john browning and colts .41 caliber prototype.. did i discover what it was?...

Jason41987 said:
i think they were mostly trying to gain favor with the military, win a military contract so they focused specifically on what the military asked for which was a .45 caliber round, and a grip safety... i have no idea what their other specifications were at that time though, besides those two... with no specifications the 1911 probably would have turned out to be a .41 without a grip safety
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I'm not at all certain what point you are trying to make here, but for someone trying to make a point you seem to have done very little research, and much of what you did research you either got wrong or are deliberately misquoting.

Colt wasn't working on a pistol that later became the 1911. To assert that "with no specifications the 1911 probably would have turned out to be a .41 without a grip safety" is completely ridiculous. The statement ignores the fact that the military DID announce a competition for the design of a new sidearm, they DID publish specifications, and Colt DID bring John Browning in as a consultant specifically to design a NEW handgun to be designed around the military's specifications.

You can't ignore the specifications. The "1911" came to be called the "1911" because it was formally adopted as the Model of 1911 by the U.S. Ordnance Department. And the specifications had dictated that it WOULD be a .45 caliber projectile.

The "1911" part came about only because that was the year of adoption, and the practice of the Ordnance Department at that time was to designate firearms according to the year of adoption. Had it been adopted three months earlier, it would have been the M1910. There's nothing magic about "1911."

Colt already had other semi-automatic pistols at the time, and they were certainly free to continue developing those or to develop new ones for the civilian market, in whatever caliber they chose. Obviously, they didn't bring a .41 ACP pistol to market. There must have been reasons. We weren't there, so we can speculate all we want. But to argue that the pistol the U.S. Government specified must be a .45 caliber "would have been" a .41 without specifications simply is a logical fallacy. Without the specifications there would not have been a pistol, because the Ordnance Department wasn't going to announce a competition for a new military sidearm with no criteria to establish what they might get.
 
aguila blanca, before insulting me use common sense... do you think in the early 1900s before the use of 3D CAD software and CNC milling machines that they started and finished working on what became the 1911 overnight?... back then it took a lot of trail and error, failed prototypes, and years to perfect a design, you can be quite sure what later became the 1911 bears its roots in various prototypes since browning and colt began working together on automatics
 
Considering that the military trials program that led to the adoption of the M1911 took a period of years, I would say it certainly did not happen overnight. And, since Colt was already selling semi-automatic pistols even before the announcement of the Ordnance Department competition, it is obvious that Colt and Browning were working on semi-automatic pistols prior to the Ordnance Department competition.

But they were not working on a pistol designed specifically to satisfy the requirements of the Ordnance Department specifications. That was a new and totally separate initiative for both Colt and Browning. JMB most assuredly drew on the experiences of and lessons learned from preceding models in creating the first design and prototypes for what would become the M1911, but that doesn't equate to saying that he and Colt were working on the M1911 before there was a program to design the M1911.

As an olde fogie who did industrial design on paper long before the advent of even 2-D computer drafting, I am well aware of the limitations of the medium I am also well aware of the limitations of 3-D computer modeling. JMB and Colt had a very collaborative relationship even before the M1911 competition. Browning was able to visualize in his head the way parts would go together and interact. One of the biggest problems with the use of computer modeling today is that the so-called "designers" have no ability to envision the end result in their heads. They rely almost totally on the computer and then wonder what happened when that clearance the computer told them would be .00000001" and function perfectly turns out (perhaps due to tolerances, or temperature, or whatever) to be an interference fit and NOT function ... at all.
 
