Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns 44 Magnum or 45 Colt. Which one would you pick?

Less pressure gets you less muzzle blast and less noise!

Just for "Cool Factor" alone, you can't get a 44 magnum like this...

I'm not talking about Veral Smith's theory. I'm talking about actual bullets we can pick up the phone or the mouse and buy. We can never assume that all things are equal. There is no credible discussion about this possible without addressing meplat. Yes, a .45 WFN is larger than a .44 WFN but this distinction is never made. Folks ASSUME the .45 is always bigger. It ain't. I'm sure there are more than a few who would ass-u-me that the 325gr .45 from CPBC is bigger than the 320gr .44 from the same maker. It isn't. The .44 is bigger by a good margin. Go up to the 335gr, which is the same LFN design. It's only larger by .005", which is nothing. Except that the 320gr .44 penetrates measurably better.

The Linebaugh article is very obviously slanted towards the .45Colt. You don't think anything has changed in the last 30yrs? How about bullet selection? Nothing in the article mentions meplat diameter. Keep in mind that Linebaugh makes a living building properly dimensioned .45's, not .44's. Because the .44 doesn't need a custom or rechambered cylinder to shoot well.

I'm shooting nearly identical guns and there is no friggin' difference between them with comparable loads. You guys act as if we're comparing standard pressure .45Colt to full pressure .44Mag.

No but you can get a hell of a fine .44Spl! Which is more efficient and has a greater velocity potential and very likely will not have .457" throats.

That is a Kings Custom on an original first generation Colt SAA. You think they would overlook bore, forcing cone dimensions? Besides that, no 44 special has the history or character of a 45 Colt. You might want to go somewhere else to find something wrong with this gun, you are wasting your time here...

That is a beautiful Colt, but you already know that!
Ronnie

Uh, yeah, I do. King's wasn't doing rechambered cylinders, they used Colt parts.

You guys ALWAYS ASS-U-ME I'm down on the .45Colt. I have six guns chambering the .45Colt, including the custom pictured above. I bought an $1100 Dillon 650 with a casefeeder just to load .45Colt. So take THAT bullshit somewhere else. I just base my opinion on actual merit, not romanticism and nonsense. The .44Mag and .45Colt are equals in equal guns but in the Colt SAA and similar platforms, the .44Spl has it all over it.

It has been found, by the likes of Elmer Keith and Brian Pearce (and to a hugely lesser degree, myself), that the Keith shoulder will cut a full diameter hole through the entire wound channel.

The LBT bullets (of which I have upwards of 50 moulds) rely on the meplat and velocity when using their widest designs, which you mentioned can produce even larger wound diameters.

If one was comparing sedate loads (think Unique, Power Pistol or Longshot powders) to use in their Mod. 25 or 29, the Keith designs give up nothing to the LFN and tend shoot better than the short, fat WFN's of the same weight, all the way down to plinking speeds. They will also still cut the same predictable full diameter hole...

Of course at the top end, the WFN/LFN LBT's will do more and do it with fine accuracy.

I've found using loads in the woods that one doesn't have to wear hearing protection for or gives one ringing ears for two days kill deer or hogs just fine; the 45 again does this better than the 44...just so we don't annoy the 44 fans, I'd pick the 44 over the .357 for the same reasons, diameter notwithstanding.

It will cut a caliber-sized hole in paper. The meplat is what creates the wound channel and determines the size of the wound channel. This doesn't change because of the shoulder of the semi-wadcutter design. And frankly, I don't want a caliber sized hole, I want a bigger hole and that is what you get with a bigger meplat.

Even Ross Seyfried, whose opinion to me matters a great deal more than any other public figure in the gunwriting fraternity, switched from semi-wadcutters to LBTs when he discovered them. Nothing against Pearce or Keith, but when Seyfried speaks, I listen.

Wow! Now I am really impressed! Take your 44 special and shove it, this has nothing to do with your preference in Pygmy guns...

It also cuts in muscle, lung....the shoulder cuts until it wears down. Not because Veral Smith said so or Ross said so, its because it does, way below velocities that large meplats work well at.

