Category: Ammo

To understand firearm development, it is necessary to have some knowledge of the economy during their progress. The Civil War brought about a great increase in economic opportunities—hence industrialization—to the Union. Manufacturing business grew at a phenomenal rate. The war created a huge market for firearms and fueled the development of their technology. While the waging of war created the demand, it was the Reconstruction period after the war that brought about a maturation of that booming economy. The U.S. military—primarily the army at that time—needed better firearms with which to serve the country.

Single-shot and repeating rifles fed by cartridges that were ignited with a primer pressed into the center of the rear of the case replaced cap-and-ball muzzleloaders and rimfire-primed cartridges. Revolvers—which had progressed nicely into the cap-and-ball technology—began seeing their own cartridge development to centerfire-primed rounds. They were very popular with the cavalry because they could be operated with one hand and offered as many as six shots before requiring a reload.

Colt rather quickly came out with a Benet-primed .44 Colt cartridge for its Richards-Mason conversion of the 1860 Army. The actual diameter of the heeled, outside-lubricated bullet was .451″to .454″, and it featured a 225-gr., conical lead bullet in front of 23 grains of FFg blackpowder for a velocity of 640 f.p.s. and 207 ft.-lbs. of energy. Charles B. Richards, an engineer at Colt, and William Mason, a gunsmith who came to Colt from Remington in 1866, worked together on the .44 Colt cartridge, which was introduced in 1871.

The Richards-Mason conversion was a stopgap measure as the company retooled and set up to manufacture what would become the Colt Model 1871-72 Open Top revolver. This revolver was chambered in the more powerful .44 Henry Rimfire cartridge, a major step up in power from the .44 Colt. It was capable of kicking a 200-gr. conical ball bullet out at 1,125 f.p.s. with 568 ft.-lbs. of energy, though these numbers are probably from a rifle.

Buffalo Bore .45 Colt available today loaded with a 255 gr. lead bullet.

Nonetheless, the army bought several thousand of them for its cavalrymen during the revolver’s two-year production run. Three things became very clear. The army wanted a more powerful revolver. It did not want outside-lubricated bullets that pick up dirt and grit from the field. And a revolver tough enough to stand up to these rigors must have an enclosed window for the cylinder, what we now refer to as a solid frame.

Richards and Mason began developing a new revolver and teamed up with ammunition engineers at Remington to manufacture the cartridges. Both the revolver—the 1873 Colt Single Action Army(SAA)—and its cartridge, the .45 Colt, would become iconic in the annals of firearm development. The .45 Colt retains the bullet diameter of its .44 Colt predecessor at .452″ – .454″ but kicks the weight of the bullet up to 255 grains.

After playing with loads with bullets as light as 225 grains and powder weights from 28 to 40 grains, they settled on the 255-gr. bullet in front of 40 grains of FFg blackpowder for 840 f.p.s. with about 400-ft.-lbs. of wallop out of a revolver. Production of ammo and revolver began in 1873. The army quickly saw the improvement of both revolver and load, as did civilians, and the Colt .45, as it became commonly called, generated a great reputation as a man-stopper.

All of the preceding did not occur in a vacuum. Smith & Wesson had been hard at work on its No. 3 revolver in .45 caliber. In fact, the army adopted the No. 3 in 1870 chambered in .44 Smith & Wesson American. But the brass wanted more power. Major George W. Schofield had an engineering improvement to the Model 3. Instead of mounting the spring-loaded barrel latch on the barrel, he reversed it and mounted the latch on the frame.

Hornady .45 Colt cartridges loaded with a .255 gr. FTX bullet.

The army specified that the revolver would chamber the .45 Colt cartridge, but the Smith & Wesson revolver’s cylinder was too short do it was chambered in a shorter .45 Smith & Wesson—often referred to as the .45 Schofield, adopted in 1875. The Smith & Wesson cartridge would function in the Colt SAA but not vice-versa. Army quartermasters had headaches trying to sort out ammo for each revolver. Frankfort Arsenal, which supplied nearly all the ammo for the Army, simply ceased loading the .45 Colt and supplied the troops with .45 S&W cartridges.

