The .45 Colt sucks! Heresy? Listen-up before you blow a gasket!

American Handgunner, March-April, 2005 by Mike Venturino

When our exalted editorship was telling me Smith & Wesson asked what caliber they might consider as a follow-up to the very successful return of the Model 21 .44 Special we unveiled on the cover of Handgunner (Nov/Dec 2004), he said his vote was for the exact same gun but in .45 Colt. I said, "Bah, humbug!" Not exactly the best way to get a raise, but its my version of the truth. (Editor's note: What Duke actually said, with a big sigh, was, "If you had any sense, you'd know what I'm talking about. How'd you ever get to be the editor, anyway?" Just so you know.)

Unless your purpose is to load with black powder or to fulfill a sense of nostalgia, no one with any sense would pick the .45 Colt over the .45 Auto-Rim/.45 ACP for a revolver cartridge. There are the guys who buy the big Rugers and stoke them up with super-stout loads. Hell, the reloading manuals even have special sections on loading the .45 Colt to high pressures especially for Rugers. That's turning the .45 Colt into sort of a .45 Magnum, and not what I mean at all.

What I'm talking about is using the .45 Colt at the ballistics it is factory loaded, or at handloaded equivalents. In that arena, the .45 Auto-Rim/.45 ACP can do anything the .45 Colt can, and do it more efficiently and with better accuracy.

No, Honest

In its day the .45 Colt was a humdinger, pure and simple. It was designed for black powder, and those old factory loads with 35 to 40 grains were powerful by any standard. They had to be. In developing the .45 Colt cartridge, the U.S. Army intended it for the cavalry. Cavalry combat in those days meant horses, and they are both easier to hit and harder to knock down than people. So the Army's cartridge developers wanted a handgun cartridge with power beyond what was needed for people.

They got it too. The .45 Colt, with black powder loads, was rated at about 900 fps with 250 grain bullets from the 7.5" barrel of a Colt SAA. In the black powder era no other handgun cartridge was close, except the .44 WCF (.44-40). Others, such as .45 S&W (Schofield) .44 Russian, .44 Colt, .44 American and so forth all did good to break 750 fps, and with lighter bullets at that. In my personal experience a case-full of black powder in the .45 Colt often exceeds 900 fps and sometimes breaks 1,000 fps, depending on the exact type and amount of powder used. So the .45 Colt's case was made 1.285" long to hold all that black powder. Incidentally that length is the same as for .357, .41 and .44 Magnums.

Blistering Loads?

Now fast forward to the smokeless powder era. To equal black powder ballistics and pressures in the .45 Colt requires tiny little charges of most smokeless propellants. Lyman's newest RELOADING HANDBOOK #48 lists MAX loads with 250 grain bullets as being 9 grains of Unique, 7.4 grains of W231, or 6.2 grains of Titegroup. I swear, when one of those charges is dropped into a .45 Colt case I hear an echo! And what sort of velocities do they get with those MAX charges? The most is with the W231 load and it's a "blistering" 894 fps from a 7.5" barrel.

And those tiny little charges in great big cases can lead to all sorts of problems. The least of which is gas blow-by. That is caused when the cartridge case walls don't obdurate to seal the chamber and gas leaks back along the case. It's harmless, but is the reason behind your .45 Colt cases being burnt black along one side after firing.

Let's even discount the very controversial accusation about light charges in big cases blowing up guns, since we can't prove that it happens. The fact remains many cowboy action shooters have blown up their .45 Colt handguns. I've personally been at three matches where it has happened, and been sent photos of many more. And yes, I did one myself here at home.

Generally speaking the topstrap and top three chambers go into orbit. Amazingly no one has been hurt when this happened at matches I was attending. Discounting a light charge phenomenon, leaves double-charging as a culprit, and it's a fact you really have to be looking to spot a double charge in a .45 Colt case.

Thirdly, those small powder charges tumbling about in the huge .45 Colt case can lead to ballistic inefficiency. Powder down in the front of the case on firing leads to one velocity: powder back in the rear of the case leads to another velocity. If the bullets are lightly crimped--or not crimped at all--the situation can be worse, to the point of hangfires and misfires. I've seen it happen. As a matter of fact, Hodgdon developed their relatively new Titegroup powder to not be position sensitive in the case: specifically to help with this problem. It works, too.

Me Worry?

But why have a problem? The U.S. Army figured this out too. When smokeless propellants were safely ensconced in society, what did they do with the .45 Colt? They threw it in the "obsolete" heap.

Then they designed a new .45 caliber cartridge that was only .898" long and called it the .45 ACP. They had to drop bullet weight about 20 grains but did they have to reduce velocity from .45 Colt loads? No way; they had already done that.