THE .45 LONG COLT

NOT GONE AND NOT FORGOTTEN

by Jim Taylor

There are a number of handgun cartridges that are on the "obsolete" list these days. They were more or less popular at one time, but have now faded into obscurity. Among them we could name various rimfire cartridges in .32, .38 and .41 caliber's. In the centerfires the .38 Short Colt, the .38 Long Colt, the .38 S&W, the .41 Short Colt, the .41 Long Colt, and the old .38 Automatic come to mind. There are others of course like the .44 Russian and the .44 American. These all served well in their day, but are now considered to be out of date. The .38-40 and the .44-40 were on the "Obsolete or Semi-obsolete" list for years, yet now are making a comeback due primarily to the growing popularity of Cowboy Action Shooting, as are some of the ones previously mentioned.  With the growth of CAS we may yet see some of the old ones make a real comeback. Black HillsAmmunition Company has re-introduced some of these old calibers for the cowboy shooters.

Arguments have gone on over the years as to whether it is proper to call the cartridge a LONG Colt. As it is pointed out, it was never so named by the manufacturers. And, say some, there never was a .45 SHORT Colt. However, popular usage over the years has termed the Colt cartridge to be the .45 Long Colt with good reason. When the .45 Schofield revolver was brought out as a military sidearm in 1875 the government had to go to a shorter cartridge since the Smith & Wesson would not accept the longer cartridges in it's short cylinder. The .45 military cartridge that was introduced was only 1.12" long as compared to the 1.285" of the "Long" Colt shell. The shorter cartridge held but 28 gr. of blackpowder as compared to the 40 gr. of it's longer brother, and the short round used a bullet of only 230 gr. weight compared to the 255 gr. heft of it's larger kin. The short .45 Colt round was produced by the Army until 1892. Most all of the major ammunition producers made the short .45 rounds. Remington produced them until after WW I, though Elmer Keith states in his writings that they were never popular. The third edition of "Cartridges of the World" says the short .45's were produced by various manufacturers up into the mid-1940's.

I have a partial box of short .45's that was given to me years ago. These are made by Winchester and are marked ".45 Colt" on the headstamp. The box says they are for "Colt Single Action and Double Action Revolvers." The lid of the box [which long ago deteriorated] states they are ".45 Colt Government" rounds. Since these are marked ".45 Colt" and since they ARE short, they are .45 Short Colts! Some years ago I pulled one apart and measured it. The cartridge case is 1.12" in length. [The "long" Colt case is a nominal 1.285"] The charge was approximately 28 gr. of black powder. The bullet was .454" diameter and weighed a bit over 230 gr. with the lubrication on it. The lube looked sort of chalky white. I fired one through my Ruger .45 single action and it clocked 752 fps. Later on I used one of these cartridges to kill a nice coyote, then I retired the rest of them.

I can easily imagine some handgunner walking into a hardware store in years past and telling the clerk, "Please give me some .45 Colt shells. Not the short ones, I want the LONG COLT shells!" Thus through popular usage the term most likely came into being.  One may argue that since we have no short .45 Colt's today that the term is not needed. Hmmm....we will see.....

Produced from 1875 until 1877, less than 10,000 Schofields came off the assembly line. While Wells, Fargo, & Co. used the Schofield, so did men as notable as Jesse James. But it was not in production long enough to work out all the bugs in the design, going through only one Model change in the second year of production. Depressed over his inventions, Major Schofield killed himself with one of his own pistols while stationed at Ft. Apache, Arizona in 1882. His death may have been one of the reasons the revolver was not developed any further. While it is fancied today by some old west fans, it really was not a very good revolver.  The later S&W designs were much better.

One windy day I repaired to the Range to fire some of the Black Hills .45 Schofield rounds. In between bursts of wind I managed to chronograph 5 rounds in a row before my sky screens blew down. The average of the 5 was a respectable 774 fps out of my 7 1/2" Ruger Blackhawk. That is on par with what the original loads produced when new. Recoil was mild, as was to be expected. The 25 mph gusts of wind did not help my shaky shooting at all, but I did fire 3 5-shot groups at 25 yards with the Black Hills ammo. The average of all the shots was 1.9" overall. My best group of the day was 1 3/4" for 5 shots. I'm sure that on a still day I could do some better. However, for the uses that the Schofield .45 ammunition is intended I believe they will do just fine. Black Hills Ammunition has another winner here. And I am happy that the .45 Short Colt back in production - though I don't know exactly why. I guess I am just nostalgic.

One thing of note for reloaders. The rim on the short .45's is larger in diameter than the long .45.  If you plan on reloading them you will need a new shellholder. 

( Black Hills Ammunition has a number of cowboy loads available. You can visit Black Hills Ammunition's website by clicking here.)

For someone like me who thinks the .45 Long Colt is THE HANDGUN and CARTRIDGE, the future looks bright. I think this old timer will be around for some time to come!