Somewhere in all of this the .45 Colt nomenclature was colloquially changed to “.45 Long Colt” to differentiate it from the shorter S&W cartridge. From bank heists to battlefields, train robbers to shopkeepers, the .45 Colt and the SAA was king. Sure, there were plenty of those finely made Smith & Wessons, but out on the frontier far from gunsmiths, people counted on the robustness of the SAA and its man-or-beast-busting .45-cal. cartridge.

They must have done something right because, 147 years later, the cartridge continues to be loaded. Other than in wartime, there hasn’t been a hitch in production of the .45 Colt cartridge. The military could not leave well enough alone. Some 21 years after the introduction of the Colt SAA and its .45-caliber round, the military adopted the Model 1892 Colt double-action revolver chambered in a .38 Long Colt cartridge developed in 1875, featuring a 150-gr. lead, round-nose bullet launched by blackpowder at 708 f.p.s. with a measly 157 ft.-lbs. of energy out of a 6″ barreled revolver.

Sometime later, a smokeless powder load sent a 148-gr. bullet downrange at 750 f.p.s. and 185 ft.-lbs. of energy. Some bad experiences in the Philippines during the Philippine–American War of 1899–1902 against Moro juramentados tribesmen had the army scrambling for anything that could fire .45 Colt cartridges. This led to Colt developing the M1909 round , identical in load to the original .45 Colt round but with a larger rim to accommodate the star-like extractor/ejector of the New Service double-action revolver.

The author’s Ruger Blackhawk chambered for .45 Colt.

M1909 ammunition will not work in single-action revolvers chambered in .45 Colt because the rim diameter interferes with adjoining cartridges. Even as semi-auto pistols began emerging, the .45 Colt has remained a steady-selling cartridge. Two reasons for that is the reliability and longevity of the SAA revolver and the fact is that it plain works.

Whether dealing with desperados, deer or even black bears, in the hands of a decent shot, a man armed with a .45 Colt will go home to his family or bring home the game. In the mid-1950s, a Utah-based gunsmith and experimenter named Dick Casull began exploring the limits of what a .45-cal. handgun could produce. He started with blackpowder-framed Colt SAAs, re-heat treating the frames and converting them to five-shot cylinders.

In 1959 he introduced the .454 Casull cartridge featuring a case 1.383″ long—some .098″ longer than a .45 Colt case—and a thicker web in the head of the case that Casull claimed to get more than 1,900 f.p.s. with a 250-gr. bullet. The power guys went nuts over this, but it would take almost 25 more years before this cartridge would be commercially loaded and have a factory manufacture a revolver that could handle it. In the meantime, Ruger chambered its tough Blackhawk revolver in .45 Colt, as did Thompson/Center in its equally solid Contender single-shot pistol.

Power guys ignored the loading manuals of the day and began dropping huge charges of slow-burning powders into .45 Colt cases to see what they could get away with. Now called T-Rex loads by the brethren, many loading manuals gave loads for these guns expressly and specifically. As for me, if I want an extremely powerful revolver—which I do not anymore—I would choose a cartridge expressly made for those tasks. I like the .45 Colt for what it is: a moderately powerful handgun cartridge that does anything I might ask from a handgun.

A view from the muzzle end of the author’s Ruger Blackhawk chambered for .45 Colt.

As with all my revolvers, save my J-frame Smiths, I prefer to cast hard semi-wadcutters at some 258 grains in my .45-cal. with 9.0 grains of Alliant Unique powder. In my 4 5/8″ Ruger, it gives me about 912 f.p.s. with 476 ft.-lbs. of muzzle thump. If I need more thump, I’ll choose a rifle—too many years of shooting those big bruisers has left me with some arthritis in my hands.

