? about wild wild west revolver guns

C

coolridelude

New member
i was watching an old western with my grandfather and we one of the guys in the western said "that the colt 45 is the finest gun you can have."

i don't know what western it was, or who was in it, so don't ask?:rolleyes:

i also heard this in wild west tech where David caradine comes out and talks about western gunfights..

WAs the colt 45 that popular?

is it the brand colt and the 45acp round?

i don't know anything about the rnd but if someone asked me about the western guns i would say a colt 45, itis like the colt 45 and the levergun are about cowboys.

was there any other round back then(i mean handgun wise)?
 
Lots of handgun rounds back then besides the .45 Long Colt (45 colt)

44-40
38-40
32-20
44 Russian
22 LR

I'm sure there are many more, these are the ones I could think of at the top of my head.

The 45 colt is not the 45 acp round. The 45 colt was actually a .45 Long Colt. The .45 ACP came out in the early 1900s to mimic the ballistics of the Long colt but be shorter to be used in an autopistol such as the 1911.
 
The size of the bullet was known as .45 Long Colt for the "single greatest handgun ever made," the Single Action Army. Another model of the revolver came out back then by Smith And Wesson I believe... probably wrong, S and W isn't that old, is it? It was a top break and was faster to reload, but Colt's were more powerful and durable, so the government gave them the nod, branding it forever as the Colt Single Action Army. They can sell at or above $1500 now. I can tell you anything about the SAA.
 
The .45 Long Colt has about the same case length as the .44 Magnum but is much less powerful. It is the same as a .45 ACP in performance.
 
"The .45 Long Colt has about the same case length as the .44 Magnum but is much less powerful. It is the same as a .45 ACP in performance."

In the Ruger's you can push a 260gr. hollowpoint out to about 1400-1500fps. On the low to mid side of .44 mag. The commercial loads are intentionally downloaded because of the older Colt and S&W revolver that won't hold up to the higher pressures.
Click to expand...
 
DonR101395,

My description of the .45 Long Colt was from the period not from the Keith era loads used in Ruger Blackhawks. He was asking about the old days, hence 1800's
 
Folks, the proper name for the cartridge is

.45 Colt Cartridge

Not "Long" Colt. The "Long" designation came, IIRC, in the early 1900's to distinguish it from the .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) cartridge.

Again, working from memory (with parity errors :p) the .45 ACP was developed around 1907-09.

The Colt SAA was deemed "single greatest handgun ever made" in some circles because it was well balanced, aimed & shot well and was sturdier than most of it's predecessors. But this is debatable as there are many stories about the Remington revolvers that gave Colt a run for their money.

<Trivia Mode>
Actually, the U.S. Army did adopt the S&W revolver in the 44 Schofield as a sidearm at one point. These were the break-top action S&W's. When the Russians wanted to buy a boatload, they didn't like the heeled bullet of the original .44 so S&W redesigned the cartridge and made an adjustment to the bores for the .44 Russian round which was more accurate and somewhat more powerful.

S&W actually was the first to market with a bored-through cylinder to accept a metallic cartridge (the .22 rimfire). IIRC they bought the patent from a Colt employee (or was that a former Colt employee? :eek: ). S&W also introduced the swing-out cylinder revolver we know today as the "Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector" Model of 1899. Today it's called the Model 10. :cool:

Believe it or not, the .44 Magnum did exist during the Civil war, except that it was not a cartridge gun. The Colt Walker .44 pistol could be loaded with enough black powder to create the equivilant of the .44 Mag out of a muzzle loader! A good thing the Walker weighed over 4 pounds!

</Trivia mode>
 
"Actually, the U.S. Army did adopt the S&W revolver in the 44 Schofield as a sidearm at one point."

No, no they didn't.

The Schofield was STRICTLY a .45 Smith & Wesson caliber variation of the No. 3 revolver.

In 1870 the U.S. Army adopted its first cartridge revolver -- the S&W No. 3 chambered in the .44 S&W cartridge, also known as the .44 S&W American, a name which came later to differentiate it from the .44 Russian cartridge.

