.44 special or .45 colt

[Mustang Gregg]

Back on the .44 vs .45 track again---
The ballistics betwixt the two calibers ain't all that different, if you're limiting your ammo to CAS-approved velocities of 1000 in a six-gun and 1400 in a rifle.

You mentioned hunting & rifle uses.  What are you hunting?
I would not want to use either one on anything bigger'n a whitetail (and that is marginal IMHO).


BTW---In our T.R.A.P. outfit (the 8 of us), we only use .44 Specials, just because that's what we has when we started CAS.
We had some Ruger six-guns and some lever rifles that were .44 Rem Mag caliber.  
One caliber means interchangability for all of us.  
Our only glitch was that a couple of the lever rifles needed some small adjustments to feed well.

Mustang Gregg
Calamity JoAnne
Winchester Wade
Amy Oakley
Sassy Shawna
Commissioner Gordon
Russ T. Spittoon
Tin Star Tim

[Marshal Deadwood]

.45 colt is my calibre.

[Jake MacReedy]

I like both cartridges, but am rather partial towards the .44 Special.  I have a pair of New Vaqueros in stainless steel that I am shooting.  One has a 3 3/4" barrel, tand the other a 4 5/8".  They're matched up with a Cimarron '66 Carbine in .44 Special as well...a good combo!

Jake

[Dog River Dan]

45 Colt is the preferred round for me.

[Driften]

Yep .45 Colt is the round for me. Its always shot well and with strong Rugers you can go a long ways with them.

[Jack N. Water]

Listed in order of fun factor.

45 LC
44 Mag
44 Special
45 Schofield
45 Special

[cpt dan blodgett]

Ya Like fords or chevies?

Either one will get ya down the road.

Started off with 44s picked up RVN 45s not long ago.
Needed a 45 Colt for mounted - what the heck a poor excuse is a good enough excuse to get another couple of pistols

Still training the horse sporatically 40 miles away and 100+ degrees - again a poor excuse is better than none

[Izzoquazzo]

Good question. I have recently resumed my interest in shooting in the past year after about a 25 year hiatus. My friends talked me into Cowboy Shooting and I had to figure out what caliber to use. In our local group, most shoot .38 SPL with some .45 LC shooters interspersed. Since I used to shoot PPC revolver competition using .38 SPL I figured that's what I was going to do to.

Well I dug around in the basement for my old shooting stuff and assumed I'd find a lot of .38 stuff but instead I ran across 550 empty brass in .44 SPL with 400 of them being new unfired. Then I remembered that when I wasn't competing I was shooting .44 SPL out of a couple of .44 mag revolvers as well as a couple of .44 spl revolvers. It was my favorite caliber then and that decided it for me.

I ended up buying a Marlin 1894 in .44 mag and a pair of Ruger Vaqueros in .44 SPL. I run them with a 200 grain bullet and 5.4 grains of Unique. I'll probably be switching to Trail Boss or Titegroup next though. I sure do enjoy shooting that pair of .44 SPL Vaqueros.

[temmi]

45 Colt

Nuff said

[Beauregard Hooligan]

If in the period, say around 1878, my choice would br the .44 WCF, in a Winchester '73 with a tang sight and a 24 inch barrel. I'd match it with a pair of the new Colt "Frontier Six Shooter", with 7 1/2 barrels in that chambering. It's a combination that worked, and still works today. I'm a Ruger nut, so in the modern world I make it a pair of Vaqueros in the same cartridge, and a Pedersoli '73 with a 30 inch barrel. That's a long tube, but I picked it up when a friend quit CAS. That rifle has a tang sight and globe front and holds 15 rounds in the magazine. I always use it for team shoots. It's right handy for hitting a lot of small knock down targets. I am willing to consider other modern combinations, so I also shoot .44 Magnum and .45 Colt with matching lever guns. As a practical combination the .44 Magnum is hard to beat. Load it heavy or light, uses tough brass and good bullets can be either factory or hand cast. It's perfectly functional for CAS or for hunting. I have close to no use for the .44 Special. The Magnum case will do anything the short case does. Using .44 Special cases in .44 Mag chambers leaves fouling and .44 Special rounds don't always feed well in Win Model 92 or Marlin 1894 rifles. Folks say that the .44 Mag is not period, but Henry and 1866 rifles were never built in centerfire, and lever action rifles were never chambered for .45 Colt during the period. As long as the rules allow flexibility, pick any and you're good to go. 