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if the program to develope the 1911 hadnt began years before the adoption of the 1911, it wouldnt have been finished until much later.. browning and colt didnt sit down with a pencil and paper, draw it out and be done with it so quick, it would have taken years... and to say a gun company isnt always trying to find something that could win the next set of military trials is false... you know damn well thats where the money was back then.. heck, colts contract with the military for the M4s resulted in them stopping almost all civilian practices, because they simply didnt need it
 
The Army started a program for a new .45 sidearm in 1906. Frankford Arsenal developed the ammunition. The rimless round for autos was remarkably similar (but not identical) to the Colt .45 Rimless Smokeless of the year before.
When the Army called for 200 guns of each make and model for field tests, Savage freaked out and made all manner of excuses to get guns built; Luger/DWM just said "Forget about it Amerikaner, ve haf der Cherman Navy already and vill get der army before long. Too big contracts at home to mess mit your stupid pumpkin rollers."
Colt just shipped working 1905 pistols from inventory. Colt management and Mr Browning had seen what was coming.

The Army had a new gun selected in five years of annual cycles of prototyping and testing. That is amazingly fast by so-called "modern" standards.
They adopted the Colt New Service .45 revolver in 1909 because they did not want to wait for a refined auto superior to the worn and low powered .38 Long Colt, even though it was to take only two more years.
 
Well, actually things can still get done quickly today, if there is a reason for it. That isn't to say that all the computers and electronics are the reason either. I suspect that sometimes things might work a little better if the designers spent a little more time on the shop floor.

I also doubt that neither users nor designers in the first ten years of the last century had the fascination with power and velocity that we do today. Supposedly Browning's favorite pistol was a .32 automatic; one of his own.

I also think that today's .40 S&W auto and 10mm owe nothing to the old .41 Colt cartridge. As a matter of fact, supposedly it was developed when someone was tinkering around with some leftover .38-40 bullets and came up with the .41 Action Express. But even that's practically ancient history now.
 
i never understood why they claim to be "reproducing" the ballistics of these old cartridges.. for example, .45acp today is a hell of a lot more effective than .45LC was then... but i guess back in 19-oh-whatever, it may have been closer...

but i do a lot of design and engineering work, and i can safely say if i didnt have 3D solid modeling software it would take me much, much, much longer to perfect a design... because there are designs you make, and you only realize problems after the parts are made and assembled...

for me with this software, i just click on the parts with a problem, edit a feature, and im done literally in seconds, back then the parts would have been manufactured, assembled, problems noted, changed made, new parts created to try again....

also, prior to actually prototyping something, i can determine what the material of a part is and using specifications we already know about these materials such as their tensile strength, yield strength, melting point, conductivity, etc, i can simulate pressure or heat on a part and get a much better idea of whatll happen when this product is used, and find weaknesses before the components are ever made

at this point, im not sure i would ever have the patience, or finances to design something the way they did then
 
.45acp today is a hell of a lot more effective than .45LC was then... but i guess back in 19-oh-whatever, it may have been closer...
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Depends on what you call .45 ACP. Depends on what you call "effective."

If you are in the high velocity camp, then you certainly consider a 165 grain .45 at 1250 fps to be an advancement. But that is not in the military supply system, the few .45 users in the service seem to get by pretty well with a 230 at 850, just as they did in WW I.

The original .45 Colt would get a 250 grain soft lead bullet over 900 fps in the 7.5" SAA. Meant to drop a horse if you could not hit the rider.


Oh, yeah, could you design, prototype, produce, and install a shift key.
Capitalization of the appropriate words would make your stuff more readable.
 
".45acp today is a hell of a lot more effective than .45LC was then..."

Well, considering that TODAY'S .45 ACP usually uses expanding bullets, which were hardly around back then, yes, that's a given.

But remember, too, that today's .45 Colt can, and does, take advantage of expanding bullets.

It also can handle a much heavier bullet, and be loaded to FAR higher velocities.

I'd dare say that today's .45 Colt could be considered to be more effective than the .45 ACP of any era.
 
I guess no one believes it but I have read that the better .45 ACP factory loads are better than any .45 Colt (or .44 Special) loads. But you certainly have to have faith in your ammunition.

On the other hand, I've heard claims of even higher velocities from a 7 1/2" Colt SAA in .45 Colt. But you can't put your "modern .45 Colt" loads in one of them.
 
