Schofield

[Mike Irwin]

"Custer's pistols remain controversial."

Yep.

On any given day he used:

S&W Schofields.

S&W Americans from the first batch that the Army purchased.

.44 Webley Bulldogs

Something else entirely.

 

[drobs]

Interesting reading. Consider this a tag.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Q.: The Benet primed cartridge.....the firing pin hits the center?? Would you have a fired case to show? Just curious is all.
Pete

Sorry, I paid much too much for the few Benet primed rounds I have to be shooting any of them. So no spent cases.

But this photo may help. Somebody sawed one open on the far right. Inside you can see the Anvil Plate held in place by the two crimps on the case. You can also see the folded nature of the rim. The priming compound is deposited between the bottom of the anvil plate and the and the inside of the case. When struck by a conventional centerfire firing pin, the soft copper case deformed and the priming compound ignited. The flash was communicated through the two holes in the anvil plate to the main powder charge. Like a rimfire, once a Benet primed round had been fired, it could not be reloaded.

 

[Jim Watson]

I think Colt's logic for the loading gate/ejector location is pretty, well... logical.

They anticipated that most shooters, being right handed, would move the gun to their left hand to allow their strong hand, the right hand, the task of manipulating the shells into the chambers.

Goes back even further. SAA lockwork was based on cap and ball actions and you definitely want your master hand to cap the cylinder. Hand on left, capping groove then loading gate on right.
Was Sam Colt really left handed? If so, he realized most of his customers weren't.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Goes back even further. SAA lockwork was based on cap and ball actions and you definitely want your master hand to cap the cylinder. Hand on left, capping groove then loading gate on right.
Was Sam Colt really left handed? If so, he realized most of his customers weren't.

+1!

The bit about Sam Colt being left handed is hogwash. Plain and simple, you needed the dexterity of your right hand (far more righties in the world than lefties) to slip caps over the nipples of a C&B. Same with a Remington. When cartridges came along, the mechanism was almost the same inside. But the loading gate took the place of the capping groove (never heard it called that before). And you needed your more dexterous hand to slip cartridges into the chambers. I always hold a Colt in my left hand and load with my right.

Oh, almost forgot, this thread is about S&W Top Breaks. They are pretty good for either lefties or righties. You can hold the gun with your weak hand, and load cartridges in with your strong hand. I hold the gun in my left, and load cartridges in with my right.

 

[jackmoser65]

Also consider the statement that the hammer was harder to reach (and that the balance of the gun was inferior to the Colt), than the Colt. When a cavalry man was not working, he was drilling. Such minor features would likely be negated by practice and familiarity...after all, I adapted to the very cumbersome M1 Garand.

Not true at all. The difference will always be readily apparent, no matter how much time is spent with it.

I zoomed in on the cases and they are 44 Mag cases. He had to have trimmed them down.

Easy enough to order .44 Russian cases from Starline.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/941448167

 

[darkgael]

Cases

DJ: Thanks for the pictures of the priming system.
I did not expect you to fire a cartridge....thought that you might have had a spent case as part of your collection.
Pete

 

[DaleA]

Marvelous information here. Special thanks to Driftwood for the pictures especially the copper cased bullets-never seen those before.

 

[James K]

When the Colt company changed the Model 1860 over to a top-strap cartridge version for submission to the Army, it followed the late founder's philosophy of making as few changes as possible to minimize costly retooling. That resulted in both the location of the loading gate in the old capping opening, and also in the small rim size of the .45 Colt cartridge, since making the rim larger would require enlarging the cylinder enough to require major tooling changes, not only in the cylinder, but in the frame and lockwork as well. (And rim size matters very little in a revolver with a rod ejector.)

Once the Army had a satisfactory revolver, it was reluctant to add the headaches of a new parts and supply "tail" in the form of the S&W Schofield. It seems that they did so to a limited extent only under political pressure, not because they really considered the S&W superior to the Colt for practical (as opposed to theoretical) purposes.

Jim

 

[johnwilliamson062]

Super duplex.
A couple others out there.
Hard for me to believe some of the modern alloys combined with modern heat treating couldn't be used to make a latch much much stronger than the originals.

