Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB; came across your article on the 45 Colt

See, you guys are incapable of having a debate without getting personal. You're great at coming up with insults but offer NOTHING of substance. The insults are like water off a duck's back. It just tells me that I'm dealing with intellectual midgets without nothing to say worth reading. You ever measure the throats on that Colt you're so fond of? I bet they tell you you need something larger than a .452" cast bullet.

Most of mine are .430" but .431" is a standard size for cast bullets. Beartooth will size them as large as .432". Are you retarded? Did you even go to school? Can you even form a cogent argument, without insults?



Pot, meet kettle. I concede the point that the .45 is bigger but you never concede that it depends on the bullet. Or the fact that no one ever brings up meplat diameter? Your arguments are full of contradictions.

What heavy .44 bullets have you even used on large game? How long has it been since you discarded the .44 in favor of the .45?

Hey Craig,

Please show me where, in your best Yogi bear/jelly donut medium where a roundnosed 431 or whatever makes a larger hole than the same 452 or 454 round nose.

Dont cheat and use a shouldered 431....or anything with a shouldered driving band for that matter, even in your best fake animal.

You bring up game, but damned if you've ever poked anything but jelly donuts and imaginary animals.

Have seen the 454 Keith make a larger hole than the 431 WFN in real live critters (both 280s, if it makes a diff), but since you dont like contradictions to your theories please continue to shoot glue and pretend/make believe you've found something that doesnt bear any semblance of meaning.

Quit shooting chicken fat and shoot a living animal and maybe those percieved insults might become the substance you claim to argue about...
Good luck.

A nice hole maker is the NEI 454-270-PBK. The one I have has a WFN sized meplat and the Keith shoulder to boot. Whop!

Since you brought up game, what large game have you taken?

Doesn't matter if your bullet starts out at .431" it will be swagged down to the 429 diameter of the revolver when fired through the barrel.

I fail to see why you ignore bore diameter and act as if it doesn't matter. You fail to admit that 400 +grain Bullets exist for 44 and 45 caliber negating what you called a significant weight advantage for the 475/500's. Whitworth used the Garrett 45 cott 400 grain in 45 colt on Asian buffalo. It worked but not better than the 365 Garrett.

.452 is still larger than .429 always has been and always will be. Diameter matters on large game believe it of not. You don't believe me, Whitworth or anyone else, but that doesn't change the facts that and that is .452 is larger than .429

The best of both worlds

Exactly, larger is larger no matter what!

If memory serves a true LBT cast bullet is .120" below bore diameter and a WFN is .090" below bore diameter. When comparing like bullets the .429 minus .120" and ..090" leave a meplat size of .309 and .339" meplat size respectively. .452 minus .120" leaves a meplat size of .339" and .362". Notice that the 45 LFN has the same meplat size as the 44 WLN. ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT .452 is larger than .429

Who said anything about roundnose??? WTF are you talking about?



Really? I've been hunting with handguns since childhood, azzhole.

The SIM-TEST testing is the only way to eliminate as many variables as possible. Because no 100 critters are the same, no 100 shots taken are under the same circumstances. The ballistic media removes those variables. Guess what, dummy, the people who develop and design bullets do so with ballistic test media. Not critters. So how you figure you can somehow discredit my testing is beyond me.

Yeah, show me the bullets! CPBC's LFN's are the same between the two. Which is exactly why I said you have to look at SPECIFIC bullets, not rely on generalizations.

So, no response on the comment that the .44 is a better penetrator, which is contradictory to what you always claimed?

Seyfried and others always believed the .475 was a better killer than the .500, because it penetrated better. Doesn't that contradict your position?



Don't deflect, answer the question. How long has it been since you discarded the .44? The 1980's??? On what experience do you base your judgement of the .44? Admit it, you made up your mind a long time ago and won't be swayed, regardless of the facts.



Like I said, then you should be calling them .450's, rather than .452's. As if it matters.



Because 355-360gr is the balance point. The heaviest bullets that see any benefit. Even Linebaugh and Seyfried will tell you that.



Who said diameter didn't matter? This whole argument is about diameter. You just refuse to look at the actual dimensions of the actual bullets on the market and keep droning on about 80% meplats. Or are you now changing your tune? Does bullet diameter matter now, rather than just meplat diameter?

