Why was the 45 Colt never chambered in a rifle during the 19th century.

[Crosshair]

Interesting question. Why where the 32-20, 38-40, 44-40, and other 19th century rounds chambered in both handguns and rifles, yet the 45 Colt was never chambered in a rifle during the 19th century. One would think that the round being military issue would make it popular since rounds that the military uses tend to be more readily available when ammo becomes scarce. Was the market already saturated with other rifles or is there another reason that the 45 Colt never caught on as a rifle round?

 

[355sigfan]

The rim was not large enough for reliable extraction in lever action guns of the period.
Pat

 

[Dienekes]

Agree. Factor in verdigris, dust and grit, and black powder fouling and you want a substantial rim for that extractor to bite into. Add in the uncertain resizing of hand-tool reloading tools and you could easily tear through that small rim.

I believe the US Army did in fact manufacture this round with a larger diameter rim around 1909 when they adopted Colt double action revolvers in that caliber. Same thought process.

 

[Onmilo]

The small rim and the .45 Colt case also feature a folded head soft brass case with an internal Benet cup primer.

The Model 1873 Winchester rifle and its .44 caliber cartridge were the first designs that featured a one piece drawn brass case and a boxer primer.
These features made the cartridge case much stronger and allowed it to be readily reloaded.
The semi bottleneck of the Winchester case design also produce a better seal in the chamber and prevented fouling and gas from backflowing into the guts of the rifle

Boxer primed, drawn brass case .45 Colt cartridges did not become easily available until the early to mid 1889s and by then the .44/40 cartridge along with more powerful cartridges were dominating the rifle scene.
There was no economic advantage to add the .45 caliber pistol cartridge into the mix.

 

[Sistema1927]

I think that another thing that we forget is the fact that many people didn't have even one firearm, let alone the luxury of having two that would need the same ammo.

Many a homestead only had a shotgun, if that, for a weapon, and the cowpoke who could afford even one firearm, rifle or handgun, was lucky indeed. Many still carried old C&B revolvers long into the cortridge era.

As a result, interchnageability of ammunition wasn't a big deal. Throw in the proprietary issues and "turf fight" between Colt/Winchester/S&W/everybody else, and it didn't make economic sense to chamber rifles in .45 Colt.

Even though we often claim (and rightly so) about the infringements on our RKBA, we are lucky indeed to have both the choices and the economic power to own the firearms we do. For example, I have enough of the right firearms to play in SASS, but if I wanted to play "Ninja Tactical SWAT" I could do that, or WWI GI, or WWII Tommie, etc. Additionally, I could do all of that and never have to use my hunting and plinking guns. Amazing that the "Wild West" had fewer firearms per capita than we see today.

 

[cane]

You also have to consider that the slightly bottleneck case design of the WCF cases (44-40, 38-40, &32-20) allowed easy feeding, and more effectively sealed the case in the chamber when fired.

 

[20cows]

I think the main reason was that the .45 Colt was a proprietary cartridge that went with the Model '73 Single Action Army. Nobody could chamber their gun for it until the patent expired and by then, it was a moot point- smokeless cartridges had arrived.

I believe I read an article on this subject recently somewhere on the Sixgun website.

 

[Jim K]

Due to the small rim, the .45 Colt was unreliable in a rifle in 1873; nothing has changed.

Jim

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I have always heard that the semi-bottleneck tapered 38-40 and
.44-40 feed better in a BP fouled chamber than a straight-sided case
like the .45 Long Colt. Has anyone tested that?

 

[another okie]

There may have been patent / legal issues, but I agree with cane that the .44-40 seals better and shoots cleaner.

 

[Onmilo]

Ummm.
I own three .45 Colt lever actions, an Uberti steel frame 1860 Henry, an Uberti 1873 carbine, and a Miroku made Winchester 1892.
None of these rifles is unreliable and none has exhibited extraction issues with black powder or black powder substitute powder loaded cartridges.
The biggest drawback to a stright walled case and blackpowder loads is that gas pressure will cause a small amount of the fouling to flow back and blacken the case walls.
This will happen with .45-70 and .38-55 cases and any other straight wall case too.
Chambers are cut tight on straight wall case rifles so that the fouling will not build up.
It is scraped free when the cartridge case is extracted.
the drawback to this is you have to be meticulous when cleaning and make sure to clean the guts of the rifle.
The fouling has to go somewhere and this is where it ends up.
As I said, the fouling hasn't caused any function problems in my rifles but after shooting 100 or more rounds, the fouling is caked pretty heavy on the guts of the rifle.
The 1892 action is the hardest to clean and I very rarely shoot blackpowder loads in this rifle.
To be truthful, I doubt I will ever shoot blackpowder loads in this rifle again, it is just too big a pain to clean the rifle.
The sideplates on the 1860 and the 1873 make cleaning easy and I understand why they were incorporated into the design.

Modern .45 Colt cases have a larger rim than the early folded head and balloon head cases.
Cartridge cases produced after 1999 have an even larger case head dimension than the original drawn head cases.
This design change was intentionally done to increase reliability in lever action rifles.

 

[Cosmoline]

I've owned three lever actions chambered in .45 Colt over the years. All of them ended up turning into jam-o-matics. The '94 Trails End were the worst offenders. The cartridge is simply not a very good one for long guns, even in its modern form. The .44 Magnum or .357 work far better.

 

[355sigfan]

Well I currently have a Winchester 1892 1 of 500 series guns that was sold by CDNN. It has worked fine so far with no problems. So I am unsure how much much better than perfect the 357 mag or 44 mag can be in a lever gun.
Pat

 

[Cosmoline]

The '92 is far better than the '94 for any handgun cartridge. But the rims on the .44-40, .44 Magnum and .357 are all larger and allow both for better feeding and better extraction. In my '94's I'd actuall have .45 Colts shoot out from the tube out of turn and lodge under the elevator becuase their rims were small enough to slip over the stopper. Talk about a PINA! There's a good reason the round was never chambered in long guns until recent times.

 

[richardschennberg]

I've had good results with .45 S&W Schofield. The rim is larger than most other lever-rifle pistol calibers, especially .45 Colt.
Richard
Schennberg.com

 

[Crosshair]

Does a .45 S&W Schofield work in a lever rifle? I know there is no problems with handgun, but I would think that it would cause problems in a lever rifle. Nice to know that that would be an option.

 

[spooney]

I had always heard it was because Winchester didn't want anything that said Colt on their rifles, but they weren't really competitors so I guess take that for what it's worth.

 

[Onmilo]

Crosshair,
.45 Schofield does cycle and function in my 1860 Henry reproduction but becuse the cartridge block is longer than a real Henry I have to be more careful when levering the cartridge into the chamber or the rifle will jam.

In other words, there is no real advantage.

Since an Italian Company intends to market an 1876 reproduction, I hope that Uberti may heed my suggestion and produce their excellent Henry reproduction in .44 Russian caliber.
They have the capability since they produced reproductions in .44 Henry rimfire for Navy Arms.
The .44 Russian canterfire is nothing more than a Henry rimfire round with a centerfire primer and and internally seated and crimped bullet as opposed to the heel loaded bullets of the Henry rimfire cartridge.