Try Verals nonsense; painting the shoulder. He claims that the paint stays there because of tissue spray. The problem is that his little experiment proves the exact opposite. The shoulder wears because it contacts the sand, muscle, tissue, whatever. Ross passed along the nonsense.
Even when driven faster, the shoulder still wears down, totally contrary to Veral's "knowledge".

I'm not disagreeing that the large meplat LBT's will not create larger wound channels, especially as velocity is increased, what I'm saying is that one will have no trouble taking deer with a Keith bullet not loaded to the gills with H110 and the Keith bullet performs similarly on the flesh whether driven 800 fps. or higher.

Actually, in 45 caliber, the Keith 280 (RCBS 270 SAA), the 280 LFN and the 280 WFN create pretty similar damage in deer when all bullets are driven around 1,000 fps. However, the RCBS bullet created a much more precise, defined hole, not just in the skin...of course as velocity is increased, yes, the WFN's created a larger diameter hole, but at the cost of noise, racket and recoil not needed to tip over a deer, for me.
When Ross started shooting large beasties, the increase in velocity and the need for more frontal area came into play. A caliber sized hole would not cut it.

A bullet cavitates in tissue until it isn't fast enough any longer, during cavitation I can't see how the shoulder is cutting anything.

Load up your favorite 45 Colt to black powder levels (I know, blasphemy!) and kill some stuff or try Veral's test.

Test at higher speeds, to get "tissue spray". Like clockwork, the shoulder edge will be worn down to a rounded shape everytime.....

Rugers are often undersized (.449-450) with barrel groove of .451+.
This can be bad ju-ju for cast bullets.
Ideally, .4525-.453 where one would want throats today.

Some Colt and Smiths of yesteryear had up to .457 throats and .450-.451 bores in 45 Colt. Two of my very fine shooting 45's have this "problem".

Granted, SAA 44 Specials were not uncommon to have .434 throats and Colt used .427 44/40 barrels, so its more of an understanding that your bullets should fill the throat, dies may swage your bullets during seating these over nominal dimensions, all of which can harm good results.

Bear in mind also that Colt had .356 throats on a lot of 38's and .357's with .357 groove barrels and Smith DX's often slugged .427 with .429 bores so its common to run into discrepancies across the board.

Did I stumble into the nursery???

History: the .44's ancestors, the .44S&W and the .44Russian, predate the .45Colt.

History: Elmer Keith figured out that the .44Spl was a better cartridge in the Colt SAA 80 fuggin' years ago.

Fact: .45Colt Kool Aid drinkers cannot handle an objective discussion involving the object of their worship.

This is typical in ALL Colt's and S&W's. I don't know what S&W has done as of late but even a brand new Colt will have oversized chamber mouths. Rugers can go in either direction.

The 250gr Keith bullet I recently recovered from ballistic testing showed no wear on the shoulder but the nose flattened and deformed slightly.

45 Colt for heavy bullets
44 Mag for lighter bullets at flatter trajectories

Thank you!

Newer Smiths are right at .4525/.453.

Honestly, the larger dimensioned guns are really no issue at all. Not understanding them is.

Here's an article caption that describes the results of using Veral's "test" and an animal.



The full write up is from Handloader 255 if anyone is interested.

Man people can allow their preferences to leave logic to the wayside.

Pick a revolver that is built to handle the 44 mag, and it can handle the 45 colt modern pressures. In that gun if it is chambered in the 44 mag it will (depending on barrel length): Launch a 300 gr cast bullet 1200-1300 fps. If it's chambered in a 45 colt, it will launch a 330 gr bullet 1200-1300 fps.

Now if you are using an LFN bullet design, per Veral's specs as a 44 it will have a meplat 0.130" less than bore diameter or .30", if a 45 it will be 0.32" in diameter which is a 14% larger meplat for the 45

Yes a 44 WFN will be larger than a 45 LFN, but a 45 WFN will be larger than a 44 WFN. A WFN by definition has a meplat 0.09" smaller than bore diameter or 0.34" for the 44 and 0.36" for the 45 and a 12% advantage to the 45

The 45 is always bigger by definition and picking and choosing different bullet designs is silly at best.

Now, for all intents and purposes I doubt there is a significant difference int the field between either round. Both in a quality gun are capable of outstanding accuracy and have more than enough power for NA game. I find the 45 a bit more flexible, especially with the availability of dual chambered 45 acp/45 colt guns.