.45 "Long Colt" and .45 "Short Colt"

[Rastus]

<snip> I have some .45 Colt +P ammo that's only supposed to be fired in T/C Contenders, Ruger Blackhawks and Super Blackhacks.<snip>

And maybe a Marlin 1894...
 

[Big Frank]

And maybe a Marlin 1894...
 

👍  And Winchester, Henry, Rossi and...? I think it said those are the only handguns to use it in. I'm not going to look it up because I know that .45 Colt ammo, even when loaded above standard pressure is nothing compared to the high power rifle cartridges all the modern carbines can handle.

I still think that a .45 Long-er Colt is a .454 Casull, and if it's Extra EXTRA Long, at over 0.3" longer than the SuperMag family of cartridges, it's a .460 S&W Magnum. That name sounds better than .45 Extra Extra Extra Extra Extra Long Colt. But maybe they should have called it a super magnum or something like that without infringing on any trademarks that may exist. But there's still never been an actual SAAMI or C.I.P. approved cartridge, or a U.S. military cartridge officially called .45 Long Colt, AFAIK.

And I remembered something else the .40 S&W is shorter and weaker than, the .400 Cor-Bon. I just got a variable rate 20 pound recoil spring for my full-size Para-Ordnance .45 this month. I'm going to see how well it works with .45 ACP+P ammo and standard .45 ammo, but if I wanted to switch to .400 Cor-Bon the only change I would need to make is to change the barrel. The slide including the extractor, the ejector, mags, and everything else would be good to to as is, but I would change the shok-buff to avoid slide to frame battering. I can't remember if the one in it's even been used or not. By the way, my Para-Ordnance kit came with a plastic recoil spring guide and a conventional type 18.5 pound recoil spring. Both worked great but I eventually switched out the recoil spring guide for a 2-piece full-length Dwyer Group Gripper. After I decided the full-length guide rod was more trouble than it was worth, I threw away the front part. Then I ground the threads off the rear part, rounded it off to the shape of a regular guide rod, and by the time I was done filing and sanding it, it doesn't look like a good 2/3 of it is in a landfill somewhere. Wilson Combat still sells them.

I compared the specs on the .40 S&W and .400 Cor-Bon with the same exact bullet weight and type from the same manufacturer, Cor-Bon. As far as I can tell these are identical bullets and they're also loaded in 10mm Auto. The .400 Cor-Bon drives the 135 grain Self-Defense JHP 125 fps faster, and we all know that weight being equal, more velocity = a lot more power. In this case 104 ft-lbs more than the .40 S&W! After I started typing this it occurred to me to see it they also loaded the same bullet in 10mm, and if so, how does the .400 Cor-Bon compare to The Mighty 10mm? Well, here's the answer fresh from Cor-Bon's website. The .400 Cor-Bon fires this bullet 50fps faster than the 10mm, giving it 42 ft-lbs more muzzle energy. It also has 105 more ft-lbs of ME than Cor-Bon's .357 Mag 140gr Self-Defense JHP, which is 1 pound less powerful from a 4" test barrel than the specs shown for the .40 S&W.

If I did get a .400 Cor-Bon barrel and topped off with 15+1 rounds of this ammo... I load 16 rounds and what do I get? 5 tons of energy and ain't done yet. 16 x 630 = 10,080 ft-lbs. Let me repeat that so you know it wasn't a typo. 10,080 ft-lbs of ME on tap and another 9,450 each in 2 extra mags. 15+1+15+15= 28,980 ft-lbs total. 14.45 tons in a "14.45" pistol. My .45 Auto +P 165gr Self-Defense JHP Cor-Bon ammo is only 573 ft-lbs, so the .400 Cor-Bon would be an increase of 57 ft-lbs. The .45 load is already 47 ft-lbs more than the .40 Short & Weak in this comparison, but still 15 ft-lbs less than the 10mm, so energy-wise it's not quite the 10mm's equal with defensive ammo. The .45 has almost 2 1/2% less power than the 10mm, but with a bullet 13% larger in diameter and 22% heavier. The way I see it, that's a good thing. The 13% increase in diameter gives the .45 bullet a 28% greater cross-section than a 10mm/.40 caliber. Not likely enough to make a difference between nicking or missing a vital organ or blood vessel. But when your bullets expand to 12 gauge or larger, who knows?

