Break top revolvers? Questions regarding this design.

Thank you. I also have a first model DA in 44 russian. The nickel finish is pretty worn though. But they both shoot quite well.
 
Every one needs to remember Smiths primary concern about chambering the 45 Long in the Number 3 -- they felt the rim was too small to reliably work with the ejector.

True or not I do not know, but I tend to take them at their word as they are the ones who designed it.
 
I think we're guilty sometimes of applying modern day preferences and ideas to the 19th century. Today, most of us have no experience with the .44-40 or .38-40 but the .45 Colt is very well known. We may be imagining that it was like that in the 1870s and 1880s, too, but it wasn't. Moreover, the Colt Single Action Army revolver did not sell in huge numbers before WWII and probably only about half the production was in .45 Colt and most of those going to the army (Sorry, don't carry the numbers around with me). Other, smaller revolvers outsold the larger ones and always had. To an extent, that was also true of the .45-70.

So basically, the .45 Colt chambering was not necessarily something that a gunmaker just had to have because no one wanted anything else.
 
Also forgot to mention that in about 1878 S&W chambered their New model #3 SA in .44-40 too. So I do not buy the excuse that they would've had to retool and redesign to get a .45 colt caliber #3. I do not know if it is true or not, but I read years ago that during development of the schofield revolver Dan Wesson said something to the effect of "I'll be d*#@*d if I chamber one of my guns for a COLT round." Again I do not know if it is true, but it was a competitive business.
 
OK, I may be wrong about the length. It's been a LONG time since I've actually had hands on with period guns and ammo, but I do know that the rim size on the Colt was a concern.

But, of the three cartridges - .45 Colt, .38-40, and .44-40, I believe that the .45 Colt, as loaded by the military, had the greatest overall length at 1.60 inches, which was longer by a bit than the overall length of the .44-40 using the standard bullet of the day.

I also know that when Smith & Wesson re-introduced the Schofield in the 1990s, they lengthened the cylinder.

I'm trying to track down some dimensioned drawings of the No. 3s, but so far no luck.
 
The rims could've been a legitimate concern, but I think to say they could make one in .44-40 but a .45 colt was too long is a load of poop, at best. I would bet that there was a bit of not wanting to use the competition's cartridge involved too. That was one reason that Colt didn't chamber their guns in .44-40, .38-40 etc until 1878. When they did, they used the 44-40 nomenclature instead of 44WCF (Winchester center fire). In the 1880s Colt was making lever action rifles to compete with Winchester. Supposedly the heads of Colt and Winchester had a meeting in which the Winchester fellows showed the Colt fellows some prototypes for a new line of Winchester revolvers that would be introduced to the market if Colt continued to produce lever rifles. I think you are too easily dismissing the competitiveness that existed between firearms companies at the time as at least partly responsible for some of their business/manufacturing decisions. I'm not arguing with you about this. Just wanted to raise a few points about the length of the #3 frame and the reasons that none were made in .45 colt.
 
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Once again, I believe the .44-40 and the .45 Colt had different standard overall lengths.

It's not just the case length that matters. You have to take into account how much the bullet adds to the overall length.

I have in my personal collection period .45 Long and .44-40 rounds (probably loaded 1890s to just before World War I). I'll have to drag out the micrometer and see what it has to say.
 
From everything I can find, original .44-40 cartridge overall length was from 1.585 to 1.595. Not different enough from your stated .45 colt overall length of 1.60 to be a problem if S&W wanted to chamber one of their guns in that caliber. Also, I noticed that side by side, the cylinder from my original S&W DA 44-40 is a slight bit longer than the cylinder of my Uberti Schofield replica in .45 colt. I would say that length wasn't a problem. I imagine the reason that no #3 S&W was chambered in .45 colt was a mix of competitiveness and the small rim of the Colt cartridge. IMHO of course.
 
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Fairly long cartridges just don't work too well with the auto ejecting top-breaks. If the action is opened slowly the extractor can snap back down and cause the long case to sort of "cock" askew before it clears the chamber, and binds the cylinder momentarily. This happens even with the shorter .38 S&W cartridges. And loaded rounds will drop back into the chamber causing the extractor to drop onto the top of the head of the case instead of gripping the rim.

After some experience with both top-breaks and hand ejectors (with swing out cylinders) shooters usually eject modern revovler muzzle up and gravity helps clear the cylinder of cartridges. Not so with the top-breaks.

Bob Wright
 
As to the relative popularity of .44-40 vs .45 Colt, some years ago The American Rifleman did an article on .44-40 caliber revolvers of the period. The summation was that Colt made more .44-40 revolvers than all other manufacturers combined, and Colt produced far more .45 Colt revovler than .44-40s.