All the major factories load the .45 Colt cartridge today; one of the smaller manufacturers—Garrett, in Texas, loads +P .45 Colt rounds that are expressly for the Rugers. But there are plenty of JHP and SP loads available—outside of the pandemic-induced ammo shortage. There are even relatively soft-recoiling loads for cowboy action shooters. It is the cowboy action shooters that brought another firearm into the .45 Colt fold—rifles.

When the cartridge was introduced, the small diameter and thin rim of the .45 Colt cartridge, along with the straight-walled case, would not feed or extract reliably in the lever-action rifles of the day. Too, it was fueled with blackpowder, which leaves a rather heavy residue. A straight-walled case would often hang up because of that following, especially if the residue was exposed to dampness.

Today, however, Winchester, Uberti, Henry and Cimarron have produced replica lever actions chambered in the big 45. Smokeless powders, some engineering tweaks and the clientele who keep their competition guns clean has largely neutered the old attitude toward .45 Colt lever actions. Continuously produced for nearly 150 years, both in ammo and guns, the .45 Colt remains a capable cartridge for field use or even self-defense. I know several fellows who regularly have a single-action revolver on their belt on a daily basis, and that revolver is a .45 Colt.

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- How long can ammunition be stored before it degrades? Much depends on the storage conditions. With reasonable care, ammunition has a shelf life of many decades, as verified by tests done with military centerfire cartridges.

But how long does .22 rimfire last before it starts to degrade? There has not been much systematic long-term storage testing of .22 rimfire. It tends to be used as an expendable item. Some people have found an old box or two of ammunition and checked it for viability.

This correspondent was able to obtain a large cache of 65+-year-old .22 rimfire ammunition with a good pedigree. The bulk of the ammunition was Remington Standard Velocity .22 Long Rifle ammunition made before 1956.

I met the owner at the University of Wisconsin in 1970. We started a friendship that lasted 48 years, to his death in 2018. The friend was Don Cowling from Middleton, Wisconsin. He is the world record rat hunter who this correspondent wrote about in 2016, when I became aware of the provenance and extent of the ammunition cache.

From that article:

The .22 ammunition has been in the jars for over 60 years.  He allowed me to crack the seal on a mason jar that had been filled before I entered first grade.  I anticipated an odor of acetone, as you often find in old smokeless powder.  I could not detect any, nor could my friend.  There was a faint hint of old wax, barely noticeable.

My friend gave me an even two dozen rounds to test to see if it had been degraded.  I shot the ammunition out of a Mossberg target rifle of similar age.  I fired the rounds at my brothers long established range behind the garage on family land in Northern Wisconsin.  Every round fired as though it were new.  I fired four five-shot groups at 50 feet from a rest.  The first was the largest at .56 inches, center to center.  The rest were .32, .31 and .31 inches. Not enough to win matches, perhaps, but perfectly good for hunting. My brother fired the last four shots offhand.

Don treasured his privacy, so his name was not mentioned in the 2016 article. The ammunition was mentioned, with a picture. Don knew I would reveal his name after he died, and did not object.

Don was a star handgun competitor at the University of Wisconsin. A top handgun competitor can easily run through 50,000 to 100,000 rounds a year. Don told me the ammunition was put in the quart jars before or during 1956.  Don was on the University of Wisconsin Varsity ROTC pistol team when they won the regional championships in 1955. Don always paid for things in cash, or in trade or barter. I suspect the ammo was obtained in a special deal.

Placing the ammunition in quart jars sealed it from the atmosphere. It likely helped keep the bullet lubrication from oxidizing.

Ammunition obtained later was so noted in his records. His records showed the pre-1956 ammunition to be Remington Standard Velocity. His records match the ammunition headstamps.

Don kept meticulous records. After he died in 2018, this correspondent had access to his lifelong records and journals.

