the "high-velocity" .38 Long Colt.

It was the Army's first foray into the New Service revolver. The second, of course, would come in the form of the M1917 revolver.

I'm still trying to find myself a good New Service. I could have my pick of ones in .455 Eley, but I don't really want to set up to reload that cartridge.

If I had a small lathe I'd consider it, because then I could thin the rims on .45 Auto Rim brass to proper Eley dimensions.


And additional aside is that many people may not realize that the Army's problems with the .38 Long Colt in the Philippines led to one of the most popular, and most successful, revolver cartridges of all time -- the .38 Smith & Wesson Special.

S&W wanted to try to get some of the Army's business, and knew that they had a good gun in the newly developed the M&P Hand Ejector, but they also knew that the military was quickly souring on the .38 Long Colt.

So, they lengthened the case so that it would take 21.5 grains of black powder (vs the LC's 18 grains) and increased the bullet weight from 150 to 158 grains.

The bid to attract the Army's attention was pretty much a failure, but given how huge of a success the M&P and .38 Special were in the civilian market, I'm not so sure that they really noticed.
 
SPECMak618 said:Thanks. I never knew the U.S. military issued a DA revovler in .45 Colt, that is pretty neat.
Click to expand...

Prior to that the Army purchased a lot of Colt Rod Ejector Model 1878 DA revovlers, usually referred to as the M1902. These were chambered for .45 Colt, though ammunition issued was the .45 S&W M1875 cartridge.

Of interest is the so-called "Alaskan Model" with lengthened trigger and enlarged trigger guard. Thought to be made for use with a gloved hand, it was Colt's answer to the Army's request to reduce the double action trigger pull, which was terrible at best. The longer trigger provided better leverage.

Bob Wright
 
Bob, the DA trigger pull on the long-trigger model is really awful. The long trigger came about when the Army asked Colt to use a heavier mainspring to ensure primer ignition. Colt found that when they did that, the DA pull was too heavy, so they increased the leverage with a longer trigger.* As a result, a really awful revolver was made worse. They are hard to grip properly and recoil is even nastier than with the regular gun.

*Alaskan gloves and small Philippino hands had nothing to do with it.

Jim
 
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