The .45 "Long" Colt........

I used to call it .45 Colt simply because that is shorter and easier to say or type, but due to some of the foaming-at-the-mouth responses that adding "Long" to the name elicits, I started making a point to call it .45 Long Colt every chance I get as a tweak the Semantics Gestapo:p.

When I pointed out in one such debate that, at the time, Colt themselves were using the "Long Colt" term, I had one such purist all but stick his fingers in his ears and scream "no, no, no, no." He claimed that Colt was but a shell of its former self and that they had bowed to those too lazy to use the correct terminology. Apparently, he felt that he was a better authority on the cartridge than the company that introduced it:rolleyes:.
 
What are the actual rim dimensions?
I have always read that the .45 S&W had a larger rim than .45 Colt for reliable simultaneous extraction. OK.

I have also read somewhere that the .45 S&W rim was too large for a Colt SAA, in the same manner as the .45 1909, and that the .45 Government was a compromise cartridge the length of .45 S&W and the rim either of .45 Colt diameter or some intermediate size.
CotW 12th says so, but I have also seen it elsewhere.
CotW says some .45 S&W will work in some Colts, but not all, so the .45 Gov't came along.
They have some funny numbers though, with .45 Colt rim diameter listed .512", .45 S&W .522", ok, but .45 Gov't at .506".

If you want to shoot modern .45 Schofield in your Colt or clone SAA, it will work, so apparently they are making .45 Gov't or low end of tolerance .45 S&W. But if you want to use it in your Ruger, you may well have to cut the ratchet for clearance.
 
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Here is a mixed batch of .45 Colt and .45 S&W cartridges loaded into the cylinder of a Colt New Frontier, they all fit comfortably:

100_65891.jpg


Here are two .45 M1909 cartridges in the same cylinder, note that one will not seat fully as the rims overlap. This happens only in the Colt SAA, as the New Service will allow them to fit:

100_66091.jpg


Haven't tried these in a Ruger.

Bob Wright
 
There really was no ".45 S&W" as S&W never made a .45 revolver (up to the WWI era) except the Schofield and it was made for the .45 Government, which had to have a small rim diameter in order to fit the Model 1873 (SAA) revolver. When the Model 1909 came out, the Model 1873 was long out of service and the military could not have cared less whether the Model 1909 cartridges fit the old single action or not.

The rim diameter of the .45 Government is .512" (Frankford Arsenal Benet primed), the .45 Colt is .505" (modern); the .45 Model 1909 is .536" (Frankford Arsenal 12 18). Measurements are from specimens indicated. The .45 Government has a slightly larger rim than the .45 Colt, with some specimens up to .523" rim diameter, about as large as it can be and still get six into the Model 1873 cylinder. That was done to help resolve extraction problems with the Schofield.

While the confusion is rife about various rim diameters, there is little discussion as to why the .45 Colt has such a small rim in the first place. The answer lies in Colt's traditional attitude of never wasting anything. When the Army went looking for a new revolver and hinted that .45 would be nice, the "anything" was all the tooling Colt had invested in its percussion revolver frames. To make the cylinder significantly larger than that of the .44 Army would have meant revamping a whole lot of expensive machinery. So Colt made the cyinder a bit bigger (1.621" to 1.652") which was about as much bigger as it could go without a lot of changes to the grip straps, internal parts, etc. But skimping on cylinder diameter meant a .45 cartridge had to have a small rim, no problem at all with the SAA, which has an ejector rod. But when folks wanted to use the .45 Colt in rifles and other revolvers, the small rim was a problem. It is only recently in response to CASS and other sports that rifle makers have come to chamber the .45 Colt, and it still gives trouble.

Jim
 
Bob posted a picture including a cartridge headstamped .45 S&W.
In the same category as the .45 Colt headstamped short case, I guess.
No such thing, but there it is.

There hasn't been a .45 Colt around here in years and years, but I found a couple of cases in my box of odds and ends. The R-P had a .507" rim, the WW was .510". I remember reading that current production had been beefed up a little for use in the anachronistic .45 lever actions.
 
