.45 “Long” Colt

[JeffreyDeGraff]

So many people call the .45 Colt, the .45 Long Colt. Others just call it .45 Colt. Some get very put out because there never was a .45 Long Colt, or a .45 Short Colt for that matter. The problem happened way back when the U.S. Army adopted the .45 S&W (.45 Schofield) as their standard revolver cartridge. The 1873 Colt was still the issue side arm though. The .45 S&W would fit in a revolver chambered in .45 Colt ( just like a 38 special fits a 357 magnum). At the time there was a surplus of .45 Colt ammo and the .45 S&W was being issued, so there were .45 Long (Colt) and .45 Short (S&W). Somewhere during all of this, the soldiers starting referring to the .45 Colt as the .45 Long Colt, and people still refer to it as this over 100 years later.


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[Wes Sage]

Yep. One of those debates like "223 or 5.56 brass"

[David Mikronis]

Actually Mr. Ken Waters did a deep dive looking for when the term "long colt" came into use. He found ABSOLUTELY nothing in writing from 1873 through 1910.
However after the introduction of the 45 ACP in 1911 he found references to "long colt".
I do believe that Ken Waters was capable of doing this search.
I have personally spoken with technicians at Hornady and Hodgdon who told me that even until this day, there are tons of shooters who don't know the difference between the 45 Colt and 45 ACP!

I would think that accuracy is also important to information as it is to shooting. Why spread a false narrative?
Why is there "dumbing down" across the gun world?
I have also observed that too many shooters don't know the difference between caliber and cartridge when describing something! That's just disappointing!

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[throckmorton]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarhg not again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JeffreyDeGraff]

Lol


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[Harter]

There was in fact a short Colts for the Army circa 1879-1880 . The Schofield aka 45 S&W rims wouldn't clear in the SAA reliably enough so the call was made to produce 10,000 rounds with a Colts rim on a S&W length case . It was only an arsenal produced item , and if memory serves only 5000 or so were actually produced .