Previous military cartridge revolvers had been cap and ball conversions, chambered for the .44 Colt cartridge, ballistically very similar to the .44 Russian.



"Folks, the proper name for the cartridge is

.45 Colt Cartridge

Not "Long" Colt. The "Long" designation came, IIRC, in the early 1900's to distinguish it from the .45 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) cartridge."

Things change.

Sometimes they change for very specific, and very practical, reasons.

Do you use the proper name for the .44 WCF, the .38 WCF, or the .30 WCF? Or do you call them the .44-40, .38-40, or .30-30, respectively? No such thing, right, that number at the tail end is just loading information. After all, Winchester gave them their names originally (can I get an AMEN!) so we should NEVER EVER call them anything else, right? :)

Amen...

"S&W also introduced the swing-out cylinder revolver we know today as the "Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector" Model of 1899. Today it's called the Model 10."

Colt had a swing-out cylinder before S&W did. And the Military & Police Model of 1899 wasn't S&W's first hand ejector.

That honor is reserved for the Hand Ejector First Model, aka the Model of 1896, which also saw the introduction of the .32 S&W Long cartridge.
 
The way I remember it. The 45 Colt was the name. In the 50s-60s imported German, Swiss and Italian manufacturers labeled their revolvers as 45 Long Colt. ?? Colt introduced the 45 Colt with ther SAA in 1873. The original name was the Model P. ?? 45 Colt had 40 gr of black powder and a 255 gr bullet. S&W attempted to gain some of the USA business. S&W pushed their No. 3 revolver but, it didn't have enough length to chamber 45 Colt cartridges. S&W revolvers used a shorter 45 caliber cartridge. The trouble was that Colts could shoot both 45 S&W and 45 Colt. The S&W could not chamber the 45 Colt. This is one old reason as to the 45 LONG Colt ID. Longs would not chamber in S&W revolvers. The 45 S&W was a weaker round also. 28 gr of black powder and a 230 gr bullet. Later, the USA added around 1907, the Colt M1909 or a mil-spec Colt New Service with a proprietary Colt cartridge again. Three 45s, the 45 Colt, the 45 S&W or the long and the short, as well as the M1909. Confusing indeed.
 
The term Long Colt has been on ammunition boxes and in advertising since at least before World War I, and very likely earlier.

"S&W attempted to gain some of the USA business. S&W pushed their No. 3 revolver..."

S&W figured that they were in the driver's seat after having supplied 1,000 No. 3s to the Army in 1870, but the Colt Model 1873 beat them out.

S&W still provided several thousand No. 3s (both straight No. 3s and Schofield No. 3s) in .45 S&W to the military.

The interesting thing is that in 1878, the Army apparently went BACK to S&W again for another batch of revolvers, and S&W, deeply involved in the Russian, Turkish, and Japanese contracts, said no.
 
The size of the bullet was known as .45 Long Colt for the "single greatest handgun ever made," the Single Action Army. Another model of the revolver came out back then by Smith And Wesson I believe... probably wrong, S and W isn't that old, is it? It was a top break and was faster to reload, but Colt's were more powerful and durable, so the government gave them the nod, branding it forever as the Colt Single Action Army. They can sell at or above $1500 now. I can tell you anything about the SAA.
Click to expand...

Not exactly, The 1875 Model 3 Schofield revolver was chambered for the .45S&W cartridge which is identiacal to the .45 Colt (or Long Colt if you prefer) that was chambered in the 1873 Single Action Army and countless later revolvers except it is shorter. I don't know for sure but I suspect that it was shorter because most top-break revolvers require a fairly short case in order to fully extract it. This is why the British went with the short .455 Webley and .38/200 (dimensionally identical to .38S&W NOT the longer .38 Special) in their top breaks. The power of the S&W and Colt rounds was close enough to be negligable and the low pressure of the old black powder rounds made durability of the two designs about the same. What made the army adopt the Colt over the Schofield was logistics (the S&W was actually superior in design to the Colt as a weapon for cavalry who were the main users of handguns at the time). Samples of both designs were ordered for testing as were quantities of ammunition for both. Inevitably, the wrong ammunition wound up with a unit posessing the wrong gun. The S&W having a shorter chamber, could only fire the S&W round as the Colt round wouldn't fit. The Colt, however, could fire either much like a modern .357 Magnum Revolver can fire .357's or .38 Specials but a .38 Special Revolver can't fire Magnums. The army, faced with this problem, standardized on the Colt so that either ammunition could always be used.
 
