.45 Colt/Schofield/Auto-Rim question

[awp101]

As I understand it, most .45 Colt revolvers will also chamber the .45 Schofield like the .357/.38 Special combo.

How about the .45 Auto-Rim? I'm away from the reference material ATM, but doesn't it fit between the two as far as length? Would the rim thickness (if there is one) make a difference?

[2ndovc]

Naw,

The auto rim's rim is too thick to chamber in a SAA or Schofield type revolver.

It is however one of my favorite plinking rounds! Love my Second Model Hand Ejector!

jb

[awp101]

OK, I suppose the closest I could get would be the .45 CS then.

Yes, the wheels, they are a turnin...

[adirondakjack]

.45 Colt is 1.285 or so
.45 Scholfield is 1.110 or so
.45 autorim is out, as the rim is too thick for .45 Colt arms, so it won't chamber, but yes, the C45S is also the same length as ACP, .898 or so, giving you a shorter cartridge, a bit over twice the length difference ya get going from .45 Colt to Schofield. Lined up side by side the colt, schofield and C45S make almost perfect stair steps.

See the three cases on the right here:

[2ndovc]

OK, I suppose the closest I could get would be the .45 CS then.

Yes, the wheels, they are a turnin...

That's gonna be trouble!


jb

[awp101]

OK, I suppose the closest I could get would be the .45 CS then.

Yes, the wheels, they are a turnin...

That's gonna be trouble!


jb

Actually, I have an idea and I want to see if it's worth persuing. Nothing major or Earth shattering, just a commonality idea.

[3leggedturtle]

.45 Colt is 1.285 or so
.45 Scholfield is 1.110 or so
.45 autorim is out, as the rim is too thick for .45 Colt arms, so it won't chamber, but yes, the C45S is also the same length as ACP, .898 or so, giving you a shorter cartridge, a bit over twice the length difference ya get going from .45 Colt to Schofield. Lined up side by side the colt, schofield and C45S make almost perfect stair steps.

See the three cases on the right here:

So how does the .45 long Colt compare to these Nice looking cartridges, how do you keep or display them?

[adirondakjack]

Just standing on a shelf. The one on the left is the grand-daddy of em all, the .450 Adams in its frist iteration, dating from 1866-72 or so. Next to it is a .45 (not .455) Webley, which has a .45 Colt rim, a .452 bullet, and was made to use in short cylindered brit revolvers as well as in the SAA, for use by the British foreign services in India in the 1880s. (Some ideas are so good they end up coming back again and again, as we note with the cartridge in the middle, circa 2005..... )

[adirondakjack]

Lemme sum this up for folks.

Cowboy .45 Special, like autorim, is designed as a counterpart to .45 ACP, sharing the same internal capcity and length, but unlike ACP or Autorim, Cowboy .45 Special has a .45 COLT case head.

C45S can be using in SA or DA revolvers meant for ACP, so long as the revolver is not a "straight bored" conversion, such as a 1917 converted from .45 Webely to ACP that uses moon clips AND has no step inside the chambers to facilitate headspacing on the mouth. If your gun is cut for moon clips abd has a stepped chamber allowing headspacing on the mouth, C45S will work. If your gun is a SA with EITHER a .45 ACP or a .45 Colt cylinder, C45S will work. If your gun is a DA .45 Colt, C45S will work. If your gun is made for .45 Schofield, C45S will work. If you have a C&B revolver with a Colt or Schofield conversion cylinder, C45S will work.

In LEVERGUNS, C45S works in specially modified Marlins or toggle links that have been converted by changing out the carrier to a Cowboy Carrier designed by me to allow the short rounds to cycle. It has NOT been successfully used in 92s. IN MOST CASES a Marlin is best modified to accept ONE cartridge, but with very careful tuning, some will readily cycle both the short and long cases. This is serious gunsmithing and touchy, but can be done. A toggle link would need the original carrier reinstalled to shoot .45 Colt again.

So, if a feller has a 1955 Flattop smith in .45 ACP, a Colt SAA Army in LONG Colt, a 45 ACP or Long Colt derringer, and a Uberti or S&W top break in .45 Schofield, he could load one batch of C45S ammo and use it in any or all of them.

To the OP, I been tryin to tell you guys this stuff for years. Folks wanna get sideways with obscure or arcane objections about authenticity, etc, but this is what works. We've sold half a million of em.

PS, if ya think it's just for poof loads for CAS, think again. The very same case with no rim is the "big and bad" round we use in our 1911s, and any gun made for (smokeless) LONG COLT or ACP CAN be shot with C45S loaded to ACP "Hardball" specs with no issues.

[Sixgun]

.

See the three cases on the right here:

AJ,
Nice inside primed 45 you got there. I remember back in the seventies you could pick them up (along with the i.p. 45-70 for a buck or two. I don't even see at shows anymore. I have a few in my collection and I'm gonna try to shoot a few before I get too old to see the sights.

Now, educate the boys why there were no 45 Colt leverguns back in the day. The 100+ year old 45 L. Colt you have, all the way to the right has that tiny little rim.----------Sixgun

[adirondakjack]

There were no .45 Colt leverguns because COLT wasn't in the rifle business, at least not much, and as such, didn't NEED to make em work in levers. Winchester et al had their own fodder, so no need to muck about with a PISTOL cartridge..... FWIW early .44-40 and even earlier Henry rimfire weren't much better, being made from soft copper cases with folded rims. Anyone who has shot .22 BB caps understands how soft copper cases and small folded rims ain't great for extraction....