Some of the various .45 ammo I have expands to about 3/4" in ballistic gelatin, and I don't know what size 10mm ends up as, but as good as 9mm ammo has gotten lately, bigger calibers still have their uses. A .35" bullet isn't going to expand to .75",  over 2 1/8x larger, but a .45 bullet can, at less than 1 5/8x expansion. By the way, the area of a .45" circle is 65-66% larger than a .35" circle, so if the bullets don't expand the .45 caliber hole is almost 2/3 bigger than the 9mm hole, not including all the variables that velocity, tissue density, etc. introduce. I just know the bigger bullet isn't getting any smaller. Eventually the 9mm vs. .45 debate may end but not today and not in this thread.

[Big Frank]

I downloaded the 198 page PDF of American National Standard SAAMI Z299.3 2015, Voluntary Industry Performance Standards for Pressure and Velocity of Centerfire Pistol and Revolver Ammunition for the Use of Commercial Manufacturers. Here's a copy of the page on the .45 Colt. I also found a page online for the .45 Colt from the C.I.P., Commission Internationale Permanente pour l'épreuve des armes à feu portatives ("Permanent International Commission for the Proof of Small Arms". Both have the cartrifge and chamber dimensions and both call it .45 Colt, not .45 Long Colt unless I overlooked it. Today's headache is worse than some of the nearly 15,000 previous consecutive days I've had a headache, and my vision, like my mind, is somewhat unfocused at this point. The SAAMI manual has CARTRIDGES AND CHAMBERS FULL AND ABBREVIATED NAMES for Active Cartridges and Chambers, 32 North American Arms = 32 NAA for example. And for .45 Colt it says, "45 Colt................................................................... 45 Colt". Nothing more, nothing less.

Here are all the Dwyer Group Grippers that Wilson Combat has. I could have saved enough money for another box of ammo if I'd bought the regular length Group Gripper and not the full-length kit. Not at today's prices but way back then 18 bucks would get you a box of good ammo, Black Talons for instance. My Para-Ordnance 13+1 kit gun is hard chrome plated and looks like stainless steel except for the frame. The place I sent it to said they could chrome plate the whole gun but would have to nickel plate the frame first. No problem. Everything fit together loosely enough that a layer of nickel under the chrome could actually be helpful. But I can tell from the color that the frame was NOT chrome plated. It's not even close to the color of the rest of the gun now, maybe from 33 years of Hoppe's No. 9 and possibly other chemicals you shouldn't let soak into nickel-plated guns. Or maybe I just need to give it a really good blast with the can of non-chlorinated Brakleen I bought for another gun project (Magwell Skins by GunSkins, whenever I get all my parts and pieces together). Or I could let it soak for several days in my Cylinder & Slide Dunk-Kit then blast it with Brakleen to see what color the bare metal is. It did look kinda sorta like this 14.45 but no black parts other than the magazine base pad and a pair of slim fit black Micarta grips.

P.S. For anyone who doesn't know what the Group Gripper does, The "hook" on the barrel link hooks onto a flat spring inside the guide rod and forces the barrel up into the slide. It gives you more consistent lockup between the barrel lugs and their recesses in the slide, giving you better accuracy. It's a whole lot easier than buying a gunsmith kit with a bunch of barrel links of slightly different length (center to center of the holes) to keep trying until you find the right one to give you a nice, tight lockup, and then doing it again as the gun wears.

P.P.S. The slim grips helped on the earlier Paras that had nearly square edges where the frontstrap met the sides, and had relatively large grips. The later guns with the smooth, rounded off frames and smaller grips are good as is in my opinion. Unless you have small hands. If the original frame was steel instead of aluminum, I'd have been tempted to do some very light grinding then file and sand those 2 edges off the frontstrap. Make it more like the later guns before those even existed, and put grips for the later guns on it when they eventually came out. But it's aluminum and there's not much I can do with it. I sent it out somewhere, Cylinder & Slide I think, to get the frame milled for a ramped barrel. I think I have a longer trigger in it now and not much is stock of the few parts that came in the kit or the original parts I bought for it.