Buffalo Bore has some pretty "modern" loads for .45 Colt:

Standard Pressure Heavy 45 COLT - 225 gr. Barnes XPB 1000 fps
This load (item 3H) is “STANDARD PRESSURE” and is safe for use in ANY/ALL firearms chambered in 45 Colt and/or 454 Casull. The ”over-all-length” is 1.572 inch and is short enough to be fired in and fed through ANY/ALL 45 Colt firearms.
 
yeah.. i would just go ahead and ignore those "modern" .45lc loads that are loaded to be as powerful as 44 magnums, and youre asking for a bad day if you use one in an SAA
 
Pardon the thread drift, but I've found that max loads with 300-grain bullets in .45 Colt and .44 Magnum make pepper poppers fall much, much faster than .45 ACP with GI hardball. They make a flat steel target head off toward concave, too. :D
 
jason41987 said:
...it wouldnt have been finished until much later.. browning and colt didnt sit down with a pencil and paper, draw it out and be done with it so quick, it would have taken years... and to say a gun company isnt always trying to find something that could win the next set of military trials is false...
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Do you have any actual evidence to support your claim?

On the other hand, I know that Aguila Blanca has extensively studied the history of the development of the 1911 and is very well versed on the subject.
 
Are your so poorly versed on the subject to think that the only guns chambered for the 45 Colt are 120 year old single actions?

I don't think anyone can really grasp the points you're trying to make because you're not grasping the points you're trying to make either. You're simply all over the map and your "facts" are often tenuously rooted in reality.

Why don't you go back to the library and do some more reading on the topic. There are some really good and accurate books out there that should be a available via intralibrary loan.
 
.45acp was supposed to approach the performance of the .45 Colt. I'd say they got close enough for government work.
 
It exceeds the performance of .45 Government (Schofield) and trades a lighter bullet at higher velocity for the 1909 New Service .45.
 
has a gun been made in the last 120 years to chamber .45lc?.. yeah, a few, such as ruger.. but at pressures far exceeding what an SAA can handle
 
jason41987 said:
i never understood why they claim to be "reproducing" the ballistics of these old cartridges.. for example, .45acp today is a hell of a lot more effective than .45LC was then... but i guess back in 19-oh-whatever, it may have been closer...
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You are still missing the point. The point is that the original .45 ACP cartridge was developed -- at the specific request of the Ordnance Department -- to replicate the external ballistics of the cartridge they were then using in the M1873 revolver. The cartridge they were using was not the .45 "Long" Colt but, as has been pointed out, the .45 "Short" Colt, or Schofield. The .45 "Long" Colt fired a 250-grain bullet. The slightly shorter .45 Schofield fired a 230-grain bullet. So that's where that came from.

GI spec hardball was originally a 234 grain JRN at 830 fps with a +/- 25 fps range...at 70 degrees at 27.5 feet from the muzzle. It was standardized with a 230 grain bullet...when and why is unknown...with the same criteria. If you run today's generic 230-grain FMJ ammo (such as Winchester USA, Remington UMC, Federal American Eagle, etc.) through a chronograph, the results will be right around those numbers. So 100 years later, nothing has changed. But other loadings have been added.

You are comparing apples to turnips when you start discussing modern +P loadings in comparison to the original .45 (black powder) revolver loads around which the .45 ACP was developed. In fact, the military .45 ACP cartridge does exactly what it was asked to do: it replicates the ballistics of the .45 caliber revolver round it replaced.

You are also overlooking that the "old" .45 revolvers were firing black powder loads. Virtually any "modern," smokeless powder commercial loading exceeds the internal and external ballistics of the original .45 Colt cartridge. This is why there is a specialty market in so-called "cowboy" loads for the .45 Colt cartridge -- the "cowboy" loads are lighter in order to reduce the risk of overstressing an historical SAA revolver. The "cowboy" loads more close approximate the ballistics of the original, black powder cartridges.
 
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