but since you could load adjoining chambers in an Uberti manufactured Beretta Stampede I decided it couldn't be 1909. With 1909 ammo in a SAA sized cylinder you have to load every other chamber.

To be honest I was very surprised that the US was still loading any .45 Colt ammo at all in 1915 much less with black powder.
The only reason we were firing this ammo was because my friend wanted to salvage the cases for restoration as display dummies with a 1910 vintage SAA.

Since I my arm is still somewhat kaputt I am not lugging my camera bag to the range like I used to. I really wished I had it that night.
After he gets them cleaned up I am going to try and get some good photos of them.



By the way, I think the headstamp was FA 4 1915.


I am wondering if the US was loading them for some other country?
 
1909 Colt 45

The 1909 Colt 45 certainly does exist and is equally certainly NOT the same as the 45 Colt. Nor are they mythical, I have a complete US military issue box of them. And they are so marked as 1909 Colt 45. They will NOT chamber properly in a SAA, you can load only three chambers because of the wider rim. The case is about 0.010 inch longer than the 45 Colt case. The velocity is marked on my box as 750 fps. there is some question as to whether they were loaded with a 300 grain bullet, a 250 grain bullet, or both.

A 1909 New Service will not shoot to the sights when loaded with 45 Colt. The sights were regulated for the 1909 Colt 45 cartridge.

The list of cartridges above also leaves out the 45 Government or 45 Short Colt. This was a catridge with the length of the 45 S&W/45 Schoefield but had the narrow rim of the 45 Colt. It replaced the 45 S&W in the government inventory. When the US military first drew up specifications for a 45 self loader, the ballistics of the cartridge were required to duplicate the 45 Government.

A modern oddity, is that when I find modern brass head stamped as 45 S&W or Schoefield, it has the dimensions of the 45 Government, not the proper dimensions for the 45 S&W. Probably because the factory is taking a short cut and simply making a trimmed back 45 Colt case.

As for the question of what the first 44 Specials were loaded with, it doesn't change the fact that they were specials. You have to load the first run with either black or smokeless, you can't do both. By 1907 the handwriting was on the wall, nobody would be designing cartridges for black powder alone. In fact the 44 Special was the last of the dual purpose "special" cartridges.

Some, early smokeless powders were so called bulk powders, but not all of them.
 
Mec, I for one AM glad you posted the pics and info on the black powder .44 special cartridges. Many of us here foam when we seen pristine old ammunition such as that.

And while the .44 Special was designed as a black powder cartridge it was also originally produced in smokeless. You have to remember that there was some distrust of the new fangled smokless powder. Many learned people thought that it, just like television, was only a passing fad and wouldn't last.


However there was a distinct 1909 MILITARY .45 Cartridge.
I have seen it. Held it in my hand and even examined sealed 18 round boxes of it.
(I could have sworn I had some pics of it somewhere but I can't find them - where;s Mike Irwin when you need him?)
Just because it ain't mentioned in your loading manual doesn't mean it didn't exist. There are many military ammunition variations that aren't listed.



The original .45 Colt had a TINY rim. Which is the reason there were NO repeating rifles made for it until the mid 20th century. Has no one ever wondered why Winchester and Marlin chambered their rifles in .32-20, .38-40 & .44-40 but not in .45 Colt? Or why when S&W redesigned their New Model 3 into the Model 3 Frontier that they chambered them in .38WCF and .44 WCF but neglected .45 Colt? Or why Merwin & Hulbert chambered their excellent revolver in .44 Winchester 1873 but not in .45 Colt? It's because that miniscule rim just wouldn't work. The extractors couldn't catch the rim.
But on the Colt 1873 and 1878 revolvers that didn't matter. The push rod extractor didn't care if there was a rim or not.

Now when the US Military finally figured out what a whimpy pathetic, ineffective round the .38 Long Colt was they hastily retuned their remaining stocks of 1873 and 1878 revolvers to service.

At the same time they procured more modern revolvers from S&W and Colt chambered in .45 Colt. The problem was that the centeral star of hand extractors would just slip past the tiny rims of the original .45 Colt cases.
Frankford Arsenal immediately started making the cartridges with wider rims and designated it as Ammunition, Revolver Ball 1909.

Now since FA was a miliraty operation and thus a government run production they made the rims TDB. They used a .528" rim diameter as opposed to the .506" of the .45 Colt. Units carrying older Colt revolvers were upset to learn that while the ammunition would fit the chambers of their trusty old revolvers, the rims were too wide, which made loading adjacent chambers impossible. All of a sudden the infamous Colt Sixgun became that damnable Colt Three Shooter.