It wasn't until the advent of the .357 Magnum in 1935, and the TRUE magnum brass of the 1950s for .44 mag, that .45 Colt brass was updated to what we see today, and leverguns followed.....

I say this as at one time I had hundreds of .45 cases ranging from inside primed cases from the 1870s and 80s to pre-1900 WRA Co and others, like Peters and Western, all the way to present day brass. it was interesting to see the progression of brass manufacturing.

[Griff]

Actually, there wasn't a rifle chambered in .45 Colt because, "...in the beginning..." the old cartridge didn't have an extactor groove in the brass.

[adirondakjack]

Actually, there wasn't a rifle chambered in .45 Colt because, "...in the beginning..." the old cartridge didn't have an extactor groove in the brass.

Griff, that's hogwash. Often repeated, but still hogwash. In the beginning, .44-40 and the Henry Flat didn't have an extractor groove either. In the beginning, .22 rimfire didn't have an extractor groove (Holy cookie cutters, Batman, they still don't)...... A groove ahead of a rim, such as the modern .45 case has, is mighty handy in the brass FORMING process used with solid head cases (they actually use a hydraulic press to set rim thickness, and the press gets a better purchase on the case) but really is NOT an extractor groove. Look at a rimless case such as ACP or any rimless rifle round. THAT is an extractor groove. FWIW I HAVE shot original 1920s vintage ballooon head cases with NO groove ahead of the rim in a Marlin. They feed, extract and eject perfectly well.

Note, these are BRASS cases, not copper. The earliest cartridges were both inside primed AND soft copper. They frequently stuck in dirty chambers. Note the relative size of the rims on "real" rifle cartridges of the day. They allowed for BIG extractors or a knife blade assist. NONE of em had "extractor grooves" back in the day.

The notably vestigal rim on a .45 Colt case is because of dimensions Colt wanted to use for their cylinders. One of the secrets of a .44 caliber PISTOL round is ya get room for a more generous rim in the same wheel diameter as the .45 caliber cylinder.

[awp101]

jack, thanks for the info on the .45S. It caught my eye a while back but didn't really have a "need" for it until recently so I hadn't really studied on it until now.

[J Miller]

a-jack,

Just a bit of added info on what your Cowboy 45S will not fit. It won't fit the Old Model Ruger .45 ACP cylinders because they are longer at the rear. There is no clearance for the rim.

I tried 'em when I picked up a couple of those cases for my cartridge collection.

Joe

[adirondakjack]

a-jack,

Just a bit of added info on what your Cowboy 45S will not fit. It won't fit the Old Model Ruger .45 ACP cylinders because they are longer at the rear. There is no clearance for the rim.

I tried 'em when I picked up a couple of those cases for my cartridge collection.

Joe

Joe, I always tell people who have the convertible guns "If the cylinders are not rebated at the back, and both look the same at the back end, when installed (most do) they will be fine. On the old guns that had rebated rim cylinders, and no rebate cut for colt rims on the ACP cylinder, nope.

[Catshooter]

As to why no 45 Colt in a lever in the old days, I don't think anyone really knows why. If I was going to guess I'd agree with AJ. But I have never seen any kind of documentation one way or the other. Has anyone seen such a thing?

AJ,

I have read that your Cowboy Special brass will fit in Taurus revolvers chambered for .45 ACP. Taurus doesn't cut the rear of the cylinder for clips and they seem to headspace just fine. I have no experience with this, just what I read.


Cat

[adirondakjack]

As to why no 45 Colt in a lever in the old days, I don't think anyone really knows why. If I was going to guess I'd agree with AJ. But I have never seen any kind of documentation one way or the other. Has anyone seen such a thing?

AJ,

I have read that your Cowboy Special brass will fit in Taurus revolvers chambered for .45 ACP. Taurus doesn't cut the rear of the cylinder for clips and they seem to headspace just fine. I have no experience with this, just what I read.


Cat

Cat, if not cut for clips, yer talking a single action revolver. To my knowledge they use the same cylinder blank as they would for .45 Colt, and simply chamber em for acp, with the internal step for headspacing, so the available room behind the cylinder will accomodate the case rims.. That configuration works with C45S, even if roll crimped. Also, the Taurus DA revolvers are oddball. They use a special, very thin clip for the ACP, and YES, C45S allows the Taurus DA shooter to dispense with the clips. This I learned from the Taurus forum members who buy brass from me.

[BAGTIC]

As to why no 45 Colt in a lever in the old days, I don't think anyone really knows why. If I was going to guess I'd agree with AJ. But I have never seen any kind of documentation one way or the other. Has anyone seen such a thing?

AJ,

I have read that your Cowboy Special brass will fit in Taurus revolvers chambered for .45 ACP. Taurus doesn't cut the rear of the cylinder for clips and they seem to headspace just fine. I have no experience with this, just what I read.


Cat

I have a Taurus .45 ACP revolver and the Cowboy .45 Special brass fits okay if it is sized first. On my particular gun the base of the case just ahead of the rim is just a little too tight. Once it has been run through a .45 ACP sizer it works just fine.

[Tumbleweeds II]

Another reason the .45 Colt wasn't chambered in lever actions was the straight, parallel case walls. With a tapered (.45-70 et. al.) or necked (.44 WCF et. al.) case, the case is free of the chamber walls as soon as it starts to extract. Pistol rounds like the .45 Colt drag on the black powder fouling all the way out. Not a problem in a SAA, big problem in a lever. Also, the tapered or necked case seals better at low pressures and keeps more of the crud in front of the chamber.