Sure it is expensive material and expensive to machine, but it is a small low tolerance part.

 

[Webleymkv]

Originally posted by Mike Irwin
After about 1874 US arsenals stopped loading .45 Colt ammunition and loaded .45 S&W ammunition exclusively for about the next 30 years, even AFTER the last S&Ws had been removed from military service and given to State Guard units.

Well, sort of. It is my understanding that while .45 S&W can be loaded an fired in a Colt SAA, the larger rim of the S&W cartridge will allow only every other chamber to be loaded, obviously not an ideal solution. What, as far as I've read, the Army did was to come up with a sort of hybrid cartridge called ".45 Government" or something like that which was shorter than the .45 LC, thus allowing it to chamber in the Schofield, but with a smaller rim than the .45 S&W, thus allowing a SAA to be loaded to full capacity with it. It was essentially a shorter version of the Colt cartridge and probably the origin of the "Long" in the ".45 Long Colt" designation that gives so many around here heartburn .

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Well, sort of. It is my understanding that while .45 S&W can be loaded an fired in a Colt SAA, the larger rim of the S&W cartridge will allow only every other chamber to be loaded, obviously not an ideal solution.

Completely untrue! I load and shoot 45 Schofields from a Colt SAA all the time. On the right is a cylinder from a 2nd Gen Colt. As you can see there is no problem loading Schofield rounds, with their nominal .520 diameter rims, next to each other in the chambers. Now the interesting thing is, with the 'original model' Vaquero cylinder on the left, the different shape of the ratchet teeth can make for a problem loading Schofields. Even though the cylinder is larger, you can see there is more space between the rims, the shape of the ratchet teeth makes loading Schofields into this cylinder a little bit tricky. There is one chamber (just one) that will not easily accept a Schofield round.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"It is my understanding that while .45 S&W can be loaded an fired in a Colt SAA, the larger rim of the S&W cartridge will allow only every other chamber to be loaded, obviously not an ideal solution."

"Completely untrue!"


Actually, apparently very true.

Remember how the entire Peacemaker/Schofield thing went down.

S&W provided a few thousand guns to the Government to test. But, because they refused to rework the No 3's design to accommodate the longer Colt cartridge, S&W also provided the ammunition that the Army used to test the guns.

That ammo was commercially made to S&W standards to ensure that it worked well with the auto ejection system. S&W had NO interest, and likely no real thought, of their cartridge also being used in the Peacemaker.

The rims on the commercial ammunition that S&W supplied with their guns was, from what I've read, nominally .525, with some running even larger. Remember, this was the early days of cased ammunition, and there could be a lot of variations that worked in. I've never been fortunate enough to find an example of the original S&W production ammunition, but I've heard that there are some examples out there.

Apparently the Army found that SOME of the cartridges S&W supplied would work fine in both the Schofield and the Peacemaker, while others, the ones with the larger rims, interfered and rendered the gun to a 3 shot.

When it became apparent that the S&Ws were going to be in Army hands for awhile, Frankford Arsenal took over production of the round and reworked its dimensions so that the rim would work in both the S&W and the Peacemaker.

Today's .45 S&W cartridge is dimensionally very similar to the compromise design that Frankford Arsenal came up with.

 

[Chris_B]

In E. Lisle Reedstrom's book "Apache wars" he states (about the Colts):

"Problems evolved with this weapon. The cylinder lock bolt wore down quickly, and the ejector-housing screw worked loose after each firing. However, the weapon was much preferred over the Smith & Wesson"


...although he does not state why.

Please understand, that is not my guesswork or assumption. I am providing a quote. That is from "Apache Wars", ISBN 0-8069-7255-6, page 136.

He does go on to state that many problems with the Colt were the product of mis-treatment or poor maintenance by lax troopers in the field or by botched gunsmithing.

The sentiment about the Colt that the troopers shared tells me that there was something amiss with the Smith & Wesson, although personally I would greatly like to have one.

 

[James K]

The cartridges issued by the Army for use in the Schofield had small rims because they also had to work in the Colt. (From 1874 on, only ONE .45 revolver cartridge was made by Frankford and the Army did not obtain that ammo anywhere else. The rims were later made a bit larger than that of the .45 Colt, but always had to fit the SAA revolvers.

