The colt .45

[moxie]

Back in the old days, before the term "1911" became popular, we called all 1911s "Colt .45s" or just ".45s," regardless of who made them, Colt, Ithaca, Remington-Rand, etc.

Of course we were so dim-witted we even called mags clips sometimes. I've got a friend who was a Marine M-60 man who got to use his 1911 in earnest a few times. He still calls mags clips and for some reason I don't feel compelled to correct him. Safer that way.

Somehow, despite such inaccuracies, we got through the night.

 

[Greg528iT]

He still calls mags clips and for some reason

In basic he probably learned to shoot an M1 Garande 1st.. where you load the magazine with the CLIP.. the clip was the portable thing that held the bullets when not in or just prior to loading the gun. So.. when looking down at a bench where bullets have been staged ready to insert into the gun. A M1 Clip and a 1911 magazine serve exactly the same purpose. The means of inserting bullets into the gun.

 

[moxie]

Most guys back then called them clips for whatever reason. And I'm not going to correct them!

 

[JRH6856]

I thought Colt '45s was the baseball team the Houston Astros used to be.

 

[BullRunBear]

I grew up in a navy town in the 50s and, of course, there were plenty of Marines around, both active and retired. Colt 45 generally meant a 1911. Ammo for it was 45acp. Just common usage for the time and place. The cowboy guns we saw on TV were usually called Colts without the caliber.

This was Rhode Island (not exactly a gun culture area). It wasn't until I started shooting handguns as an adult that I learned the revolver/45 Colt vs pistol/45acp designations.

Jeff

 

[JDBoardman]

Colt .45

JRH6856:

You are stretchin' it some to call the Houston Astros a 'baseball team'

 

[BlindJustice]

Colt Single Action Army aka SAA aka "Peacemaker" The US Army version is in .45 Colt 1873 some call the cartrdge .45 Long COlt

>45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol ) aka .45 Auto-1902
developed for the M1911 & it was also adapted for the
large frame S&W 2nd Model Hand Ejector and the Colt
New Service DA revolvers with the use of half moon clips
both revolvers named the M1917 by the US Army Then,
in the early '20s, with a lot of M1917s going to surplus
Remington Peters created the .45 Auto Rim cartrdge
which can be used without the moon clips

S&W didn't chamber a civilian model of the .45 Colt
until the mid-80s with the Model 25-5 I believe.

R-


R-

 

[murf]

blindjustice,

s&w continued making the model 1917 after the war for civilians and police. in 1950 the name changed to "model 1950 military" and ,later in the decade, became the model 22.

murf

 

[JRH6856]

When I was growing up, the 1911 was the ".45 Auto" and the SAA was the "Colt .45" or ".45 Colt"

S&W didn't chamber a civilian model of the .45 Colt
until the mid-80s with the Model 25-5 I believe.

Unless you count the S&W .45 Schofield which chambered the same round the Army issued for the Colt SAA which was not the .45 "Long" Colt.

 

[jeepnik]

Hence one of the reasons for the term 45 LONG Colt.

Actually, the "long" came about to differentiate the .45 colt from the shorter .45 Schofield when the army was issuing both. While the Schofield round would work in the Model 1873, the longer round wouldn't fit in the S&W Schofields.

There never was a .45 Long Colt, although I have seen a few boxes so labeled in error by the manufacturer.

 

[unspellable]

The history needs a bit of clarification here.

The 45 Colt cartridge came first.

Next the 45 Schofield. Why didn't S&W make it long enough to take the 45 Colt? Modern replicas do.

You could only put three 45 Schofields in the SAA due to its wider rim. (Also applies to my Italian SAA clone.)

Next the 45 Government. The 45 Colt rim on a cartridge with the Schofield length. You could put six in a SAA at the expense of a some what increased risk of getting a rim under the extractor on the Schofield. This cartridge went on the civilian market where it was known as the 45 Short Colt. (Had nothing to do with the 45 ACP which it predated.)