The US had already created a similar fiasco when they produced the .45 Government round which was issued to troops during the Schofield period. It featured the heavier bullet of the .45 Colt in a shorter case with the .506" rim size of the .45 Colt. While this round would chamber in both revolvers it more often than not would slip past the extractor star of the S&W. The Schofield cartridge had a .522" rim that just barely allowed the ammo to fit in a CLEAN Colt 1873/1878 cylinder. This effectively killed any chance the S&W had of replacing the Colt. .45 Gov ammo was produced by the Union Metallic Cartridge Company into the 1930s. The boxes were marked .45 Colt Government but the ammo was headstamped .45 Colt. This confusion created the terms .45 Colt Short and .45 Long Colt.

FA finally got their act together and modified the rim size to .512". That enabled it to fit all revolvers and that is the rim size we are accoustomed to today on .45 Colt ammunition. To my knowledge ammunition was not given a new designation. It used the same designation as the pre-M1909 ammunition.


And yes you are correct that Smokless powder WAS available in the 1890s,
(after all the .30 US aka .30-40 Krag was introduced in 1892, the .25-20 in 1893, and the .25-35 & .30-30 both in 1895) it was not generally available in remote areas (and most of the US was still considered remote well into the 20th century) until much later.

Bullseye was introduced in 1913. It was the first powder introduced by the new Hercules Powder Company after it was spun off from DuPont.

And while the .30-30 was designed and introduced as a smokless powder cartridge even it was sometimes produced in black powder loadings due to problems in keeping up production of smokless powder to meet the demands of the new cartridges.



Sorry to be so long winded but when my meds kick in it makes it difficult to type since the letters constantly keep changing keytops.
Therefore I write very slowly and tend to ramble on and on and...

Anyway. I'm sorry.
 
The original colt cases didn't have the rebated grove in front of the rim. Since Colt lists the 1909 and other new service in .45 Colt and made no distinction as to sub variations with different rims, I would be inclined to call those marked differently as merely a variation of the .45 Colt Cartridge.

There are those who will launch into a preach whenever somebody uses the term .45 Long Colt- saying a regular or short Colt never existed. Sure enough, people have come up with boxes of short .45s marked for the colt and either the same or much like the .45 schofield ctg.

The .38 special is often described as an elongated version of the .38 long colt with the powder charge increased from 18 grains of black powder to 21 or 21.5. This one came out in 1899 and no doubt was loaded with smokeless power fairly early (if not at the beginning and simultaneously with black powder) of its service life. The revolver below is a first model Military and Police of 1899. The bulk of them were made in 38 special although the military did order a run of them in 38 long colt. Many references make it appear that the 38 special came out in 1902 but this example, clearly marked as .38 S&W special, was sent to Bekeart & Company of San Francisco CA on December 20, 1900.
http://www.gunblast.com/images/Cumpston_SW-MP/lettersml.jpg

When Colt came out with the same cartridge, they used a slightly flattened 158 grain bullet and Called it the .38 Colt New Police. The terms "New Police" and "Special" were marketing artifices used by Colt and S&W respectively.
 
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books & variants

For every cartridge listed in the loading manuals there are a hundred that are not. For every cartridge listed in “Cartridges of the World†there are a very great many that are not. I have a book that contains nothing but British sporting rifle cartridges. It has more entries than “Cartridges of the World†has for all categories combined. I can easily list a dozen very distinct revolver cartridges that you will not find in any loading manual. Two good examples are the 32-44 and the 38-44 (It’s a black powder cartridge NOT to be confused with the later 38-44 High Speed variant of the 38 Special.) which were chambered by S&W and quite popular for target shooting in their day. They do not appear in “Cartrdiges of the Worldâ€. As is typical with the lack of any system of cartridge nomenclature, the 44 does not indicate case capacity but rather that they were chambered in the S&W 44 tip up frame size. I do have a book that talks about reloading them. In rifle cartridges, I shoot the 400-360, not found in any loading manuals (Or if you find it, let me know!) and in the “Handbook of Cartridge Conversions†every detail listed is dead wrong.

There is the question of when is a cartridge a variation and when is it a cartridge in its own right? First the 45 Colt and the Colt SAA were developed at the same time and intended for each other from their inception. Since the 45 S&W was developed for the Schofield and will not function properly in a Colt SAA I have to consider it a separate cartridge. The 45 Government derives directly from the 45 S&W and only indirectly from the 45 Colt so if it’s a variant, it’s a variant of the 45 S&W. The 1909 Colt 45 will not chamber properly in a Colt SAA so I have to consider it a cartridge in its own right in spite of the fact that a 1909 New Service will chamber the 45 Colt. A 44 Magnum will chamber a 44 Special, but nobody considers the 44 Magnum to be simply a variant of the 44 Special.

