Talk about Ka-Booms

[beagle]

About a month ago, my shooting partner was describing a friends new old SA Colt .45 made in 1873.

Last week, he was shooting reloads in it and the top three chambers went along with the top strap.

No reloading fuba was indicated. My friend says the metal on one chamber was discolored as if it had been cracked for a while.

No injuries (except maybe brown stains in his pants) but he certainly turned a couple thousand bucks worth of SA into a pile of parts.

Goes to show that we need to kind of pay attention to the vintages and condition of what we shoot./beagle

[Bucks Owin]

About a month ago, my shooting partner was describing a friends new old SA Colt .45 made in 1873.

Last week, he was shooting reloads in it and the top three chambers went along with the top strap.

No reloading fuba was indicated. My friend says the metal on one chamber was discolored as if it had been cracked for a while.

No injuries (except maybe brown stains in his pants) but he certainly turned a couple thousand bucks worth of SA into a pile of parts.

Goes to show that we need to kind of pay attention to the vintages and condition of what we shoot./beagle

Uh oh! I hope he wasn't trying to shoot "Ruger only" type handloads in it. That thing (was) a BP .45 Colt!

That's a crying shame....

Dennis

Why the hell was he shooting such a museum piece anyway? An 1873 .45 Colt?!? That's the FIRST one!

[Dale53]

Lots of WW II revolvers have been shot "a lot". That was not so very long ago. Since S&W did not start heat treating their cylinders until about 1950, any of the WWII revolvers are suspect with "heavy" loads. If people stay within SAAMI limits for loads, I doubt that anyone would have any problem with them. However, they are NOT to be hotrodded (and they are about seventy years NEWEr than the '73 BP Colt)! Skeeter Skelton told about "losing" one of the WW II Smiths after too many heavy loads.

FWIW
Dale53