Why did .45 Colt go into decline?

[MarshallDodge]

Marketing and weak brass was the downfall of 45 Long Colt. If someone had beefed up the cases and called it 45 Magnum then it probably would have stayed popular.

I bought a Ruger Blackhawk in 45 LC in 1991. Back then hardly anybody was shooting it, in fact, the gun shop I bought it from told me I should buy a 44Mag. I went ahead and bought the 45 LC because I had a 1911 and was a 45 fan.

When I bought the first box of ammo I was shocked at the price of ammo - $10 for 20 rounds. That's when I decided to start reloading and found out how weak the cases were. Starline was good stuff and so I bought brass from them.

When cowboy action started getting popular the price of ammo dropped and brass became much cheaper.

 

[MCgunner]

Personally, I think today's American Public desperately needs to make the removal of lethal weapons from our assorted police forces and government S.W.A.T.zies a top political priority for our legislatures. There is no reason they need to be armed to eat breakfast in McDonald's anymore than the rest of us do. And since I can read about all manner of crimes committed by LEOs in every edition of the newspaper I think that dramatically underscores the need for that priority.
Issuing officers firearms ONLY IF, and WHEN, there is a legally-obtained warrant for someone's arrest would be a perfectly fine way to address the occassional (and seriously overrated) police need of firearms yet jerk a well-deserved knot in the tail of this nation's out-of-control Gestapo.

The original SWAT concept was for special training for hostage rescue or entry and clearing and such. Well, so long as it's just a specialized team on a major urban force, it's understandable and acceptable to me as necessary. If and when all the beat cops are carrying M16s, yeah, that might bother me a tad. LOL I'm not a tacticool kinda guy, but there is a real need for swat in modern departments as I see it.

Even our podunk little county has an "entry team" in the sheriff's department. Our sheriff came to our gun club meeting (that's how small the county is) and requested a donation for an MP5 to be used for the drug entry team and we bought about half the gun for 'em. I'm not sure why a mossberg 590 wouldn't work better, but I guess I'm not a cop, wouldn't understand. They have it locked up over at the sheriff's dept at the court house, ain't like they have 'em in the patrol cars running around. It's a special tool, sorta like the swat concept, special tool for special social occasions. If it helps protect the public and keeps beat cops from having to deal with special deadly situations for which they're ill trained and equipped, why shouldn't there be SWAT? If I were a hostage, I'd also rather know that there was a highly trained team working on getting the bad guys with minimal loss of life rather than a buncha Barney Fifes that have to check the bullet out from the PD (what we have with the city, here. ) Yeah, I don't know if all the black pajamas and tactical crap is important, but the training and teams for the people that have to go in harm's way and do this for a living surely are and they should be appropriately armed for any threat. The two BGs with the armor and AKs that shot up LA some years back is sorta a good example. Cops didn't have long arms at their disposal. EVEN M94s in .30-30 would have been a blessing, but all they had were their sidearms.

 

[Ash]

Of course my main point was why the police at the time of the 45LC's creation (beyond the fact that the earliest were single action revolvers, though Colt New Service revolvers were available when police began regular open carry with 38's) carried smaller-caliber revolvers. This is also one of the reasons revolvers were carried well beyond the time when autos were proven to be reliable. More an explanation of why than to expound upon my own personal dislikes of a militaristic police force (I have seen state troopers in Mississippi wear grey combat pants bloused in combat boots, though many still wear the dressier pants and shoes).

Ash

 

[Colt46]

It was a BP cartridge

When smokeless came along it was found that cases could be made smaller to accomplish the same kind of performance. In a strong enough handgun the old .45 will out perform the .44 mag.
Dick Casull did all his R&D for the .454 using the .45 Colt case. He lengthened it for the same reason Smith and Wesson lengthened their .357 magnum.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Instead there was a trend at the beginning of the 20th century toward small caliber guns which I have never been able to understand or heard explained.

In the latter part of the 19th Century, many police -- espcially in the East -- adopted the "carry a lot, shoot a little" theory. Most cops never fired their guns in anger. If you're not going to shoot it, why carry a big heavy gun?

Smith and Wesson used this attitude -- plus the fact that these littler guns sometimes were fired in anger and didn't do well -- to develop the .38 Special, which soon became the standard police round. The .38 Special was offered as a balance between light weight and effectiveness.

 

[Jim Watson]

Apart from specialized uses like light loaded SAA repros for CAS and heavy loaded Rugers for hunting, the .45 Colt has one big drawback for me. It is a GREAT BIG gun. I don't want to wear a N-Smith all day and a New Service or Redhawk is even bigger. A .357 revolver gives adequate power and an automatic more shots in smaller packages.

