Quiet 1

If this hasn't happened somewhere, sometime to someone. An "incident".

I wrote in a previous thread that I had no experience with the .44 caliber cartridge. But, that I was waiting for a new Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum to arrive.

Well it has and it's a real beauty. I just received some ammunition for it too.
Mostly .44 Special but also a box of .44 Magnum. I was really amazed at how the .44 Mag and the .45 Colt cartridges were almost exactly the same dimensions. At a glance they are very difficult to differentiate between. And, BTW while the .45 Colt will obviously not fit into the .44 chambers, the .44 magnum drops beautifully into the .45 Colt's chambers.

I wonder how many individuals, over the years, have had an "incident" occur from dropping a .44 magnum round into a .45 Colt? Has anyone here ever heard of this happening?

Forgive the poor photography, but guess which is which.




OK, the .44 magnum is on the left in each photo. But, you do see my point, yes?

terry_p

Is the rim wider in the 44 mag?

I tiled your photo's just so the thread will fit on a normal sized screen.

Quiet 1

The .44 mag rim is within .001 both in diameter (.507 vs. .508) and in thickness (.054 vs..055) The diameter of it's case is .452 vs. .473 and it's overall length is 1.568 vs. 1.594 Pretty dang close. And, as I said, the .44 mag fits easily and smoothly into the .45 Colt cylinders.

I've read several accounts of folks mixing up 9mm kurz (.380) and 9mm Luger and shooting them, usually without serious consequences, and just was courious if anyone ever heard or read about it happening with the .44 mag / .45 Colt.

Thank you. I should try to get a better photo. they're both pretty bad.

bwinters

When I was 30 years younger as a stunt I put on a welders apron and old style metal welders mask and gloves and a heavy shirt I fired 5 44 mag rounds in a ruger 45 colt blackhawk and all 5 fired and all cases were split and it took a wooden dowel to punch them out. I did it as a stunt and was younger and dumber.

BlkHawk73

This is when the person shooting needs to be smarter than the equipment. You have ONE type of ammo out at a time so there is no mix-ups. Mix-ups aren't a "whoops, me bad", it's a I'm a freakin idiot with no excuse other than being too numb to know better".

rockmcl

Figure that if bwinters had tried that with other than a large frame ruger, he might type slower, missing fingers and all. (reminds me of "testing" how rimfires work in the basement and verifying that powder did not "blow up" just "burned fast" with a hand held match, probably the most dangerous things I did before I starting dating)

Round here, I personally don't need more than 45colt in a handgun but do have a 44 carbine around. I will make sure that my sons/grandkids are warned about that when deer season comes and we get a group hunt together.

Good heads up and hopefully you are satisfied with someone else testing it years ago!!!

laidlerj

Years ago, a friend of mine (who's not so smart about guns) was showing me his new S&W 9mm pistol and telling me how he used .380 rounds for practice, just like he used .38 specials in his .357 magnum.

I figured that the extractor - which is pretty beefy in the 3rd generation S&W's - would hold the .380 well enough to get a primer strike, but I could never figure out how the .380 would cycle a 9mm pistol. I've never been curious enough to try that out, myself.

As for putting .44 magnums in a .45 Colt, I've heard one guy at my local range talking about how he made that sort of mixup while practicing for a cowboy shoot - he had a pair of .45 Colt Vaqueros but was using a borrowed .44 Magnum carbine and lost track of what was what, since the ammo was in ziplock bags.

Since both types of ammo were loaded light for cowboy shooting, nothing serious happened apart from a couple of split cases. The funny part was that he didn't immediately realize that he'd switched the ammo until he tried to load .45 Colt rounds into the .44 magnum carbine. That's when he looked at the headstamp.


Jim

EDK

A gun writer whose name I do not recall told on himself in this respect. He attended his first Cowboy Action shoot with SAA COLTS in 44 and 45 and a 44 caliber rifle. He fired a 44 Special in the 45 Colt revolver and didn't notice it until he was sorting brass at home afterwards. The cases must have looked pretty weird after that much expansion.

The movie industry developed "5-in-1 blanks" for 38/40, 44/40 and 45 Colt revolvers and lever guns....Should they have called them 6-in-1?

I once bought a lot of 1000 once fired 44 magnum casings. Even after casual inspection, a 45 Colt casing brought the DILLON 550B to a screeching halt! I also found 9mm casings inside several 44 empties...didn't do the de-capping pin a lot of good and I couldn't get the 9mm out of the brass either. Oh well, I got the lot of brass at a good price.