Help with 45 Colt history

[imdarren]

I know this should probably be in the reloading section, but its a historical Colt question, and most folks over there do modern stuff.

I ordered a new USFA 45 5 1/2".
I know the original load for the 45 Colt was 40grs black powder with a 250 (ish)gr bullet. Then the military reduced the load to . . . what was it?

I'm trying to load historically correct hand loads with my 250 gr Oregon Trail Bullets, and Trail Boss powder. How much Trail Boss to reach historical velocity?

I'm not looking for the 40gr BP equivelent, but the second load the military changed to.

Thanks guys.

Darren

 

[Hawg]

Original loads used a 40 grain powder charge and 250gr. bullet. This was reduced to 35 grs. of powder, and later, by the Army, to 28 grs.

Guess the army had wimps back in those days too.

 

[Hafoc]

..and for some of the Peacemaker's history, they were also firing the shorter .45 Schofield cartridge through it. The Schofield would fit in a Colt revolver, but the longer Colt wouldn't fit in a S&W Schofield.

Historical velocity for a full-case black powder load on the .45 Colt was pretty high- a lot of people claim over 1000 fps. I'm not sure how accurate that is, because according to this website I found http://www.powderinc.com/catalog/ballistics.html the full case black powder commercial ammo for the Colt does 845 fps out of a 5 1/2 inch barrel. That's more in line with what you can safely do with smokeless powders. Not sure about Trail Boss; their official loading data seems geared toward the lighter loads.

 

[Hawg]

the full case black powder commercial ammo for the Colt does 845 fps out of a 5 1/2 inch barrel.

That's with modern solid head cases which won't hold 40 grs. of powder. The old balloon head cases would. I don't know how much a modern case will hold since I don't have .45 but I imagine it's not but 30-33 grs.

 

[Hafoc]

Hawg-- thanks for the correction. I'd known that, but it slipped my mind. I thought John Taffin had an article about that, and he did: http://www.sixguns.com/tests/tt45lc.htm

He says 40 grains in the original balloon-head cases and 38.6 grains with new cases, still a pretty hefty load. Seems to me I've seen lesser volumes reported other places, maybe 36. Since no matter what they do the modern ammo producers are going to have the .45 Colt way oversized for any smokeless load they manufacture, perhaps they're not worried that much about variation?

I also wonder whether the Black Dawge BP commercial loads use the same granulation as they did in the old days. It's probably similar, but finer grained BP is going to allow you to pack a bit more in, as well as boost the burn rate.

I should add that while I've never loaded BP cartridges (yet) I do plan to and did study up on the subject. One thing I picked up is that you fill the case. You don't just reduce the powder charge in a black powder load the way you can with smokeless; you have to reduce the volume of the cartridge case somehow too. You could do this by packing in some inert filler material, but the Army did it (at least in part) by going to the Schofield cartridge, which had less volume to begin with. There's also a wildcat .45 Cowboy Special, which is a cut-down .45 Colt case. I'm not entirely sure how that differs from the Schofield; in the rim design, perhaps. But it doesn't figure into this thread because it's a modern development, not something from the 19th Century.

 

[timothy75]

If you want an authentic 19th century BP load you really cant go wrong since I'm sure every possible charge was used by someone sometime including gallery loads with a round ball and minute amount of powder. I believe the army kept the schofield round but nenamed it the 45 gov due to the mix up with ammo and the 5000 schofields in service at the time. I've seen refrences to 30,35, and 40grs of BP in the 45 colt in reproduction 19th century catalogs. I think Mike Venturino once wrote if you wanked into a gun store in the 1880's and bought a few shells of 45colt they would most likely have 35gr FF in them. Good luck