armsmaster270
New member
beat me to if
Elmer Keith and the 44 magnum-Why not a 45 magnum?
- Thread starter B.N.Real
- Start date
In looking through Elmer Kieth's book Hell, I Was There, I have only found one reference to the development of heavy loads in a .44 special or .45 Colt. On page 125: "So I then (in 1927 I believe it was) designed the Ideal .429-421, a .44 Special. I found out by then that I could load a .44 Special much heavier and to give more power, more velocity and energy, than anything possible out of the thin-cylinder .45 Colt."
In Elmer Keith's book Sixguns copyright MCMLXI (1961?) on page 44 he writes: "We have long urged that the same fine Magnum [a reference to the .357 Magnum] be brought out in .44 Special caliber and have tried without success to have various loading companies turn out a Magnum .44 Special with the Keith 250 grain bullet backed by 18.5 grains 2400, but so far to no avail. They are afraid of the old type case protruding primer pocket and thin head which they could easily redesign and bring out a solid head. They are perhaps afraid of he old Triple Lock as being made of inferior steel, but we know of a great many of these fine old guns that have successfully digested my heavy loads for a great many years with no casualties."
Keith writes on page 45 of Sixguns about the strength of cylinders: "One thing that adds greatly to the strength of these two little undercover arms is the fact they are five-shot, hence the bolt cut or stop in the cylinder comes between the charge holes, not over the center of them as is true of all six-shot arms."
I was unable to find a clear reference in either book to determine whether Keith was limited to the use of the SAA Colt in developing his heavy .44 Special loads. This is not to say that he did or didn't, only that I could not find a passage in which he stated what he did. Keith wrote many articles which I have never read which may have addressed this.
Regardless, the previous posters have pointed out that the thinner walls of the .45 Colt versus the thicker walls of the .44 Special was the determining factor in why there was not .45 Magnum developed at that time. That time being during the 1920s over two decades before the forming of Sturm, Ruger & Company in 1949.
In Elmer Keith's book Sixguns copyright MCMLXI (1961?) on page 44 he writes: "We have long urged that the same fine Magnum [a reference to the .357 Magnum] be brought out in .44 Special caliber and have tried without success to have various loading companies turn out a Magnum .44 Special with the Keith 250 grain bullet backed by 18.5 grains 2400, but so far to no avail. They are afraid of the old type case protruding primer pocket and thin head which they could easily redesign and bring out a solid head. They are perhaps afraid of he old Triple Lock as being made of inferior steel, but we know of a great many of these fine old guns that have successfully digested my heavy loads for a great many years with no casualties."
Keith writes on page 45 of Sixguns about the strength of cylinders: "One thing that adds greatly to the strength of these two little undercover arms is the fact they are five-shot, hence the bolt cut or stop in the cylinder comes between the charge holes, not over the center of them as is true of all six-shot arms."
I was unable to find a clear reference in either book to determine whether Keith was limited to the use of the SAA Colt in developing his heavy .44 Special loads. This is not to say that he did or didn't, only that I could not find a passage in which he stated what he did. Keith wrote many articles which I have never read which may have addressed this.
Regardless, the previous posters have pointed out that the thinner walls of the .45 Colt versus the thicker walls of the .44 Special was the determining factor in why there was not .45 Magnum developed at that time. That time being during the 1920s over two decades before the forming of Sturm, Ruger & Company in 1949.
Last edited:
Beauhooligan
Moderator
Elmer Keith did work on high performance loads in .45 Colt. On one of my visits to his place in Salmon River he showed me two .45 Colt pistols he had blown up; one a Colt, the other a S&W Triple Lock. Elmer had a whole box of sixguns that had blown up in his hand over the years. The Colt had a section blown out of one chamber and the top strap was bent upward. The S&W had the top three chambers missing and the top strap was also missing. He said that both revolvers had blown with very heavy charges of what is now called Alliant 2400 and heavy hard cast bullets. He said that he had fired a great many rounds through both revolvers before the catastrophic events happened. He also showed me a Colt Single Action Army that had been modified with a 5 shot cylinder in .45 Colt, and he said he had worked with this revolver for quite a while in the mid '50s but had given up on it as he was having too many failures in cartridge cases; mostly ruptured case heads. I think that if Keith had have continued in this direction with modern solid head cases, he would have ended up producing something very like the .454 Casull. I was headed to see Elmer at the convalesent hospital in Boise when I blew the transmission and transfer case on my truck in Alturas, and by the time I had it towed to Klamath Falls and rented a car, Elmer was already gone. He was a really fine man.
Beauregard
I think he would have enjoyed playing around with this SS Ruger Bisley .45 Colt and it's spare .45 ACP cylinder.
Beauregard
I think he would have enjoyed playing around with this SS Ruger Bisley .45 Colt and it's spare .45 ACP cylinder.
Attachments
Keith worked with both the Colt SAA and S&W wheelguns. e also did some work with the Colt New Service. Keith preferred the S&Ws as they fit him better.
As others have mentioned with the steels and guns of the day his experimentation was limited. He liked both the .45 Colt round and the .44 Spl. in "Sixguns" he writes favorably on both.
The .45 Colt round has no need to be "magnumized" as it is it's already capable of matching the .44 Magnum if the gun is strong enough. The Colt SAA and S&W N frames are not and this is due to the thin cylinder walls. So to get the most out of the .45 Colt requires a stronger gun. But many will point out that a 250 gr. bullet at 1000 fps will cleanly kill any game in the lower 48 and has been used to take what lives above that.
tipoc