"I don't know for sure but I suspect that it was shorter because most top-break revolvers require a fairly short case in order to fully extract it."

Not in the case of the S&W No. 3.

The No. 3 design predates the .45 Colt/Long Colt cartridge design by several years.

S&W designed the No. 3 around the .44 American cartridge, which was considerably shorter than the .45 Long.

When the Army decided that they wanted to adopt the .45 Long, that left S&W with two choices -- redesign the No. 3 to take the longer cartridge, or try to compromise by bringing out almost the same cartridge, but shorter, so that it could fit in their gun.

Obviously, since S&W was heavily into production of No. 3s for Russia by that time, the last thing they wanted to do was to re-engineer the entire frame for a longer cartridge. That would have required either having two production lines in operation (which would take away from their ability to make their smaller handguns for the civilian market) or it would have cut deeply into their ability to deliver the Russian guns while the machinery change over was being done.


It's true that both the Smith & Wesson and the Colt passed Army tests with flying colors, but the S&W lost points in a number of areas, primarily:

1. Complexity. It had far more parts, and was tougher to maintain, than the Colt.

2. Perceived durability. Perhaps not the case, but some on the board felt that the Colt's solid frame would hold up better over the long run.

3. Price. The S&W was more expensive than the Colt, largely due to point 1.


It should be noted (which I did above, actually) that in 1878 the Army apparently went BACK to S&W for another run of No. 3s, and was turned down. S&W's production facilities were fully engaged in production hundreds of thousands of guns for the Russians, and the Army only wanted a few thousand.

Ultimately, it seems that the S&W No. 3 Schofields that were taken stayed in military service for quite a few years -- at least as late as 1887, and other research has indicated that some were still in service as late as the Spanish American War (noted in Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson).
 
Thank you for all that have used the correct nomenclature, .45 Colt. It drives me crazy when I hear "45 Long Colt" used as the proper name for the cartridge. NO, you don't need to differenciate from the .45 ACP cartridge. That is why is called .45 ACP not, "45 shorter than the other Colt" cartridge.
 
WOW!!

that is a lot of info. it is mindboggling. i did not know anything about the 45 colt. i am very impressed by the info i was given.

i am glad you guys help me, i just didn't not know and thanks for clearing up the question about the 45acp. i did not know that either.

Thanks.

Marcos
 
"It drives me crazy when I hear "45 Long Colt" used as the proper name for the cartridge."

That seems to be the case with so many people, and I really have to wonder just why...

Do you also go sideways when you hear someone say 9mm Luger/9mm Parabellum/9x19?

How about .30-40 Krag instead of .30 U.S. Government?

How about the .380 ACP? It's alternately known as the 9mm Corto, 9mm Kurz, 9mm Browning Short, 9x17, etc. Given that it first saw the light of day in Europe, is it wrong to call it the .380 ACP when it came to these shores with an already established name?

Why is it only the .45 Long Colt that seems to get people in such a frothing fury?

Why none of the other multitude of cartridges that have multiple, understood, accepted, nomenclatures?

Obviously at one time long (AH! THAT WORD!) ago it was felt by some in the industry that the differentation WAS needed. What makes those dead men so wrong?
 
Do you also go sideways when you hear someone say 9mm Luger/9mm Parabellum/9x19?

How about .30-40 Krag instead of .30 U.S. Government?

How about the .380 ACP? It's alternately known as the 9mm Corto, 9mm Kurz, 9mm Browning Short, 9x17, etc
Click to expand...

i did not know that either.

Mike Irwin, you know a lot, are you a historian?
 
"Mike Irwin, you know a lot, are you a historian?"

My BA is in history, with a strong concentration in American History.

I'm now a technical writer for a government contractor, but I did put in several years on staff at American Rifleman magazine.
 
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