anybody ever shoot a 44.40 in a 45 long colt revolver by mistake?

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Originally Posted by JoeJames

My uncle said that in WW2 in Europe some claimed you could shoot 30-06 rounds in an 8mm Mauser. He did not say whether he had tried it or not. I reckon there might be a headspace problem there, and accuracy might be wanting.

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Sounds like the urban legend about the German waiting to hear the "ping" from a Garand before poking his head up. Never been in battle, but if someone was banging away at me with an M1, I doubt if I could concentrate enough to hear the "ping".

Never tried putting a 7.62x63(metrification of the 30-06) into a 8x57 chamber. 6 millimeters shorter is a bunch.

Not sure I have a big enough hammer to close the bolt on that one.

Anybody tried it?

I like "this is what happened when" more than my geezer speculation.:bigsmyl2:

I bought a rough rider once and the guy let me test fire it. So he handed it to me and said it's loaded. I cocked it and shot it. When I ejected the empties I noticed they were split. He had the magnum cylinder in it but was shooting long rifles. I said something bout it and he said oh the magnum cylinder works for both.

I once shot a 44 magnum out of a 454 sounded like a popgun and hit the 10" gong at 100 yards

I thought a guy at the range today was shooting the wrong ammo. He was using a silencer on his 9mm.

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Originally Posted by smkummer

Yep, the 5-1 blanks show that the rim and base of those 3 cartridges are very close. While those cases were not intended to be reloaded, I do. If fired in a 44-40 or 45 colt, the case neck will expand enough so it won’t fit back into a 38-40 without some sizing. Starline sells empty 5 in 1 cases.
I reload with 700X powder, packing foam and sometimes card wads. Magnum primers sometime help with a good bang.

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What, no BP for more flash and smoke? :Fire:

Cowboy Shooters who started reloading on a dillon press are very dangerous people to shoot around.
Got A call about 20yrs ago or so from one of the new members of one of the clubs I belonged to back then. He called to tell me something was wrong with his brass and his reloader. He lived fairly close, so the next day I went over to help him. He was reloading for .45Colt, the brass didn't fit right in his press.
He had cleaned his brass, but made no attempt to sort it.
Had .45Colt, .44Mag & Spl, .44-40, .38-40, .41Mag and even .38/.357 mixed together in a big blasted akro bin.
Found out his scale was not balanced or zero'd.
He had 500rds that I had watched him load, very carefully.
Four hours later I left with about 200rds of .45Colt that He had loaded before I got there. Took every case that wasn't a .45Colt with me too.
After breaking all that ammo down over the next week, I found what could have been a disaster waiting to happen. At least 10rds without powder, but about 40odd with light charges and some even with double charges.

Something I still remember in great detail.
Still have a .41Mag with a .452 bullets crushed down into it.

I once shot a 270 out of a 3006. About 60yd shot at deer. The noise startled me and the deer. The deer recovered before I did and bolted. I didn’t hit deer but swear I herd bullet hit ground, weakly.
No damage to gun. Because of having many rifles I never form brass if it can be bought. If I have to form I turn brass with shallow groove through head stamp and color with felt tip marker to draw attention.

No not 44-40 in a 45 LC but my neighbor fired a .308 win in a 270 win. Disasterous results.

I been reloading 60 odd years,and got caught up in a powder clumping episode with some squibs,some double loads........Very fortunately ,the first round I fired was a squib,bullet actually stuck half out of muzzle .

Once after loading I found a .30-06 with a .270 headstamp. At first I thought somebody at the factory screwed up. It became obvious that I had mixed a spent .270 brass in with the .30-06 brass for reloading.

Yeap, case mouth opened up real good and didnt even split

In Sixguns, Elmer Keith recounts two lads being held captive by a badman and forced to work for nothing. While being relieved of his ammuntion, one was allowed to keep his .45 Colt revolver. (That doesn't make much sense, but I 'm just repeating what Keith wrote.) One day they found a 38/40 round, wrapped it in paper to make a tight fit in the chamber, and confronted their captor. Keith reports "it did the job."

.44-40 shot patterns fine in my Uberti New Sheriff.45 Colt revolver.

Attachment 270457

No .... and if I did, I wouldn't tell anybody ...

I haven't shot any but had a couple 624s in boxes on a dresser and loaded them out of some baggies of handloads later happened to look closer at them and found I had a mixture of .44 and .41special ammo loaded in the cylinders. It made the hair stand up on my neck............

We’ve sure seen .45 Colt cartridges loaded in ‘73 rifles at cowboy matches, jams them right up. Have to remove the side plate to clear the rifle.

It’s said famed Indian fighter Jeff Milton loaded a .45 Colt in a Winchester ‘73 during a fight. As the story goes he used his knife to remove the screws that held the sideplate and cleared the jam during the fight.

I have no doubt Jeff Milton could take his ‘73 apart blindfolded, but this is quite a claim.

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Originally Posted by Walks

Cowboy Shooters who started reloading on a dillon press are very dangerous people to shoot around.

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Watched a cowboy shooter blow the top half of the cylinder and the top strap off an Uberti cowboy revolver ~10 years ago. He started the stage and had a squib on the first shot. Stopped the stage and went back and cleared the problem, reloaded and started the stage over. With the same box of ammo.

I was standing directly behind him, he was shooting out of a window with a tin awning extending out 18" from the building. He shot, there was a tremendous BANG and he stopped shooting. The tin awning was flexing up and down and he just stood there stunned. He had blown the gun with out getting hurt. Ripped a hole through the awning as the top of the cylinder and top strap departed for parts unknown.

He just stood there for a while pretty well stunned, stung his hand HARD but no other damage. Another shooter loaned him a revolver to finish the match, the lunatic started to load this loaner revolver out of the same box of ammo.

The guy who loaned the gun put a stop to that instantly--use his ammo or he was taking his gun back. Smart guy.

The other guy was a little insulted. He didn't think there was anything wrong with his ammo. He prided himself on being a reloading expert. And he had no problem lecturing other people on how to reload.

I tried to avoid shooting on the same posse as him after that.

Shot at that club this past summer for the first time in a number of years, for grins, I checked if they had replaced that awning. Not yet, just wish I had taken a photo.

I did the day he blew the gun up, can't find it. Took one of the gun and the awning pretty cool.

And I don't take loading advice from him.

I haven't but I'd bet a lot of Indians did, probably a few cowboys too........

Closest for me was shooting a couple .17 HMR rounds through a .22 Mag....split both cases.

I once fired a 16ga in a 12ga by mistake. It sounded underpowered, but I got the clay bird. When looking through a bucket full of reclaimed cases, I have found .38-40's blown out straight, apparently in a ,45 Colt chamber.

I had read somewhere that some sourdough in Alaska found he could shoot 8x57 in his .30-06 M-95 lever when he couldn't get proper ammo during the war. He told the author of the article that it kicked pretty hard but worked okay. I suppose the case expanding into the unoccupied chamber volume would reduce pressure somewhat, but swaging that .323 bullet down to .308 would be asking a lot. Seems to me that sourdough was tempting a terrible lingering end out in the wilderness.

A tool and die maker I met years ago bought a bunch of M-17's and Mausers to experiment on when you could get them through the mail. His son told me of his having made a reamer to cut a taper into the throat of the M-17 barrel to accept 8mm-06 in a .30 cal barrel. He fired them from a distance, but they would survive. At least they had a lead of sorts.

Another unfortunate mix-up is firing .300 Blackout in a .223 chamber, which apparently will chamber without resistance and is a guaranteed disaster for the rifle, if not the shooter.