As for the term “specialâ€, S&W was not the only one to use it, the 32 Special was a Winchester development and in some ways the most notable of the specials. It was introduced in 1903 after it became apparent that the 30-30 did not digest black powder very well. Not only the cartridge was different, but at least in the case of the Winchester M1894, the rifling was different as well in order to better handle black powder. The author of “Cartridges of the World†nominates it as the most useless cartridge ever developed, a tag it does not deserve because the issue of loading with both black and smokeless powder was quite real at the time.

I would tell anybody to not regret starting a thread like this. It’s how the information gets around and we educate ourselves. If I started a thread on some totally non-controversial topic like “Almost every factory loaded 357 cartridge I’ve found had a 357 bullet in t.†we’d all die of boredom.
 
"Units carrying older Colt revolvers were upset to learn that while the ammunition would fit the chambers of their trusty old revolvers, the rims were too wide, which made loading adjacent chambers impossible. All of a sudden the infamous Colt Sixgun became that damnable Colt Three Shooter."

I don't think so. The Model 1909 revolver replaced the Model 1873 in the very few active army units in which the old revolver was still in use; the obsolete revolvers and ammunition were withdrawn and replaced with the new revolvers and the new ammunition. So no active army units would have been in the position of having "damnable Colt three shooters".

Further, the Model 1909 cartridge was never available on the civilian market (it was never made commercially or on contract), so civilians should not have had "three shooters" either, at least until some Model 1909 cartridges came on the surplus market many years later. All in all, the "three shooter" appears to be a collector's invention or at most a civilian concern, not a military problem.

Jim
 
Think again

The Model 1909 revolver replaced the Model 1873 in the very few active army units in which the old revolver was still in use;
Click to expand...
I was NOT referring to the Colt 1873 revolver. In 1909 nearly ALL of the 1902 version of the Colt 1878 double action revolvers were still in active service having been procurred to REPLACE the inadequate .38 Long Colt revolvers.

The 1902 was the larger trigger guard version commonly referred to as the Alaskan or Philippine model. They have a cylinder that is the same diameter as an 1873 Colt. THOSE are the revolvers that have been referred to by folks who were there as those "damnable Colt three shooters".





This thread has once again drifted way off course and I appologize for my contribution.
 
BTW, super find on those bp cartridges!

A question or two, please... when .500 'Special' loads become available for the S&W .500 Magnum, just how much bp will that case hold... and, should it remain fff or go to ff??

In all seriousness, thank you all for the great info - especially on the 23/26 gr fff .44 Russian/Special loading. I had thought the Russuans took the 26gr level, and could barely get the back of a 240gr LRNFP in - certainly not to the crimp groove. Fully loaded and properly compressed & crimped was closer to the mentioned 23 gr. All were shot in my BHG-equipped 4.6" SBH... neat boom and smelly, but a pain to clean (The .44 Russian Starline brass is forever stained!). I'll stick to my cap & ball bp... the SS ROA is still fun... and, I found another can of Goex I had squirreled away - that stuff is no longer available locally - or at shows. Again, thanks to all for the info!

Stainz
 
1873 Colt SSA

I have run across various sources that claim some of the old 1873 Colt SSA's were pulled out of storage for use in the Phillipines. When did the military dispose of the last of the 1873's?
 
I believe that some units of the Army used the SAA in Cuba, which was a short time before we had to start fighting against the Filipino men. (Shame that we [US cit here] started out to liberate them and ended up fighting to keep them under our control) Specifically, that Teddy's Rough Riders had old SAA's that had the barrels shortened a bit. One story is that the muzzle is the part that erodes earliest from black powder and poor cleaning. Does that sound right to those who know more about the Rough Riders? And yes, Teddy carried a .38 Colt DA sixgun, since it was the latest issue.

Bat Noir
 
Actully, Teddy carried it because it had belonged to an officer killed on the U.S.S. Maine, in Havana harbor.

Lone Star
 
Yes. Lone Star is correct.

The battleship "Maine" was raised by salvage crews headed by Roosevelt's brother-in-law. The salvaged 1985 Colt was presented to Roosevelt and he carried it throughout the Cuban campaign. It's the same revolver he used to kill a Spanish soldier at Santiago and it's still on display at TR's home at Oyster Bay, NY.

However, the majority of the Rough Riders carried 5½" Colt SAA revolvers that had been refurbished and shortened by Colt. Those revolvers were sent from Colt to the San Antonio Arsenal and were issued to Roosevelt's troops while they were in training at Fort Sam Houston.
 
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