[Shotgun Franklin]

1866 rifles were never built in centerfire

They did make about 1800 Center Fire '66s. Needless to say they are hard to find and higher than a camel's butt.

Forgive my typo, my fingers seem to get bigger the older I get.

[PJ Hardtack]

Up to recently, my wife was shooting a pair of .38 Uberti 3/4 size frame 'Stallions' and a Marlin .357 carbine. The Marlin broke a firing pin and she borrowed my B-92 in .44 mag shooting .44 Spl. loads.
She liked the way it smacked steel so much that she found an 'as new' .44 B-92 of her own! That led to a brace of blued Ruger NM Flat Top .44 Spl. six guns with 4 5/8" barrels. Fitted with faux ivory grips, they are gorgeous!

Debating the virtues of .45 Colt  vs .44 Spl. is like debating the difference between the .270 and the .30-'06. They all get the job done - if the shooter does his/her part. Any game or target you hit properly isn't going to know the difference.

One thing I notice about both is that the straight wall cases come out smudged/blackened after firing. Even worse with BP loads!
My 44-40s come out the way they went in - bright and shiny - even with BP.

You pays you money - you takes you choice.

[wildman1]

PJ I have 2 Rugers, a Rossi 92, and a Walker with a conversion cylinder. All 45 Colt none of my cases come out dirty on the outside because I anneal them. And yes I only shoot BP. WM

[PJ Hardtack]

Wildman 1

I've longed annealed my 45-70 and 50-70 brass, but I can't wrap my head around annealing a bucket of .45 or .44 brass! Does sound like the way to get a good gas seal with pistol cases using BP, though.

Some are born lazy. I had to work at it ..... ;>)

[wildman1]

Wildman 1

I've longed annealed my 45-70 and 50-70 brass, but I can't wrap my head around annealing a bucket of .45 or .44 brass! Does sound like the way to get a good gas seal with pistol cases using BP, though.

Some are born lazy. I had to work at it ..... ;>)

Me too, thats why I anneal my cases, my Rossi cleanup is 2 patches and one q-tip. Done. Takes me couple of minutes. And I am very particular about gettin my guns CLEAN. WM

[cpt dan blodgett]

What is your annealling technique for the 45 cases?
I used the hold em and rollem and drop into water techique for my 45-70 brass last weekend when I made my first venture into annealing.  I am thinking the 45 colt case would get way hot way fast

[wildman1]

I wear a leather glove, do it in a darkened room and watch when they start ta change color. If there are a few that don't get annealed enough I just redo them. The way I tell is shoot em, no blow by good enough. WM

[Marshal Deadwood]

Is this a 'one time' operation, or is it necessary to do it each time before reloading ?

Thanks

Deadwood

[Trailrider]

The only cases I've ever found it necessary to anneal were .50-70's cut down to .56-56 Spencer Central Fire, and that's because you cut off the annealed portion when you form the Spencer cases.

When annealing brass, it must be heated until it glows, and then the anneal must be quenched in by dropping it into water.  That is the opposite of steel, which is hardened by quenching after heating above the eutectic point.

My technique is to fill a used pill bottle with water and maybe put a bullet in the bottle (to keep it from floating).  Then I set the pill bottle in a pot and fill the pot until a cartridge placed on top of the pill bottle is covered with water at least half its length.  I place the whole shebang on a plastic lazy susan, so I can spin the pot while I heat the neck of the case with a propane torch.  When the case looks hot enough, I knock the case off the pill bottle into the water to quench.

Nice thing about .44-40, especially Winchester brass, is the thin walls of the case don't really require annealing. I don't know what the life of a modern .44-40 case made by Winchester is...because I've shot mine at least 20 times, and the only losses are the ones that wind up burried in tall grass, or occasionally if my Rossi '92 catches the mouth of the case and causes so sever a "pitcher mouth" that I can'tt rebend it straight. (Fixed the problem by stoning the corners of the extractor groove in the breech end of the barrel.)

For reference purposes, .44 Magnum brass that is used for SASS-legal loads may be termed ".44 Extra Long Russian".    The logic is that it was common for a longer version of a cartridge to be called "Long". For example, the .44 Special should be called .44 Long Russian.  It follows, therefore, that the .44 magnum should be called ".44 Extra Long Russian", except when loaded to modern .44 Mangle-em levels. 

[wildman1]

Is this a 'one time' operation, or is it necessary to do it each time before reloading ?

Thanks

Deadwood

Its pretty much a one time operation, DON'T get them too hot, (ie. red) just when they start ta change color dunkem. WM