The .45 Colt was not invented by Colt!

[w44wcf]

Interesting!  I thought you pards would be interested in this.

Posted by Sourdough Joe, SASS #7901
on the SASS Wire Vet posted January 30, 2002 04:24 AM

Hi Doc, The answer to your original question about a book on the development of the .45 Colt round is easy to answer, but it is a hard book to find. The best book for your purpose is "Colt Calvery, Artillery, and Militia Revolvers" by Keith Cochran. It was first printed in 1987 with a limited printing of 2000 copies and I do not know if there were any further printings of the book.

The .45 Colt round was neither invented nor developed by Colt! It was the work of the US Government's Frankford Arsenal. Frankford had done a lot of work on developing centerfire ammo after the civil war and had used the patents of a number of private individuals in their work. By early 1871 they had settled on the internally primed Bennet and the Martin primed cartridges as the most promising for military arms.

When the US Ordnance Department started testing revolvers in 1872 to find a replacement for the percussion arms both S&W and Colt submitted arms for consideration. S&W submitted their revolver first and it was chambered for the .44 S&W American round. This round was already in service with the Army and was the only large caliber centerfire round then being used by the Government.

When Colt submitted their revolver it was chambered in another .44 round and the Ordnance Dept. sent it back to Colt and had them fit another cylinder chambered for the .44 S&W American before the revolver was tested.

The Colt was chosen as the best design of the two, however, the Government had just selected the .45-70 as the standard service rifle cartridge and wanted a .45 caliber for their pistol as well. The Government set the caliber, twist and cartridge dimension for the new round and supplied Colt with the cartridges developed at Frankford. Further development continued at Frankford even as the first pistols were delivered by Colt under contract in 1873. The original 1873 version of the cartridge was a folded copper case with the Bennet internal priming. The case looks like a rimfire as there is no primer visiable in the base. This round continued in production until it was replaced by a Boxer primed round in 1882. There were several other cartridges used on a limited bases but most were internally primed or Berdan primed and were either impossible or hard to reload. It is intresting to note that the first reloading tools used by the Government to reload .45 Colt rounds was invented and made by Winchester!

It would take too many pages to fully define the entire development of the cartridge here so find a copy of the book and get most of the info you need.

The information about the circumstances that resulted in the agreement between Colt and Winchester on the production of firearms by the two companies has not been quite right on the wire.

Winchester became "concerned" when Colt started production of the Colt Burgess lever action repeating rifle. The Colt Burgess is, in the opinion of a lot of firearms expert, a superior rifle to the then Winchester 1873 and could be produced by Colt to sell at a very competitive price. Winchester developed a single action revolver that was in many ways superior to the Colt Peacemaker. The top management of the two companies came to an agreement that Colt would stop production of "lever action rifles" and Winchester would not put their "new revolver" into production. In other words Colt would make pistols and Winchester would make rifles.

If I can help you anymore or you need some specific information give me a shout Doc.

[Fox Creek Kid]

It's not BENNET, it's Benet.      Here's his bio:  http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/svbenet.htm

[Cuts Crooked]

Interesting!  I thought you pards would be interested in this.

Posted by Sourdough Joe, SASS #7901
on the SASS Wire Vet posted January 30, 2002 04:24 AM

. It is intresting to note that the first reloading tools used by the Government to reload .45 Colt rounds was invented and made by Winchester!

The government needed to reload cartridges?

[Delmonico]

The government needed to reload cartridges?

Don't have the information handy, but there was a time that a lot of the practice ammo was supposed to be reloaded by the unit.  It kind of became like KP and to say the least there were problems, smoking while reloading is just one of the problems that happened.

[Pitspitr]

The government needed to reload cartridges?

Yep like Del said they mostly reloaded to practice with. More specifically they converted cartridges at first. In the decade following the adoption of metalic cartridges there were a lot of surplus paper cartridges. They broke them down and used the powder for reloading. They also used the balls from paper pistol cartridges deep seeted in .45-70 brassover 4 grains of powder for a gallery load and shot it at steel targets INDOORS during the winter.

[Adirondack Jack]

Ever since the Army had first gotten the .50-70 )which predates either the .45 C olt or .45-70) they WANTED boxer priming but couldn't have it because Adams and Eley were in a protracted patent fight over it and neither was free to license the technology.  Adams had it in use in 1867 and never looked  back.  When Adams was about broke from legal bills among other things, Eley bought them out, ending the fight.  Sadly, Adams was probably in the right as rightful inventors of boxer priming, but they lost anyway.  Eley immediately licensed Boxer priming and the US military adopted it almost instantly.  The inside primed Benet cases were a stopgap at the time, allowing development and production of centerfire arms they always knew would eventually use the much superior boxer ignition which is virtually unchanged (except for priming compounds) today.

[Fox Creek Kid]

A. Jack, that's not entirely correct. In Aug. 1882 Frankford Arsenal switched from Benet inside-primed cartridge to the externally primed cartridge that used the Gill primer. Go here & scroll down: http://www.oldammo.com/october05.htm

The U.S. military did not pay royalties unless it absolutely had to. That is why Berdan primed cartridges were always more expensive as companies such as UMC had to pay royalties to Col. H. Berdan.

