Home Forums Reloading Handgun Reloading Couple of questions...Primers and case resizing (separate questions)

Totally agree, who ever thought it was a good idea to do this should be castrated.

The original 1917 S&W's supposedly had chambers cut such that they could headspace on the case mouth and fire ACPs without the moon clips. I say supposedly because I never tried it with the one I owned in the 80's; I only used moon clips or Auto Rims.

Early 1917 Colts supposedly can't headspace on the case mouth, they required moon clips or the later Auto Rims. However somewhere along the way Colt changed their chambers and and later ones can fire ACPs without the clips. One of my closest friends owns a later Colt and a pretty bad case of Rheumatoid Arthritis. The original metal clips were tough for him to manage, even with one of the tools made for them. Most of the time he just shoots ACPs and flicks the empties out with a screwdriver or pushes them out with a pencil. Kind of slow, but it's not a combat handgun (any more).

There is a lot of confusion with the .45 acp/.45 colt revolvers in this thread, for what I refer to as the "three generations" of .45 acp-compatible revolvers - the old S&W and Colt revolvers pressed into service in WW I, modern double action revolvers, and Ruger single action revolvers.

WW I - era double action revolvers are generally only chambered for .45acp. The chambers aren't long enough for .45 Colt. The .45 acp cartridges will headspace on the case mouth and fire just fine without moon or half moon clips. The clips are used so that the empties can be removed using the extractor. The gap between the cylinder and the frame is wide enough by design for the clips. The .45 auto rim case was developed so that loading and extraction could be done normally, eliminating the half and full moon clips, which tend to bend, break, or get lost in a war zone.

Modern double action revolvers (like the S&W 625- ) can be chambered specifically for the .45 acp only, and work just like their ancestors from the great war, with or without moon clips, and also with .45 auto rim brass. Dual-use revolvers (like the Ruger Redhawk) are chambered for .45 Colt, and can also fire .45 acp rounds with moon clips. The difference between a Redhawk that is .45 acp compatible and a regular .45 Colt Redhawk is that the cylinder face of the .45 acp compatible Redhawk has been machined with a recess that allows the moon clip to fit flush with the cylinder face. There isn't room between the frame and the cylinder in a regularly chambered .45 Colt Redhawk for the moon clip, hence the machined recess in the dual-use model. Quite clever, really.

Ruger single action convertible revolvers have two cylinders. The .45 Colt cylinder uses the rim of the case, the .45 acp uses the mouth of the case for headspacing purposes. There is a seperate cylinder for each chambering for two reasons:

1. You'd have to remove the cylinder every time you loaded or unloaded .45 acp if you used moon clips. Obviously, the loading/unloading gate wouldn't work with moon clips installed.
2. There isn't clearance between the frame and front of the cylinder for moon clips anyway.

I used to shoot bowling pins with a S&W 625-2. I always competed with moon clips, for obvious reasons. Out of curiosity, several times I tested it without the clips. About one out of 30 or so rounds would fail to fire. The firing pin dents in the primers of the FTF cartridges were only slightly dented, I think because the headspace was a bit sloppy with slightly shorter cases. This allowed for too much fore/aft movement when the pin struck the primer. For the most part though, it worked either way.

Good summary of the truth, other than somewhere along the lines modern Smith 625's in 45 ACP are now devoid of the ability to headspace on the case mouth, along with the dual use Ruger mentioned as well; the latter allows the 45 Colt to be used in the same cylinder.
For clarity, any revolver in 45 ACP that has the ability to headspace on the case mouth WILL NOT chamber a 45 Colt cartridge, period.

Another clarification is that the 45 Auto Rim was developed specifically as a commercial, post war invention by the Peters Cartridge Company for war surplus revolvers and was not developed for military use.

I think the 45 Colt cartridge (and maybe the 45 ACP to a latter degree) has the distinction of having the most nonsense and BS surrounding it than any cartridge in history.

I have a 1917 chambered in 45 Colt. The cylinder will not close with a moon clips or with 45 auto rim cases.

Thanks!