 

[MCgunner]

A lot of small town police departments like exist here would be well armed with DA revolvers, still, but yeah, like I said, I'd rather tote a more powerful, yet lighter to carry K frame in .357. That's why the K frame came about to replace N frames in beat cop's holsters. I often have carried a medium frame .357 revolver while day hiking and scouting/camping in New Mexico in lieu of my .45 Blackhawk for that very same reason, less weight when you're on you feet all day and there's nothing out there worse than a black bear or mountain lion that I'd have to take on except a BG, and the .357 is proven very deadly to BGs.

 

[unspellable]

The 45 S&W or Schofield did NOT chamber properly in the 45 Colt SAA. It had a wider rim which interfered. This led to the developemnt of the 45 Government which had the 45 Colt rim and the 45 S&W case length. It was this latter cartridge that is the "45 Short Colt" in the civilian market. The 1909 New Serrvice Revolver used the "45 Revolver" which had a wide rim and a case just slightly longer than the 45 Colt.

Many of today's large frame DA revolvers would work with the wide rim. Starline made a run of full length brass with the wide rim, wish htey still had it.

Another problem with the 45 Colt is that the SAAMI chamber specs call for an oversized chamber, a legacy of the BP days. The 454 Casull chamber corrects this problem. I could wish for a DA 45 Colt with tight chambers and wide rimed brass to put in it.

 

[tipoc]

Thanks for the clarification.

tipoc

 

[RJM]

Next to .357mag, .45 colt is my favorite cartridge. I just love shooting the .45 filled with black powder and pushing a cast bullet out of an SAA. While it is apparently a decent smokeless round, especially with the newer guns that can handle the pressures (Ruger Redhawk, Blackhawk, Smith and Wesson 625 and the like) I always prefered shooting it filled with black powder.

A reloader will probably start seeing position sensitivity when using smaller loads of smokeless, like Unique. I did, especially if you are shooting with the gun pointed down slightly. I haven't seen a huge difference, but it does exist. I think Reloader magazine had a recent article on this. Trailboss has done a pretty good job of stopping that because it pretty much fills the case up, this has become my go to powder for range duty using the .45 colt.

The new Ruger Redhawk looks like a promising gun, and I can recommend the smith and wesson 625 chambered for the round. My brother has one and absolutely loves it. I honestly prefer the single actions for numerous reasons so I don't think I will be purchasing one.

 

[Slamfire]

Apart from specialized uses like light loaded SAA repros for CAS and heavy loaded Rugers for hunting, the .45 Colt has one big drawback for me. It is a GREAT BIG gun. I don't want to wear a N-Smith all day and a New Service or Redhawk is even bigger. A .357 revolver gives adequate power and an automatic more shots in smaller packages.

This in large part is the reason why. The Colt SAA is an amazingly compact package for a 45LC, but it is slow to load and was considered obsolete, at least by most 1920’s gunwriters. Elmer Keith wrote such strong support of the SAA, primarily because he was bucking the tide of current opinion..

If you read the Textbook of Revolvers, by Hatcher, the 38 Special was considered a powerful round in the 1930’s. The 357 was a cannon, for strong men only. The large caliber .44 Spls and 45LC’s were big, expensive, and not that popular.

Take a look at the production figures of the Colt Police Positive and the S&W M&P. http://www.proofhouse.com/colt/index.html If I am not wrong about adding up the numbers, at least 1.7 million Colt revolvers were built prior to 1941 that were 38 Spl (or 32 S&W). Compare that to 348,000 Colt New Service. I suspect the S&W production figures are similar.

Of the pre war large caliber revolvers, the 45LC was not as well considered as the 44 Spl. And the primary reason is the huge chamber mouths on Colt New Service revolvers, and every other brand of revolver chambered in 45 LC. The 45 LC was not as accurate, and through Elmer Keith’s writings, if you wanted a powerful big bore, you got a 44 Spl. The 44 Spl was a better platform for making hot loads, and the 44 Spl was more accurate.

It was not until 1989 that S&W changed the chamber mouths on their 45LC’s from .455” to .452” that I found that I liked the 45LC. I purchased a M25-7, and that pistol with its tighter chamber mouths shot inside of my M25-5.

I suspect there were many people who were dissatisfied by inaccuracies of the “big mouth” 45 LC’s. And when I called up customer service, the typical answer was “it is built to SAAMI specs”. Which is another way of saying “We don’t care, and we don’t have to”.

Competition, as slow as the Glaciers, have at least brought us some good 45LC’s. They are now, better than ever.

Since then when I have been shopping for a 45 LC, I look for revolvers with .452 chamber mouths. In my hands, a 45 LC with the smaller chamber mouth shoots just as accurately as a 44 Spl.

Ruger makes a most excellent 45LC Redhawk with the tighter chamber mouths. And that can be loaded to pressures and velocities that would blow the top strap of an N frame.