I think perception is a funny thing. I think people see what they want to see. If you really believe that such a tiny difference in diameter makes a noticeable difference in the effect these bullets have on game, nothing will stop you from seeing it.



Of course, even when it isn't!

Of course, even when it isn't!

No, your experience on big game with the cartridges I question is no deflection, it's very relavent. Since you never answer the question one must assume the experience is none..

Argue on but you can't make a .429 larger in diameter than a .452 your answers are of biblical proportions and still don't make a logical conclusion.

And I can assume by your lack of an answer that you have not used the .44Mag in years, if ever. You don't have to assume. I have no problem sharing my answer but I asked you first.

My experience and yours for that matter, have no bearing on meplat diameter.

My main point is that one cannot automatically assume that the .45 is always, universally larger than the .44. Bullet diameter doesn't mean squat. The meplat is the only important dimension and despite the rhetoric, the .45 is not always bigger. This is undeniable fact. Even among bullets that are seemingly the same design. Folks are free to decide for themselves how much it matters.

The meplat on that 365gr Garret load is .335". Are you saying it's STILL more effective than a similar .44 load with a .345" meplat? By what means, wishful thinking???

Crickets.

Holy batshitcrazy.

This was when the heaviest bullets loaded in the .500 Linebaugh were in the 450 grain range. It wasn't till much later that experimentation revealed the superiority of 500 + grain bullets in the .500 and it essentially snatched the penetration crown off of the .475's head.

I don't think the .44 is a better penetrator on game and have never been really impressed with the way it kills relative to other calibers like the .45 Colt. Seyfried also felt the .44 Mag was a bit of an underachiever.

Can we stop hijacking this thread now??

Here is an experiment I'd like to see.

Shoot 20 specimens of the Cervidae family with 250 to 320 grain cast bullets of various styles - SWC, WFN, LFN - from a .45 Colt, MV in the 1100-1200 fps range. Shoot another 20 with 245 to 300 grain cast bullets of similar styles from a .44 Magnum, all from ranges of 20 to 100 yards. Add another 150 fps across the board for the .44 Magnum loads, just for experimental heck of it. Film all of the animals' reactions from before the hit until time of death. Assume good hits in the heart lung region for all bullets.

Now show that film to someone and dare them to tell with even 75% certainty which animal was hit by a bullet from which caliber. Heck, show them the wound channels and make that same dare.


Perhaps if we carried this discussion into other realms the opposing arguments might become more clear.

So, using good micrometers, let's take a wood beam 8.1262" across vs. one of equal length measuring 8.1978" across. That's a whopping .0716" difference, far more than the measly .022" difference between .452" and .430". Discuss the tremendous differences in load bearing capacity between the smaller and larger beam... (This idea was plagiarized directly from Dr. Howell.)


And if that satirical attempt at illumination still isn't clear, take a surface polished to 1000 grit and examine it under an electron microscope; it will look like the topography of the Himalayas. Now examine it by running your fingers across it; it will feel very smooth. Which is the correct examination?

The reason your 44 out penetrates the 45 is that the 45 bullet were sorter and deformed more. You still refuse to compare like bullets always slanting to the 44 side. I shoot use a 44 regularly.

Refuse ing to answer on your experience by claiming I asked first is ridiculous, I asked the question numerous times and never got an answer..

Let's see, I've learned that 44 is larger than 45, useing this logins 41 is larger than 44, now. Thankfully I have a 41 also

And few people recognize that even now. You have articles by well respected authorities deriding use of such heavy bullets.

You mean things changed with time? We now have better bullets than we had 30yrs ago? New bullets actuall changed old doctrine? Imagine that. Hmmmm.....funny how that only applies when we want it to.



So you think the tests Michael and I conducted have no merit? How long has it been since you gave up on the .44?

I know what Seyfried wrote and I know when he wrote it. Seyfried's judgement of the .44Mag is also 30yrs old and based on outdated bullet designs. Read it again and look at the bullets referenced.



Prezactly! Any difference between the two amounts to less than a hill of beans.

Utter bullshit. My tests were as identical as I could make them and no, the .45 bullets did not deform. I can post pics of them if you like. The .45's were all CPBC. Unlike you, I was interested in the truth. The real truth and would've accepted whatever it was.

Stop deflecting and answer the question. Or is the answer too inconvenient?