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

It probably was but it probably wasn't available down at the corner hardware store. My (current) impression was the the boxes were more often than not marked with the gun they were supposed to be fired in rather than some technically correct designation. When did it become common, for instance, to add a metric length to a cartridge designation? That is, in this country. It was apparently the standard way of describing European made rifle ammunition at least 80 years ago, at least for German made ammunition (but not pistol ammunition). English made ammunition was not so described and the few instances where the case length was included, it was in inches.

Remember again that the "official" name of a cartridge, if there is such a thing (the subject of this thread), may not even be on the cartridge. I've already mentioned ".38 LONG" on some cartridges I have. I am led to believe the full name is ".38 Long Colt."

A quick look through one of my reference books suggests strongly that ammunition was packaged in boxes marked with the specific firearm it was intended for, even to include the model number, so confusion should have been minimal. Even so, there were a fair number of cartridges that allowed one-way interchangeability, just in case the correct one wasn't on hand.

Actually, we can't really be sure what most people really did call things 130 years ago very often. Even 50 years ago some terminology in firearms that has mostly gone out of common use.
 
JohnKSa - in your photo, are those rounds reloads, or originals? If original (or in any event), what do you use to preserve the lead in old ammo from deteriorating over time. I'd think beeswax but am always interested in other ideas.
 
It's not my photo, I didn't mean to claim credit for it.

It's a link to an article by Jim Taylor. I don't know how the lead was preserved, but I'll bet you're on the right track--coating it with some sort of wax would probably do the trick.
 
"The problem with that is that the .45 Schofield was commonly called one of several things, but it was never called the .45 Colt or .45 Short Colt."

Some commercial makers of the .45 Government (.45 Schofield) used the .46 Colt head bunter, so they are marked ".45 Colt". The Army didn't get confused since after 1874 they never issued .45 Colt at all, only .45 Government.

Jim
 
Some commercial makers of the .45 Government (.45 Schofield) used the .46 Colt head bunter, so they are marked ".45 Colt".
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I believe that you are talking about the short Colt cartridges currently under discussion, not the .45 Schofield/S&W rounds. The short Colt cartridges were similar in case length to the Schofield rounds but with noticeably different rim dimensions and were marked .45 Colt.

The Schofield rounds were marked .45 S&W or .45 Govt, but not .45 Colt.

If you look at the pictures in the opening post of the linked thread you can see what I'm talking about.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=497213

The two cartridges on the left are the .45 Schofield/.45 S&W/.45 Govt cartridges and even in the pictures is easy to see that the rim dimensions are significantly different from the 3 cartridges on the right which are the .45 Colt in short and long varieties.
 
My own 2 solutions to this dilemma:

Fascinating thread, Gentlemen!

Ross Seyfried wrote an article on .44 Magnum vs. .45 Colt ( don't remember if he called it 'Long' or not... ).
He ultimately chose, if I remember correctly, a RUGER Bisley 7 1/2" bbl. in .45 because the cartridge can be loaded to superior levels over the .44 Rem.Mag.
I respect him and his choice.

Solution #1:
After reading this thread, I decided I'll call his choice the COLT .45 and leave it at that. :)

Solution #2:
When I chose between the two, I picked the .44 Remington Magnum.
It's plenty enough for me and I'm not handloading.
Even though it's technically a squeak under being a '.43' ( .429, go figure! ), I'm happy with my choice.
And I don't have any trouble at the counter when I say '.44 Mag.' ...:D
 
As an example, nobody, these days, gets confused and calls the ..... .38 S&W the .38 Special Short.
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I should hope not. As I learned on this forum years back (when Irwin was only at the 20,000 message count :cool:) by a gentle correction from one of the long-time shooters, the .38 Special is descended from the .38 Long Colt, not from the .38 S&W. You can fire the .38 LC in the .38 Special wheelgun all you want, but the .38 S&W will not fit.

Bart Noir
 
Sport45, in answer to your question, when the M1909 revolver was introduced, the new smokeless round for it was called.....wait for it.... the M1909 cartridge.

See Posts 19, 27, and 54 in this thread for more info.

Bart Noir
Who wishes he could have taken home that good-condition 1909. Sigh.
 
You can fire the .38 LC in the .38 Special wheelgun all you want, but the .38 S&W will not fit.
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I know the dimensions say it won't fit, but, from a practical standpoint it depends on the specific gun and the particular ammunition in question.

One of the guys in the gun club has shot a good deal .38S&W through his .357Mag revolver and poking around on the web reveals that it's not that hard to find others with similar experiences.

Some of the counterexamples involve vintage .38S&W ammunition. I suspect that modern S&W may be more likely to work and, further, that the reason for that is that some of the current ammo manufacturers are intentionally making their .38S&W just enough undersize that it will usually chamber in .38Spl/.357Mag revolvers.
 
As an example, nobody, these days, gets confused and calls the ..... .38 S&W the .38 Special Short.
Click to expand...

Not that I have heard, but the .38 S&W IS very commonly called the .38 Short; just as the .32 S&W is very commonly called the .32 Short or even .32 S&W Short.

Not much heard here and now, but there was a term for .38 S&W as ".38 Regular" as contrasted to .38 Special.
 
Ha! A certain US Army manual I have from the 1950s refers to the ".38 regular," referring of course to the .38 S&W and also as .38/200. There were a lot of revolvers in the manual, even to include both the long and short action S&W revolvers.

However, a .38 short is not the same as a .38 S&W. But the .38 New Police is, almost, if I remember correctly. Colt insisted on their being equivalent cartridges to the S&W line but gave them their own name and usualy had a slightly different bullet profile. They had the .38 Colt Special, for instance. I also might note there are other differences in cartridge cases that are not different cartridges, merely little manufacturing differences not mentioned in specifications.
 
As an example, nobody, these days, gets confused and calls the ..... .38 S&W the .38 Special Short.
Click to expand...
Ok, I'll rephrase.

As an example, nobody, these days, gets confused and calls the ..... .38 Special the .357Magnum Short. If the designation of the cartridge is obviously different, (as in .38 Special and .357 Magnum or .45S&W and .45 Colt) there's no need to use an adjective to differentiate between the rounds. You just call the round what it's named and there's no confusion.
 
Someone here should contact Smith & Wesson and let them know that the Model 25 they currently offer for sale is not chambered for the .45 Long Colt, which they claim it is. You would think they would just put ".45 Long" on the side of the barrel. After all, who puts ".40 Smith & Wesson" on their guns besides S&W?
 
Given that Smith & Wesson pretty thoroughly thrashed Colt in the handgun field many decades ago, I really don't think the old rivalries hold much fire any more.
 
This image is a zoom from the S&W current Model 25 page:

150256_02_lg.jpg


Page is here:

http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/...57767_757751_757751_ProductDisplayErrorView_Y
 
You would think they would just put ".45 Long" on the side of the barrel. After all, who puts ".40 Smith & Wesson" on their guns besides S&W?
Click to expand...

couldn't 45 long be almost any 45 ctg that is longer than at least one other one? With 22s its different but imagine a gun marked say "38 short" how many ctgs could that be?
 
"imagine a gun marked say "38 short" how many ctgs could that be?"

Traditionally, it would be a single cartridge -- the .38 Short Colt.
 
Not only that, that's probably the way the case is marked: ".38 SHORT," judging by how the .38 Long Colt cartridge is marked, which is ".38 LONG." At least that's the way mine are marked. I don't know about the .32 cartridges, though.
 
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