The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Handguns => Topic started by: Big Frank on September 11, 2022, 02:21:32 PM
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.45 Short Colt ammo has finally arrived, well... sort of. The Cowboy .45 Special, or .45 Cowboy Special as it's also known, is a .45 Colt case shortened to .45 ACP length. Now .45 Colts can shoot a long cartridge, or a shorter, less powerful cartridge, just like the calibers that actually come in Short and Long varieties. Like .32 S&W (AKA .32 S&W Short) and .32 S&W Long. Or .38 Short Colt and .38 Long Colt. So it's a .45 Short Colt in every way except the name. If they change the name to .45 Short Colt, and manufacturers start making guns chambered specifically for it, then there will finally be a reason to refer to .45 Colt as .45 Long Colt, just as soon as SAAMI adds the .45 Long Colt name to the official list of calibers. Starline is making the brass for Cowboy 45 SPL. and other companies are selling loaded ammo.
P.S. I remember hearing about people in cowboy shooting games years ago cutting down .45 Colt cases to to accomplish the same thing for the same reason. Starline just legitimized another wildcat. It's like a .45 Auto Rim, except the rim isn't extra thick to make up the space of missing moon clips.
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The person that developed the Cowboy 45 special was Adirondack Jack, I used to shoot with him before he moved south. he saw a need in CAS and filled it. He sold the rights to an ammo company who would only sell the loaded ammo at a very high price. After they went out of business Starline picked up the rights and started to produce it. For load data you can use ,45 a.c.p. or
autorim loads under 1000FPS.
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SAAMI isn’t going to list it unless a major manufacturer sponsors it, so it might languish forever as a wildcat like 458 SOCOM.
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Thanks for the info Majer. I had no idea who developed it, or who made the ammo originally. I didn't know anyone did, until last week. I thought is was strictly all done by hand trimming .45 Colt cases, and rolling your own. A couple places said use .45 ACP load data and another said don't, so I assume you work your way up from a starting load. I never reloaded but I always read the reloading column in American Rifleman and found it very interesting.
And I think you're right on target, Alf. I don't see any demand for it outside of CAS, and I don't know how many people would use it there. I read that some people just use .38 Special in .357 magnum chambered guns, maybe to avoid having to download .45 Colt. And some people use .44-40, but I don't know if it has problems with inconsistency when downloaded like .45 Colt. It doesn't seem like it would be nearly as bad.