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Cylinder lengths - .45 Colt

Since there's so much interest in the caliber here, does anyone know why the cylinder on a Ruger apparently is slightly longer than the one on a Smith Model 25? I was surprised, after I bought my Model 25, that some purchased reloads I had kept for many years and had (as I recall) successfully fired in my 3-screw Ruger, stuck out the end of the cylinder chambers in the Smith.

Note that I used "apparently" - I haven't fired the Ruger in about 35 years and I'd have to dig it out of storage in order to actually measure the cylinder.
 
"There really was no ".45 S&W" as S&W never made a .45 revolver (up to the WWI era) except the Schofield and it was made for the .45 Government"

Actually, there was.

Smith & Wesson developed the cartridge in-house specifically to counter what it saw as being the shortcomings of the .45 Colt cartridge -- the length and the miniscule rim.

Smith & Wesson's internal records refer to the cartridge as the .45 S&W Schofield, as noted in the Neal and Jinks book, in Roy Jink's "History of Smith & Wesson," and Supica and Nahaus' "Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson."

Given that Roy Jinks is, and has been for decades, the official S&W historian, I'd say his usage of that nomenclature is about as positive an affirmation as anything anyone here has come up with for contending that it's the .45 Colt, not Long Colt. Or vice versa.
 
Smith & Wesson has an interesting way of addressing another cartridge. On the side of the barrel of my wife's nifty little 351C .22 Magnum snubbie is stamped ".22 M.R.F. Ctg." Never mind that all the ammo I buy for it says "22 WMR."
 
That's been a common trick in the firearms industry for well over 100 years.

How many Colt revolvers from the 1920s have you seen that are stamped .38 Smith & Wesson or .38 Smith & Wesson Special?

None.

Colt went so far as to redesign the bullets on the .32 S&W Long and the .38 S&W and rename them the .32 Colt New Police and the .38 Colt New Police cartridges, and so mark the guns.

For awhile Colt even marked some of their guns .38 Colt Special.

The shenanigans that some of the rifle makers pulled was even worse.
 
That's interesting to know. Seems unnecessarily petty. I just checked the side of my Detective Special and it says, ".38 Special Ctg., " which supports your point and/or perhaps shows that the competitors gave up and agreed on 38 Spl. to stop confusing the public.
 
.45 Long Colt....

yes, I know the proper name is just .45 Colt, and its listed that way in the manuals, and on the reloading dies, but I like calling it the "long Colt", I think it sounds better!:D

After all, it is a .45, and its the longest one common (leaving out the modern .454, 460, etc.)

I think in those old days, when someone went into the drygoods store and asked for ammo for his Colt, telling the clerk he wanted "long" Colt rounds just became common practice.

one thing about it, even though some people will argue there isn't one, when you say Long Colt, everyone knows what you are talking about.;)
 
You're probably right 44amp on how it got its name of "long" Colt. I have a friend that always corrects me when I say 45 Colt, kinda funny. but apparently Ruger couldn't decide what to put on their guns because mine says .45 caliber :D.
 
apparently Ruger couldn't decide what to put on their guns because mine says .45 caliber
Click to expand...

That's because with a cylinder change, you can fire .45 ACP...

I know the proper name is just .45 Colt, and its listed that way in the manuals,
Click to expand...

My Hornady 4th edition lists the cartridge as "45 Long Colt", page 637...
 
Here's a box of .45 Long Colt...>

...sort of :-)

From the January 1991 issue of Guns & Ammo magazine. I found this in the "Handgunning" page by Wiley Clapp, (page 17).

longcolt12.jpg
 
I say it just to get peoples panties in a twist, this is again another example of people worring about silly things in the grand sceme of life......So what! Who cares what you call it?, When you die is everyone around you going to say ( He was such a good man, he always went around correcting people when the called it long Colt, boy he made the world a better place.) No I dont think that going to happen. People just need to mind there own business and stop getting into other peoples business. Education is one thing but beating a dead horse is another:rolleyes:
 
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