Range Report - .45 Colt in Moonclips

[Oyeboten]

I have a couple old Revolvers, one a Colt dating to 1918, the other, an S & W 2nd Model Hand Ejector dating to 1916, both accepting .45 Colt, or, .45 ACP in Moon Clips.

Both have had their Barrels shortened long ago by others.


Wishing to avoid the excessive Head Space when firing .45 Colt Cartridges, I decided to modify some Cartridges for fitting them into regular full Moon Clips.


Also, the Cylinder Bores of the S & W are right onto .456 in diameter, as is the between-the-lands measure of the Barrel. This led me to see about casting up some Boolits of about .455 Diameter, which I did.


The Colt has tapered Cylinder Bores...while, the S & W has a stepped Cylinder Bore whose 'step' co-responds to the length of the .45 Colt Cartridge when seated without Moon Clips, so, I have been focusing on it lately for these experiments, even though I recognise that with this method, the Boolit will have a little tiny bit of a jump to do.



The Revolver -





.45 Colt in Moonclips -





Image showing an unmodified .45 Colt Cartridge Case, and, a modified one.

Modified one is closest/bottom of the image -





Bullets appear to weigh about 262 Grains, and are about 12 Br for hard.


All in all, everything worked very nicely, very fast and easy to re-load the Revolver with this shape Boolit, and, so far so good with the experiment.


To-days rounds were 35 Grains of 3F "GOEX", the 262 Grain Lead Boolits of about .455-ish diamter, compressed hard, and with a roughly .042 thick Natural Beeswax-Olive Oil empregnated Paper Towel Lube Wafer, which, with the 3-1/4 inch Barrel, were clocking 777 to 791 for spread according to the Chronograph.

Seems nice and consistent now with this combination.



Lovely stout recoil and deep report with this combination.


Same Boolit, same Cartridge cases, 8 Grains of "UNIQUE", gave a spread of 752 to 796 FPS...suggesting to me that 8.5 will be my next series for that Powder with this Boolit.


I plan to change the Stocks, maybe whittling out some of Stag, and change the front Sight sometime, for it to be about as if the original Half-Moon shape had been preserved.


All in all, a really nice Revolver, and a fun experiment to see about Cartridges and Boolits suited for it's particulars.

 

[captain awesome]

very nice. I have been wanting to try making some stag grips of my own for one of my single actions. very nice old gun though, sound like loads of fun. and i like the moon clip idea for sure.

 

[BlindJustice]

Hey

I've looked at the specs of a .45 Colt and the .45 Auto RIm vs the .45 ACP. The .45 colt has a spec. rim width of .0610 the .45 Auto Rim which
was introduced by Peters ( owned by Remington ) in 1921 so as to give owners of the M1917 civilian named guns used in WWI the S&W 2nd Model
Hand Ejector or Coolt New service an alternative to the .45 ACP with half moon clips. MOst M1917 shortly after Colt and S&W made them weren't originally counterbored with the 'step' for the .898 inches case length for the .45 ACP. Then they were coutnerbored so you could chamber the .45 ACP for firing and headspacing correctly w/o moon clips.

The .45 Auto RIm case has a rim width of .0910 so it headspaces correctly for the firing pin to strike the primer correcltly .

You might do a google on .45 Cowboy Action cases - it's a shortened .45 COlt case to .898 inches - the short case works for Cowboy action shooting with the old Colt SAA since they use black powder and light loads for the quick draw competition etc.

interesting you get the moon clips to work on the rimmed .45 colt cases

Randall - I have a 625 in .45 ACP / .45 Auto RIm.

Too Bad the barrel length on the guns were shortened for value anyway but makes em great shooters.

 

[Oyeboten]

Hi BlindJustice,



Well...I had to modify the .45 Colt Case rim thickness and the depth of the annular ring cut at the upper side of the Rim, in order for the Cases to be used with regular Moon Clips.


I wanted to accomplish several things -


To eliminate excessive Head Space, which normal .45 Colt Cartridges would have in this ( and my other, Colt ) Revolver.


Have Cartdieges allowing the Bullet to begin in the Cylinder's secondary Bore, instead of a short cartridge where there would be a lot of blow-by and jump.


Be able to use .454 or .455 diameter Bullets to better suit the .456 Cylinder Bores and Barrel's between the Lands measure.


.45 ACP Cartridge Cases or Auto Rim would be too short of Cartridge for some of these intentions...and, also, the S & W Revolver's Cylinder Bores are Step-Bored to a depth allowing it to accept .45 Colt directly...even though my use of Moon Clips holds the Cartridge back a little bit.

My Colt has tapering Cylinder Bores.


I got the Colt in 1989 or so, and the S&W only a few weeks ago.

I would not have got either of them if they had not been shortened long before.

I have long Barrel versions of these, which I dearly love.

And, having either one as a shorty, is nice also, especially for urban CCW where a long Barrel is not always convenient if IWB or Pocket.