Next came the 45 Revolver with the wide rim, 45 Colt length, but loaded to 45 Schofield ballistics. This is the cartridge the Colt New Service Model 1909 was meant for. This was a stop gap in service for only two years as the army had already decided to go semi-auto.

Lastly, the 45 ACP, originally intended to duplicate the Schofield ballistics in a shorter case.

You will note that excepting the 45 Colt, all these cartridges have more or less the same ballistics as the 45 Schofield. The army felt that the 45 Colt recoil was a bit much.

Now you guys can go back to debating what to call what.

 

[JRH6856]

unspellable, you left out the the .45 Auto Rim.

 

[unspellable]

Mia culpa!

There is also a cartridge known as the 45 Short or 45 Corto. I have a box of them by Fiochi. I think it's a European cartridge and not really related to the 45 Colt family although it appears to be more or less the same diameter and would chamber and fire in a revolver chambered for 45 Colt or 45 Schofield. Or at least the later, I haven't really made a close examination of the rim.

 

[JRH6856]

And then there is the .45 GAP.

 

[unspellable]

There is also the British 476 Enfield cartridge. I have no opinions on this point myself, but there are those who say the original 45 Colt was inspired by the 476 Enfield.

 

[Jim K]

When I see another thread on the .45 vs. .45 vs. .45 vs. .45, [and on and on] I just curl up in the corner in a fetal position and pull my blanket over my head until it all goes away.

Jim

 

[unspellable]

Jin K, give us a break. So far at least this has not been a this vs that thread, just history.

 

[JRH6856]

There is also the British 476 Enfield cartridge. I have no opinions on this point myself, but there are those who say the original 45 Colt was inspired by the 476 Enfield.

Let's see, the .45 Colt showed up in 1872, the .476 Enfield/Eley in 1880, so I don't think so. Now, the .450 Adams which the .476 Enfield replaced was introduced in 1868 as the British Army's first centrefire revolver round. It can be fired in the original (.454) Colt SAA so it is a possibility.

 

[jeepnik]

The history needs a bit of clarification here.

The 45 Colt cartridge came first.

Next the 45 Schofield. Why didn't S&W make it long enough to take the 45 Colt? Modern replicas do.

You could only put three 45 Schofields in the SAA due to its wider rim. (Also applies to my Italian SAA clone.)

Next the 45 Government. The 45 Colt rim on a cartridge with the Schofield length. You could put six in a SAA at the expense of a some what increased risk of getting a rim under the extractor on the Schofield. This cartridge went on the civilian market where it was known as the 45 Short Colt. (Had nothing to do with the 45 ACP which it predated.)

Next came the 45 Revolver with the wide rim, 45 Colt length, but loaded to 45 Schofield ballistics. This is the cartridge the Colt New Service Model 1909 was meant for. This was a stop gap in service for only two years as the army had already decided to go semi-auto.

Lastly, the 45 ACP, originally intended to duplicate the Schofield ballistics in a shorter case.

You will note that excepting the 45 Colt, all these cartridges have more or less the same ballistics as the 45 Schofield. The army felt that the 45 Colt recoil was a bit much.

Now you guys can go back to debating what to call what.

The only folks who thought the .45 colt was "too much" were armchair warriors. They figured it was more than needed to deal with human targets. But what they didn't even think of was that, when dealing with horse mounted troops, you don't shoot the troop, you shoot the horse first. The horse power (pun intended) of the bigger .45 colt round would do just that.

As an aside, that's one of the things that's always bugged me about combat involving horses in the movies and TV. Whether with firearms or edged weapons, they never show the horses being shot/stabbed/slashed or in any other way maimed. Yet, if you took down the horse (a much bigger target/easier for a man on foot with an edged weapon to disable) the rider will at the best be shaken, if not injured or killed when the horse goes down.

Then again, you never see the horses pulling wagons or stagecoaches being shot to stop the rig, yet, shoot one horse and the whole mess, horses, rig and people just end up in a tumbled mix of dead stuff.

