When I got into Cowboy shooting a long time ago there were a lot of .45 Colt levers available but some research indicated that the caliber and rifle combination never existed in the Old West.

Any thoughts on why???

Was there something about the design of the cartridge like size that mad it a no go???? Or was it due to some strength of the steel???

I'm not aware of any 1873, 1892, or 1894's that were in this caliber, right???

The rim on the ORIGINAL 45 colt rounds were not wide enough for positive extraction. Don't quote me on this, but I believe it was not until 1909 that the rims were made large enough to be useful in a lever gun. This change was made so that the rounds could be easily ejected from the 1909 Colt New Service Military revolver. My mind seems fuzzy on this. Someone please correct me if my memory is lacking. The 45 S&W (Schoffield) may have been a viable lever gun round, but , to my knowledge, was never chambered in a lever gun.

Colt owned the patent on the 45 Colt and would not allow Winchester or others to use it.........Hence the 44-40

quote:

Originally posted by RoyB:
Colt owned the patent on the 45 Colt and would not allow Winchester or others to use it.........Hence the 44-40

I have not read this, but even if true the original colt rounds could not be used in a lever gun unless the rim was widened. I believe the advent of the 44-40 had nothing to do with not being able to chamber the 45 Colt. If it did, I would like to know where you got your info, as this kind of history really interests me. Thanks,
Matt

quote:

Originally posted by ColoradoMatt:
The rim on the ORIGINAL 45 colt rounds were not wide enough for positive extraction. Don't quote me on this, but I believe it was not until 1909 that the rims were made large enough to be useful in a lever gun. This change was made so that the rounds could be easily ejected from the 1909 Colt New Service Military revolver.

Really? The Colt New Service has an ejector rod to push spent cases out of the cylinder. What does any size rim have to do with ejection on this revolver?

I got my info from an artical by Mike Venturino. I'll try to find it and try to be more specific.
Matt

Doesn't the new service use a "star" type ejector that pushes all six rounds out at the same time? I think the skimpy rims were an issue with the star ejectors.

If you had been around in 1876 would rather have had the 44-40 1873 or a 45 Colt 1873???

Wouldn't have added to the power of that rifle and simplified the carry of two types of ammo???

Another issues is that the .45 Colt is straight cased while the .44-40, .38-40 and .32-20 are bottlenecked. The BN cases seem to seal the chamber better against blowback of black powder gas and fouling. New cowboy shooters who try to run straight black in their .45 Colt leverguns find them to shoot "dirtier" in the chamber and action than the bottlenecked rounds.

As far as it being a proprietary cartridge, Colt didn't even chamber it in their Lightning rifles where as they did all their other cartridges.

It could be a combination of the things mentioned or none of them, nobody will really know now.

Venturino's article stated the rims were too small, not an issue with the SAA ejector rod. The big change came about for the 1909, and was modified again (to its' present form) when the push came to use it and the Triple Lock S&W in WWI.

Rich

quote:

Originally posted by ColoradoMatt:
I got my info from an artical (sic) by Mike Venturino. I'll try to find it and try to be more specific.
Matt

Certainly if anyone would know, Venturino would.

Well you learn something new every day, and this was news to me too!

A brief searching pulled up a good explanation on leverguns.com:

It was always interesting, but puzzling to me while reloading and working with guns during my 35 year period before 1985. (Yes my reloading experience is now well over 50 years and I have reloaded ammo on three different Continents, in many, many countries). Why was a leveraction never chambered in the 45 Colt round from a major manufacturer before 1985? It was from the 1850s to 1985, almost 130 years before Winchester finally put out a ‘94 action levergun chambered for the round. Lots of folks have written about reasons for this...and some of them have been correct...some not even close. But the research I did back in 1984/85 for my first book on leverguns shows that the 45 Colt handgun round was a proprietary round developed and patented by Colt for the Army. And Colt never gave permission to other companies to chamber any guns for it. That included S&W, Winchester, and later Marlin....so the 44-40 became the revolver/rifle classic. Colt did sell 45 caliber handguns to the public early on when U.S. Army orders slowed...but wouldn’t let other manufacturers chamber for it. That’s not being critical of Colt, it’s a fact of history....so by the time the patents and design copyrights fell into public domain two decades plus later....the 44-40 and 38-40 class of rounds dominated. And then rather large cased calibers followed to make the leveraction rifles very potent long arms. So these big rounds created no profitable reason to go to the 45 Colt handgun rounds in rifles, after the 45 Colt patents were expired. Rounds like Winchester’s 45-65...and Marlin’s 1881 leveraction in 45-70 eclipsed the need for the 45 Colt in rifles.

Here is the link to the entire article:

http://www.leverguns.com/artic...o/45coltlevergun.htm

Anyway, thanks to Teancum for pointing this out, and I hope you other guys out there who know a bit more will add your 2 cents as well.