S&W 625 shenanigans vs 44mag

Tugar · January 25

Someone on reddit
"My favorite revolver of all time, 625 Mountain Gun in .45 colt. It only weighs slightly more than an equivalent K frame in .357, and with heavy bullets and short barrels .45 Colt can match the 44 magnum, but it can do it with less pressure."

I say that barring Redhawk or stronger actions, there is NO way a 45 Colt can match 44 mag AND have lower pressure. I don't know enough though. What say my handloaders.

Zee · January 25

I love the .45 Colt!

I have multiples of both cartridges. I’d take the .45 Colt any day. 😁

Jayhawker · January 25

Nope...ain't happening...

Wambli Ska · January 25

Match .44 mag performance? Sure. With lower pressure? That’s just physics. Don’t know that that’s possible.

NN · January 25

We had a reloader that loaded tyrannosaurus 45 cold loads. I believe he claimed they were
as good as .44 mag.
I saw people just want to shoot one of them.

NN · January 25

Besides, why would youz wish to put a prized revolver through such torture!

Wambli Ska · January 25

Good point. A S&W Mountain Gun is not the platform for monster .45 Colt loads. Then again you can come up with some very nice shooting .45 Colt Loads that will match performance with factory .44 Mag loads and don’t shake the Earth when they go off. These will accomplish anything you’d call on a S&W Mountain Gun to do and you can still empty the cylinder expediently and under control. I mostly shoot 180-200 grain bullets out of mine and that’s the gun that’s usually on my belt nowadays when I take the dog for a hike.

Bigslug · January 25

Given that I have high confidence in the ability of .45 ACP hardball to shoot through a horse, I have a hard time summoning the ability to care about the pissing contest between .44 Mag and .45 Colt.

Since a lot of load data for the .45C is watered down to protect old guns, the .454 Casull is the closest parallel I can find in my Lyman manual

.44 Mag - 255 grain gas checked lead at 1186fps with 22.8 grains of H110 (Max load): 36,400 CUP

.454 - 255 grain plain base lead at 1336fps with 35 grains of AA1680 (max load): 33,900 CUP

The GUN is going to be the limiting factor in this equation, and that will always be so when discussing the .45 Colt with its black powder roots. But given an equal gun, they're both straightwall, rimmed pistol cartridges, and size matters. Loaded to equivalent pressures that don't blow up the launch pad, the .45 can push bigger bullets, which I think is the point that was being made in the statement linked by the OP.

The argument on a Smith 625 vs a 629 is likely going to be one of cylinder wall thickness, and yeah, the .45 takes it closer to eggshell. . .but see my opening sentence. If it can't be settled with 250 grains at 1000-1100 fps - which both can easily do in a modern gun - then it's probably just your day to be eaten.

Jay · January 25

Some guys long before my time hot rodded the 44 Special and 45 Colt to the point they ended up with slightly longer cartridges and guns for those cartridges. I've personally never seen the need to re-hash those developments and try to make the 45 Colt compete with something that was designed to "perform better" to begin with. Then again, I'm not and never have been a 44 guy. I LOVE the 454 Casull. Performance wise, there's nothing the 44 can do that the 454 can't do better, except allow one more round in the cylinder. Trying to make the 45 Colt perform like a 44 mag is not that much far off from trying to make the 44 special perform like a 454 Casull.

Zee · January 25

Curiosity, I believe the .45 Colt has thinner brass in some way/shape/form?

What if you took .454 Casull, trimmed it down to .45 Colt length, and hotrodded it in a strong enough platform?

Jay · January 25

Zee said:

Curiosity, I believe the .45 Colt has thinner brass in some way/shape/form?
What if you took .454 Casull, trimmed it down to .45 Colt length, and hotrodded it in a strong enough platform?

I've thought about that for a long time, but have never tried it. I'm sure it can be done. While modern metallurgy, design and machining probably have some platforms able to handle it compared to when Casull and Kieth were playing around, the limiting factor could still be the thinner chamber walls in 6-shot 45 cylinders. I think this is one reason why Kieth decided to stick go with 44 for hot rodding. Guess it just depends on the platform and just how much hot rodding one wants to do. I've personally just tended to keep 45 Colt in it's own lane and use the 454 for hot rodding.

Wambli Ska · January 25

Zee said:

Curiosity, I believe the .45 Colt has thinner brass in some way/shape/form?
What if you took .454 Casull, trimmed it down to .45 Colt length, and hotrodded it in a strong enough platform?

That’s an old myth from the days of the “balloon head” .45 Colt brass. You could still find those in Keith’s time and it was one of the factors in him ultimately picking the .44 Spl to play with. Modern .45 Colt brass is every bit as strong as any other brass in that class.

breamfisher · January 25

Zee said:

Curiosity, I believe the .45 Colt has thinner brass in some way/shape/form?
What if you took .454 Casull, trimmed it down to .45 Colt length, and hotrodded it in a strong enough platform?

I did a quick search. Some folks were worried about the fact that Casull brass uses small rifle primers and you might not have enough hammer force to set them off. Also, the thicker brass might not obdurate enough and give sooty cases except in high pressure loads. Again, this is all supposition.

Another issue is that the thicker brass will probably give even higher pressures than the Colt brass, so approach with caution.

All of this is supposition, so take it as you will.

ilove22s · January 25

welcome,

what some people forget is that there is a spec/tolerance/range for loads. Low to high and so forth. There maybe some overlap and so it could depend on who's saying what.

the person maybe a lawyer or politician where they are not out lieing but maybe not disclosing the facts.

good luck

Wambli Ska · January 25

In the 90’s was launching 300gr .45 cal XTPs powered by cases full of H110 and 296 out of a Ruger BH and regular .45 Colt brass was never an issue. Basically using heavy .44 mag recipes because back then we were FAR off the reservation. There were no “Ruger only” loads in any of the manuals. I still have a few boxes around waiting for me to find a nice SS Ruger BH to launch them out off.

Elk creek · January 25

Zee said:

Curiosity, I believe the .45 Colt has thinner brass in some way/shape/form?
What if you took .454 Casull, trimmed it down to .45 Colt length, and hotrodded it in a strong enough platform?

I’ve actually done this. It’s was fun. I shot these hotrods through a Ruger large frame Blackhawk. In the end I found no real benefit of having ammo that would chamber in a revolver that would not handle the loads. A Uberti or Smith won’t handle the same loads as the Blackhawk will. The gain was not great enough for the effort or limiting myself to the platform to shoot them out of. A standard pressure 45 colt will do 99 percent of what I would ever need a handgun for. Ernie on the other hand!🤣

just shoot the 44 mags in the 44 mags….

Spk · January 27

Bigslug said:

....

The GUN is going to be the limiting factor in this equation, and that will always be so when discussing the .45 Colt with its black powder roots. But given an equal gun, they're both straightwall, rimmed pistol cartridges, and size matters. Loaded to equivalent pressures that don't blow up the launch pad, the .45 can push bigger bullets, which I think is the point that was being made in the statement linked by the OP.

...

+1 👍

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