I was able to purchase his .22 ammunition cache of tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition from his estate. Over 20 thousand rounds of the cache was Remington standard velocity ammunition obtained in or prior to 1956, transferred to quart jars from boxes by 1956. It was stored for 15-17 years in an attic in Madison, Wisconsin, then underground from 1970-72 to 2018 in a basement in Middleton, Wisconsin. After the ammunition was purchased from the estate, it was moved across the country, then stored in a secure underground location.

The ammunition was purchased to conduct rigorous long-term storage testing of .22 rimfire ammunition. If there are other caches containing significant amounts of 65+-year-old .22 rimfire ammunition, they are unknown to this author.

The initial test procedure used a control of 500 rounds of CCI Standard Velocity 22LR Ammunition, lot H05S, manufactured on August, 5th 2012. The ammunition was tested in a Mossberg 702 semi-automatic Rifle with factory 10 round magazines. The rifle is expected to be used throughout the long-term test.  The rifle was purchased new in anticipation of the ammunition test.

A few hundred rounds were expended through the rifle before the test, from various manufacturers. The same rifle was used with the old Remington ammunition, to limit test variables. Accuracy testing was done at 25 yards. Velocity testing was done with a Caldwell Chronograph G2 eight feet from the muzzle.

10 fouling shots were fired, followed by 5 five-shot groups from a rest at 25 yards. The rifle was equipped with an inexpensive Simmons 4×32 .22 Mag scope.

After accuracy testing, 50 shots were fired to register on the chronograph to obtain average velocity, standard deviation, and extreme spread.

The rest of the 500 rounds was fired for reliability. The manufacturer recommends the rifle be cleaned after firing 200 rounds. The rifle was cleaned at the beginning of the test, and every 250 rounds after that, so test conditions would be the same for both sources of ammunition. Most shots were fired with a few seconds between shots. Nearly all shots were fired from magazines loaded with 10 rounds.

The test is for the ammunition, not the rifle. A semi-automatic rifle was used for uniformity of action.  A semi-automatic is considered a bit more ammunition sensitive than single-shot rifles or manual repeaters. If the ammunition will cycle a semi-automatic action, it should work in manually operated repeaters or single-shot firearms.

The same procedure was used to test 500 rounds of the 65+-year-old Remington Standard Velocity ammunition.

65 Year Old .22 Rimfire Ammunition Test Results:

Accuracy, an average of 5 five-shot groups at 25 yards, measured center to center:

• CCI Standard Velocity:                    .502 inches
• Old Remington Standard Velocity   .565 inches

Velocity measurements for 50 rounds, average velocity, Standard Deviation, extreme spread in feet per second (fps).

• CCI Standard Velocity:   Average 1072.3 fps, SD 17.5, extreme spread 84 fps, 1035 to 1119.
• Old Remington Standard Velocity: Average 1098.9 fps, SD 19.8, Extreme spread 101 fps, 1041 to 1142.

Reliability for 500 rounds fired:

• CCI Standard Velocity: 1 failure to fire, round 102, strong firing pin strike, rotated the round, it fired on the second strike.
• Old Remington Standard Velocity: 1 failure to fire, round 252, second round after cleaning. Very light primer strike (probably a mechanical rather than ammunition failure). The round was rotated. It fired normally with a second strike.

For practical uses of .22 rimfire ammunition, there is no significant difference between the nine-year-old CCI ammunition and the 65+-year-old Remington ammunition.

This correspondent intends to make this testing a regular event. Data will be collected about the storage life of .22 ammunition, to the point of finding significant degradation, or of running out of ammunition.

There is enough ammunition to extend the test to over 100 years of storage if 500 rounds are fired each year. Alternatively, 500 rounds could be tested every two years, or five years, extending the test even longer!?

Enormous quantities of .22 rimfire ammunition have been purchased in the last two years. Much of it has been stored. If stored at reasonable temperatures in airtight containers, it should be useful for at least 65+ years. As no degradation has been detected in the stored Remington ammunition, the upper limit of storage life is unknown.

The author expects the test project to extend beyond his lifetime. The intention is to find viable candidates to continue testing to at least 2056.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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