 

[22-rimfire]

In today's world, more the merrier in terms of calibers. Cowboy action shooting brought back the 45LC from the grave. When they brought out the 41 magnum in the 60's, it was to give police a larger revolver caliber that could be handled by more police with more killing power as well as the potential to shoot through cars. If the 45LC was a better round, they would have just loaded it hotter. The fact is they can't due to the prevalence of old guns. The 45LC is probably more popular today than it was 50 years ago.

I don't particularly agree with the posts about the police. However, they don't need to be jerks themselves. They see a lot of jerks just about every day and they need to be prepared for the armed jerk all the time. That is the real world, not the world that some wish it was. You probably would not be real comfortable in many foreign countries where the police are essentially the military and they carry full autos all the time. They don't mess around nor take any crap. They will shoot your butt.

 

[Shawnee]

Hi McGunner...

You wrote...

[I]"The original SWAT concept was for special training for hostage rescue or entry and clearing and such. Well, so long as it's just a specialized team on a major urban force, it's understandable and acceptable to me as necessary."[/I]

Agreed - but unfortunately our SWAT teams have taken the Proverbial mile when they should have been limited to an inch.

And re: one other poster's comment: "If they (the beat cop) isn't going to shoot their gun, why carry a big powerful gun" - my thinking is if they aren't going to shoot it, why let them carry a gun at all ? In fact, letting them carry one is just asking for them to decide they need to shoot somebody once in a while.

Personally, I think 98% of our LEOs should be "armed" with nothing but radios, handcuffs, and maaaaaaaaaybe nightsticks or Tasers to be used strictly for self-defense. We should make it clear we don't want our cops precipitating shoot-outs (or high-speed car chases).
I think a serious element of the problem is we allow LEOs to cling to tactics and strategies that were born back in the 1820s-30s-and -40s, and I think we need to start insisting that they abandon their Marshal Dillon and Miami Vice mentalities and start behaving like people with actual intelligence.

As for the .45LC - I, personally, have absolutely no more desire to be shot with a .45LC than I do to be run over by an Apollo rocket, so an officer with a .45LC would likely be positively thrilled at how friendly I could be.

As always - Local opinion may vary.

 

[rcmodel]

Ever changing civilization!
I think the decline started with the decline of the horse.

Folks no longer felt the need to carry a large & powerful handgun to kill a mad range bull or runaway horse.

They also no longer had two saddlebags and a horse to carry around their extra ammo supply!
Ever lift two or three boxes of .45 LC ammo?

City cops wanted small light guns & ammo because they walked a beat on foot.

Western lawmen stayed with the big guns until very recently, when they too were superseded by lighter & smaller .357 Magnum wheel-guns, and now, even lighter & flatter plastic auto pistols, with three times the fire power, and not enough training.

The old Gun Savvy lawmen simply faded away, and cops became civil servants.
And many of them don't even want to carry a gun at all, let alone learn to shoot an N-frame .45 Colt, and carry it & the speed-loaders of heavy extra ammo!


rcmodel

 

[jeff-10]

The .45 had such a small rim it wouldn't work reliably in lever guns.

I am curious. Did they do something to modern lever action rifles to make it more reliable?

 

[rcmodel]

No, they did it to the .45 Colt case rim.

It is bigger now then it was then.

And it's still not very big!


rcmodel

 

[BlindJustice]

FOr the O.P.

The .38 SPecial came into being in 1899 - a lengthened .38 Long Colt. I would bet T.R. adopted the S&W .32 S&W Long because the
hadngun was superior to what Colt had during that time.

The.38 SPcl in the K-frame was a convenient carry option for
LEO's on the beat. 1935 - .357 S&W N-Frame
MId-1950s, N-frame .44 Magnum and the K-frame .357 Magnum.

All this time since COlt dropped the New Service large frame after WWI
the only DA option for a .45 Colt as it is properly called, were conversions
by changeing the cylinder of a M1917 be it a Colt or S&W in the meantime
S&W never did put out a lot of N-frame revolvers in .45 ACP but they
kept putting them out - It took a long time for S &W to chamber the N-frame in .45 Colt because it meant they had to put COLT on the barrel - S&W and COlt have been in competition since the 1850s.

ALso, for a very long time .45 Colt with over the counter ammo didnt
have a lot of good options for LEOs or at least those making decisions. ANd wehn compared for an LEO teh .45 ACP wheelgun with the moon clips is a
lot more sensible for reloades instead of fumbling with speedloaders and the
long brass/cartridge.