[Adirondack Jack]

A. Jack, that's not entirely correct. In Aug. 1882 Frankford Arsenal switched from Benet inside-primed cartridge to the externally primed cartridge that used the Gill primer. Go here & scroll down: http://www.oldammo.com/october05.htm

The U.S. military did not pay royalties unless it absolutely had to. That is why Berdan primed cartridges were always more expensive as companies such as UMC had to pay royalties to Col. H. Berdan.

I'm not sure when Eley's patent license fot Boxer priming was picked up by the US gov't, but it was and Boxer priming took over.  Sure other things were tired in the interim, as the Adams VS Eley fight kept "boxer" tied up a long time.  Remember Boxer was first used in England By Adams in 1867, well before CF happened in the US.

So many writers on gun and ammo history are blind to the events across the pond, leaving readers with the impression American companies were responsible for more invention than they were.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Here is a photo of some Benet (not Bennet) primed cartridges. I believe the one on the left is a 45 Colt. The cutaway view shows the folded rim and the anvil plate for the priming. The deep cannelure just above the rim held the anvil plate in place. Also notice how tiny the rim is, one reason the 45 Colt was never chambered in rifles in the 19th Century.



Here are a few revolver prototypes that Winchester produced. The one at the top was designed by William Mason, who had worked extensively on the development of the SAA at Colt. I don't know how much truth there is to the 'agreement' between Colt and Winchester, but here is some photographic proof of some of the prototypes being produced at the time. The one at the bottom was designed with the help of a former S&W employee.

[Dick Dastardly]

Ho Driftwood,

Thanks for those picture pages.  To my eye those winchester guns look butt ugly.  Of course my eye has been educated by lots of movies, books, magazines and catalogs.  Could it have been the other way around if Colt had made the rifles and Winchester the pistols???

I've read where it was stated that the Winchester pistols were more advanced than Colts and the other way around with the lever rifles.

DD-DLoS

[Fox Creek Kid]

There was no clear advantage for the Boxer priming system over Berdan at the time. Remember, modern reloading implements as we know them did not exist then and it was not that difficult to deprime with an awl. Also, not many people reloaded at all then, professional hunters & target shooters notwithstanding, albeit a very small percentage. Also, Springfield Armory was experimenting with central fire cartridges right after the Civil War. Remember, the British were issuing flimsy foil cartridges for the Snider conversions when the U.S. was using all metal cartridges. 

[w44wcf]

Pards,
Thank you for the additional information and pics.

I have found the following historic factory b.p. loads for the .45 Colt.
If anyone has anymore to add, please do so.

7 grs. (round ball)
28 grs. 
30 grs. 
35 grs.
38 grs.
40 grs.

w44wcf

[Wild Ben Raymond]

When the US Ordnance Department started testing revolvers in 1872 to find a replacement for the percussion arms both S&W and Colt submitted arms for consideration. S&W submitted their revolver first and it was chambered for the .44 S&W American round. This round was already in service with the Army and was the only large caliber centerfire round then being used by the Government.  

I really thought the first large pistol caliber centerfire adopted by the army was the .44 Colt as it was an offical military cartridge even though for a short time. I would think the 44 colt would have been being used at that time for the Colt 44 Army Richards Conversions. WBR

[Fox Creek Kid]

The first gov't adopted revolver cartridge was the .44 S&W American. The military bought 1,000 S&W Americans in 1871 before they bought any Colt conversions.

[Wild Ben Raymond]

QUOTE: When the US Ordnance Department started testing revolvers in 1872 to find a replacement for the percussion arms both S&W and Colt submitted arms for consideration. S&W submitted their revolver first and it was chambered for the .44 S&W American round. This round was already in service with the Army and was the only large caliber centerfire round then being used by the Government
I'm sorry FCK but in 1872 thats 1872 just to be clear as to what date we are talking about, the US Army was using more than just the 44 S&W. Taken from the book "Firearms of the American West" 1866-1894, are the following lines; Goverment sales of the Smith & Wesson American to individual troopers began in June of 1871, In the last quarter of 1871 a new cartridge arm, officially listed as "Colt's, for metallic ammunition, cal. .44," began reaching units stationed on the frontier. The first of the converted .44's were issued late in 1871 to companies of the Second Cavalry and to the Sixth Cavalry in Kansas.
The point I was trying to make FCK, is the statment above from a previous post is not correct as the .44 S&W was NOT the only large centerfire round being used by the Army in 1872. WBR

[Fox Creek Kid]

The order for 1,000 S&W revolvers was for 28 Dec. 1870, signed by A.B. Dyer, Chief of Ordnance. In case you were imagining that the military sat around for over one year waiting on ammunition........ Until Feb. 1871 it was believed that one cartridge type would suffice for the 1,000 Americans and an EXPERIMENTAL altered Colt but this was not to be as the the chambers of the American were smaller in diameter. On 14 March 1871  A.B. Dyer ordered Frankford Arsenal to manufacture 250,000 Martin primed cartridges for the S&W (American) Model.

Source: "Smith & Wesson American Model" by Chas. W. Pate, 2006.

The first order for to alter 1,000 Colt Army Models was placed by A.B. Dyer with Colt's Mfg. on 31 Jan. 1871.

Source: " A Study of Colt Conversions........" R. Bruce McDowell, 1997.

[Wild Ben Raymond]

FCK, never said that the S&W 44 wasn't first but by 1872 it wasn't the only big bore Cartridge the army was using. If you would have said earlier then that, yes it would have been. WBR

[Fox Creek Kid]

Here's what I said firstly: 

The first gov't adopted revolver cartridge was the .44 S&W American.