rcmodel
Member in memoriam
It was on the older guns.The frame lug is a replaceable part.
Not anymore, as it is machined right into the side of the frame after the 625-6 came out in 1997.
rc
It was on the older guns.The frame lug is a replaceable part.
Well Jim, I've been shooting since the state of the art firearm was a blunderbus. Yet I've never owned anything in 45 Colt. It's an itch that finally just had to be scratched.I think I would trade guns. But then I would not have bought the .45 Colt in the first place, I got that out of my system years ago.
Ahhh..... good, hard facts from personal experience. Just what I was fishing for.Back in the '90s I had Art Leckie (Behlert Precision) modify several 25's, 625's, Redhawks and an Anaconda. We used the same method as Pinnacle is using nowadays. All shot to the same POA/POI with either cartridge, assuming you used the same bullet weight/velocity. Freebore was not an issue, and I never had to adjust the sights.
For the S&W, you can buy a 2nd .45 Colt cylinder and modify that one, so you can retain the original.
Bingo! Two personal experience examples in a row. We're on a roll here.Pinnacle rechambered my S&W 360 to 9x23 and cut the cylinder for moonclips. I've seen no loss of accuracy shooting 9mm compared to .38spl even with the extra distance the bullet travels to the forcing cone and .355 bullets vs .357.
If it was mine, I'd have the moonclip conversion done. It will increase the versatility of your gun while not affecting it's performance with .45LC
I'm a firm believer that there is room in the world for experts.It is not hard, if you know what your are doing. Otherwise, have a competent revolversmith, or the factory, do the installation.
The main item of interest to me in his response was the wide variation in point of impact - as has been discussed by others in this thread.As far as the conversion goes, I bought my gun that way so I can't recommend any one person or "way of doing it." But I can't really think of any reason _not_ to do it if you have the interest and the money. My gun was a .45 Colt when this all started. And it can still chamber and fire single rounds of .45 Colt just like before. I have some full moonclips for .45 Colt but they don't work as well as the .45 ACP ones since the rounds are so much longer. And the rims probably don't help either.
I would say the biggest practical problem is where to set the sights. My 230 grain hardball loads shoot nowhere near where my .45 Colt handloads go. So after some xx amount of time you will probably decide you like using it as a .45 Colt or a .45 ACP "the best" and just use it that way 95% of the time.
Functionally, it works perfectly. Nearly every visitor to my house ends up being interested in the .45 ACP moon clips and they want to try it out.