And, remember the .44-40 took a bad hit during the transition from black powder to smokeless.

Bob Wright
 
I notice a general assumption that the military issued the ".45 Schofield" only to those carrying that revolver and that when it was phased out the ammunition became obsolete and the Army reverted back to .45 Colt. In fact, once the Schofield was adopted in 1874, even though in limited numbers, Frankford Arsenal made ONLY the shorter cartridge, and FA ammunition was the ONLY revolver ammunition issued to the Army from 1874 to the end of the Single Action era. Even after the S&W was long gone, the cartridge continued to be issued. After 1874, the Army never issued .45 Colt ammunition.

Even when the Army adopted the Colt New Service in .45 Colt as its standard handgun in 1909, they did not issue .45 Colt ammunition because they found that the small rim caused empty cases to jump the extractor, hanging the gun up. Frankford Arsenal made the Model 1909 cartridge with a larger rim and, again, that was the ONLY ammunition issued with the Model 1909 revolver. There was no contract .45 Colt ammunition. (The Model 1909 cartridge, not the .45 Schofield is the one that only three rounds can be loaded in the Model 1873 revolver, a matter of no importance to the Army since the old SAA was long obsolete in 1909.)

Jim
 
I thought the majority of 45 Colt revolvers produced were sold to the Government and that in civilian sales the 44-40 was the top dog until well AFTER the turn of the century.
 
I thought the majority of 45 Colt revolvers produced were sold to the Government and that in civilian sales the 44-40 was the top dog until well AFTER the turn of the century.
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I don't think the 44-40s sold as great as other cals such as 32-20 or even 41 colt. Do you mean SAAs or in general? I just checked my kopec moore graham book but it didn't break down the caliber production anywhere.
 
Fairly long cartridges just don't work too well with the auto ejecting top-breaks. If the action is opened slowly the extractor can snap back down and cause the long case to sort of "cock" askew before it clears the chamber, and binds the cylinder momentarily.
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They weren't meant to be opened slow. If you turn the gun on it's side when you open it you have no problems at all. My DA .44-40 works just fine. So does my .32, .38 and .44 russian S&Ws as well as my Uberti schofield .45 and .44 russian replicas. Ejecting spent shells isn't rocket surgery.;)
 
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"If you turn the gun on it's side when you open it you have no problems at all."

Bingo.

I generally even flip my top breaks completely over before opening the action so that when the ejection cycle is complete the cylinder is pointing straight down at the ground.

Gravity, its' the law, and it's of huge assistance.

I do the same thing with my Hand Ejectors...

Cylinder open, muzzle straight up, palm slaps the ejector rod.

I have never had issues with a case jumping the ejector star and locking the gun up.



"I don't think the 44-40s sold as great as other cals such as 32-20 or even 41 colt."

I have seen, years ago, a chambering breakdown, and I swear I recall seeing the .44-40 either near, or at the top, of the list once the .45s manufactured for the Army were removed.

And you're right, the .32-20 was also right there, and probably the .38-40 was also well in the mix, compliments of the handy union of the Colt revolver and the Winchester 1873.
 
According to my source, There were a little over 310,000 Colt Single Actions made through the end of production at the beginning of WWII, plus another 46,240 target and Bisley models, most of which were plain Bisleys. about 158,000 were in .45, or about 45%. Of the rest, the .44-40 was produced in the greatest quantity with about 71,400 manufactured. The vast majority of the rest were either .38-40 and .32-20 but 19,750 were produced in .41 Colt. It was produced in 29 different calibers, or more correctly, calibers with 29 different names, some of which I've never heard of.

Ever heard of .44 German?
 
"about 158,000 were in .45, or about 45%."

That's the figure I've heard, as well, but of those, a significant portion went to the US Army and some I believe went to the Navy (not many).

OK, I just found some information that says that the US Gov. took about 37,000 of the .45s, so that would still handily leave it as the most popular chambering in the civilian market.
 
Oh, the .44 German was most likely the American designation for the 11mm German service revolver cartridge.

Barnes' "Cartridges of the World" says it looks a lot like the .44 Russian, but with a heeled bullet. The one in my collection certainly does from a case dimension standpoint, but with the heeled bullet it looks a lot more like the .44 Colt to me.
 
FWIW, I have always read/heard that the best selling caliber in the original SAA was the .45 colt followed by the .44-40.
 
I hasten to add that at times we were reloading a cylinder partially loaded with live rounds. We opened the gun slowly to keep the live rounds in the chambers. And, bear in mind, we were little kids at the time. Ammunition was expensive on our income from delivering circulars or sweeping out the back room of the grocery store.

Bob Wright
 
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