The "every other round" story appears to have originated not with the .45 Schofield, but with the .45 Model 1909 cartridge, which was made by the Army for the Model 1909, a Colt New Service swing cylinder revolver. While Colt made them for .45 Colt, the Army found that the small rim jumped the extractor, and ordered Frankford to make special ammo with a larger rim. It was that ammunition that could be loaded into the SAA only by leaving three chambers empty.

Of course that mattered not at all to the military - by 1909, the SAA was completely obsolete, so it was like claiming that it is a drawback that 9x19 can't be fired in a 1911A1 pistol, or 7.62 NATO won't work in a Trapdoor Springfield.

Jim

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

I stand by everything I said about being able to fire Schofield rounds in a Colt Single Action Army. I have fired hundreds of them. Without any problem with rims overlapping. Here is the cylinder from one of my 2nd Gen Colts, fully loaded with 45 Schofield ammo. The rims on these rounds are right at the nominal diameter, .520.

I took everything Webleymkv said at face value. Everything he said was stated in the present tense, nothing was mentioned about what the situation would have been with ammo 140 or so years ago.

But historically, as I believe I stated some time ago, the Revolver Ball Cartridge, Caliber 45, M1875, M1882, M1890, and M1896 were the length of the round we call the Schofield round today. The rims were sized so they could be fired in the SAA or the Schofield revolver.

The "every other round" story appears to have originated not with the .45 Schofield, but with the .45 Model 1909 cartridge, which was made by the Army for the Model 1909, a Colt New Service swing cylinder revolver. While Colt made them for .45 Colt, the Army found that the small rim jumped the extractor, and ordered Frankford to make special ammo with a larger rim. It was that ammunition that could be loaded into the SAA only by leaving three chambers empty.

Thank you James K for writing that.

Here is my Colt New Service, chambered for 45 Colt. It was made in 1906, a little bit before the Army adopted it as the Model 1909. You can see it is a really big gun, bigger than the SAA below it.

Now let's talk rims. Some of you have probably seen this photo of 45 Colt cartridges before. All the way on the left is a modern 45 Colt cartridge. All the other rounds are old rounds of various vintages. Notice how small their rims are. Now take a look at the round all the way on the right. That is the Model 1909 cartridge that James K is talking about. Take a look at how wide that rim is. It is a whopping .538 in diameter.

In this photo I have placed the 1909 cartridge in the SAA cylinder. Yup, no way two of those would fit next to each other in adjacent chambers. The other two rounds are modern 45 Colt brass. By the way, the notation on the case head, FA 12 13, means the round was made at the Frankford Armory in December of 1913.

Their is plenty of room in the cylinder of the New Service. As James K said, the extractor could easily jump over the small rims of 45 Colt ammo of the day, but it was not going to jump over that fat .538 diameter rim.

 

[Jim Watson]

Colt made some SAAs in .455 and .476 for the British market.
Rim diameters .530-.535" depending on the mark.

Anybody got a few .455s they could try in a .45 Colt cylinder?

An article in The Handgunner, Ltd. said that a visit to the Rolls Royce toolroom showed that .476 chambers were bored with a diverging angle to the head so the rims would clear. Which would seem to require a different firing pin and bushing.

 

[Mike Irwin]

"I stand by everything I said about being able to fire Schofield rounds in a Colt Single Action Army."

And I stand by everything I said about the earliest commercial production .45 S&W cartridges supplied to the Army for testing with the No. 3 revolvers.

Today's .45 S&W cartridges are NOT dimensionally identical to the ones S&W provided to the Army.

 

[DPris]

As a wise man once said: Cain't judge yesterday by today.
Denis

 

[James K]

But were the cartridges provided by S&W to the Army for testing the Schofield the same as the cartridges ultimately made BY the Army for use in both the Schofield and the SAA Colt? Logic says that S&W would simply have cut down .45 Colt cases, but those test cartridges would not have had to fit the SAA; the Army could have still adopted the Schofield and issued separate cartridges.

Jim