 

[unspellable]

It's the armchair warriors who think the recoil wasn't too much. While the concept of shooting the horse was very much in the picture, you have to keep in mind that not every trooper was a gunny, recoil matters. The army did look for less recoil.

You will note that although the 45 Revolver has a case a frog hair longer than the 45 Colt it was loaded to only 45 Schofield power levels.

The original specification for a 45 self loader (Before the army had any real notion of what pistol they would end up with.) called for a 45 cartridge loaded to Schofield power levels.

The army was very much looking for 45 Schofield power levels, NOT 45 Colt power levels.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

You could only put three 45 Schofields in the SAA due to its wider rim. (Also applies to my Italian SAA clone.)

The .45 Schofeld worked in the SAA without any rim interference. The Army manufactured its own ammunition at the time, and decided to ONLY manufacture the .45 Schofield (or .45 Short) because it could be used both in the S&W and the Colt. So regiments armed with SAAs were issued .45 Schofield ammo, and had no complaints -- in fact, they liked it better due to the reduced recoil.

The cartridge with the wide rim was the .45 US Revolver cartridge developed for the M1909 revolver -- the Colt New Service. Those cartridges could only be loaded in every other chamber if used in a SAA. The .45 Colt, as commercially loaded those days, however, could be loaded in both the M1909 and SAA and would function perfectly.

 

[unspellable]

rims

The Schofield had a wider rim and only three would chamber in the SAA. That's why the 45 Government was developed by the army for use in both revolvers. (That's the bit where the army was producing their own ammunition.) Remington (and possibly others) then put it on the market as the 45 Short Colt which is where the term short Colt originated. Had nothing to do with the 45 ACP which was still off in the future.. It's a distinct cartridge from the 45 Schofield. BTW: Modern brass head stamped 45 Schoefield tends to have a narrow rim, don't go by that. Too much trouble for the manufacturer to adjust the machinery for the wider rim. The 45 Government was notable for being more likely to get under the extractor on the Schofield revolver than the proper Schofield cartridge which is why the Schofield cartridge had a wider rim in the first place. (BTW: The 45 Schofield cartrdige went on the civilian market as the 45 S&W, distinct from the 45 Short Colt.).

The 45 revolver, like the 45 Schofield could only be loaded three at a time in the SAA.

 

[Baba Louie]

When I was a kid, 1911's were called .45 autos. (well, that's how my Dad taught me since most were Colts, some R/R, Ithaca, US&S etc, not to mention the older WWI era RemUMC & Springfield Armory)

Colt .45s (AKA Peacemaker or SAA) were cowboy guns made by Colt.

 

[Jim K]

I know I swore off, but things are very confused.

I know what COTW says, but there was NO ".45 Schofield" or ".45 S&W" cartridge made before the Schofield was adopted by the Army. Only a handful (35) of First Model Schofields were not bought by the Army. The Army adopted the Schofield in 1874, only a year after adoption of the Model 1873 SAA. Frankford Arsenal was given the first production order for the .45 cartridge of Schofield length in August, 1874, and as soon as production began, no other revolver cartridge was issued by the Army until the end of the SAA era. So, except for a few cartridges c. 1873, the Army never issued the .45 Colt ("Long Colt").

Nor did the ".45 Schofield" have too large a rim; it had the same rim as the .45 Colt. Later, when the .45 Model 1909 cartridge was adopted, it became confused with the .45 Schofield and the "three in a cylinder" story was transferred back to the Schofield cartridge. Confusion is compounded by the variation in rim diameter of both the .45 Colt and the .45 Government. COTW gives it as .506" but in fact, samples of both rounds, Benet primed as well as outside primed, show a diameter as great as .522" (vs. c. .538" for the Model 1909 cartridge).

After the Schofield was taken out of service and sold on the civilian market, several commercial ammo companies made the cartridge. Some chose not to make new headstamp bunters and used ".45 Colt" on the short cartridge, further adding to the confusion.

Jim

 

[JRH6856]

^^^this thread is certainly illustrating that confusion.