If you would check the current S&W catalogue S&W has added a blued Model 25 6 1/2" Bbl. Len. .45 Colt for 2008 as well as a M24 in
.44 Special. And if you don't know, Elmer keith championed the .44 SPecial
and chose it because it has a thicker cylinder wall
than the .45 Colt when he went to boost loads and champion a big bore
magnum. Good reasons all but some of just circumstance.


in

 

[Timthinker]

Patrick Henry, many good reasons for the decline of the .45 Colt have been offered here. I would like to comment on why smaller calibers began to proliferate at the beginning of the 20th century. Smokeless powder. Those two words seem to sum it up for me. Smokeless powder pushed smaller bullets at much higher velocities than older black powder could. Many people believed that smaller, faster bullets could do the job previously performed by slower, heavier bullets. Indeed, we still see these debates on THR. I hope this answer sheds some light on your great question.


Timthinker

 

[Majic]

Marketing and weak brass was the downfall of 45 Long Colt. If someone had beefed up the cases and called it 45 Magnum then it probably would have stayed popular.

The brass was weak because originally it had a balloon head. Once they switched it to a solid head then it was as strong as most other brass. As mentioned earlier the .454 was developed with the 3 tiered load in .45 Colt cases.

 

[Sistema1927]

The .45 Colt is in decline?

I guess that I didn't get the memo.

I load and shoot more .45 Colt than all other calibers combined.

 

[Wil Terry]

Patrick Henry, The Entirety Of Your Epistle Is Wrong !!!!

THE 45COLT IN SAA SIXGUNS ALWAYS--ALWAYS!!--OUTSOLD THE 44-40 BY A LARGE MARGIN; IT WAS NOT CLOSE !!! NO OTHER CARTRIDGE APPROACHED THE 45COLT IN POPULARITY IN THE OLD WEST.
AT THE END OF THE 20th CENTURY THE NEW SERVICE DOUBLE ACTION SIXGUN WAS INTRODUCED AND THE 45COLT CARTRIDGE WAS FAR AND AWAY IT'S TOP SELLER IN THE CIVILIAN MARKET AND ONLY TOPPED IN THE MILITARY MARKET BY THE 45ACP DUE TO WWI ARMY ORDERS.
IN THE NEW WEST WHERE I LIVE IT REMAINS THE SAME.
THERE ARE MORE 45COLT SIXGUNS IN USE TODAY THAN ANYTIME IN HISTORY AND MORE SAA STYLE SIXGUNS ARE BEING SOLD NOW THAN ANY TIME IN HISTORY OF THIS REPUBLIC.
CAPS INTENTIONAL!!!
I HAVE SPOKEN.
PATRICK HENRY : We would have given you liberty but chose to give you death for your libelous balogna about the 45COLT.

 

[BlindJustice]

hey, WIl Terry yah got a shift key unlock so you use it all caps
is rude yelling.imo and whatever the cops are armed with doesn't have
anythng to do with this topic.

THe .45 AUto RIm is 1920 designed for smokeless powder.
i like the 225 gr. Barnes XPB HP solid copper at 925 fps in my
625 with several full moon clips loaded with 230 gr. WW SXTs.

Different strokes. I'm getting my Marlin 1894 .45 COlt rechambered
and reworked for .45 Auto RIm My gun, my choice

I'll chrono some stuff come spring....

 

[Shawnee]

To add a wee bit to Timthinker's observation...

I think with the arrival of smokeless powder that put more power in bores of less diameter the interest of handgunners started to shift to longer distances (or perhaps simply velocity) and away from plenty of power at relatively close distances. The .45 Colt pistol is just as formidable as it always was - and - at about 40yds. or less - that is plenty formidable. But of course we have several generations of gunners who scoff at a "mere" 40yds.
I don't shoot .45 Colts but I do shoot scads of .44 Specials and the impact they have at 30 or 40 yds. is most impressive. And in the context of police adventures, 30 or 40 yds. would be "long range" handgunnery most of the time. To get hit by that 260-gr. bowling ball at a distance inside 30 feet would be extremely disheartening (IMHO).

 

[NORTEXED]

I've posted these before, I know, but here it is again

285 gr. LBFP, 2 .454 balls that print 2-3"apart at 50', and a .444 Marlin case (rim and body Dia. are EXTREMELY close to .45 Colt) cut to cylinder length and loaded with almost as much #12 shot as a 2 3/4" .410 shell

 

[Professor Gun]

.45 Colt is one of my favorites.

Having said that I think a lot of people don't go for it because they want more power (e.g., .44 Mag) or they want a handgun with more capacity. I have several double action revolvers in .45 Colt. One of them is a Taurus snub nosed revolver that is a 5 shot. I initially bought it because I love the caliber and it was in a very compact package that could be carried concealed. The first time my wife shot it she decided it was hers and it now resides in the gun safe on her side of the bed as one of her two self defense guns.

To anyone considering a gun in .45 Colt I highly recommend it. My personal favorite is the S & W revolvers in .45 Colt.