45 acp in 1894 45 colt

[frugal]

I read an old thread of someone shooting 45 acp in the 45 colt levers by hanging the rim of the acp shell on the extractor in the partially closed position Tried this by trying to fire a dummy round, but the firing pin pushes the acp shell forward into the breech, removing it from the extractor. looked at the dummy round and the firing pin does make an impact on the primer enough to fire the round. Does anyone have any experience with this to know if this is safe to fire in this way? the acp case head should be strong enough to hold the pressure if unsupported. ideas? experiences? thanks
Frugal

[fishhawk]

with the resurgance of the avalability of 45 colt brass why bother trying to use 45 acp? now if it was the end of the world where nothing else was avalable that would be differnt

[frugal]

I have tons of 45 colt brass, its more of a curiosity to know if this is possible. A lever that can take multiple cartridges has more utility such as a 38/357 or 44 sp/44 mag.

[Skrenos]

You cant hang the 'rim' of the .45 acp case on the extractor as .45 acp is a 'rimless' case. You'd have to use something like .45 autorim. What you're experiencing is excessive case headspace. What would happen, if it did fire, is that the round would be pushed forward while it was igniting, hit the front of the chamber (or stop somewhere in the middle), and then recoil would push the case backwards in the chamber slamming into the breech face. What you get is excessive case thrust and greatly increased wear.

You wouldnt shoot any other gun with excessive headspace would you? Dont try to create that by using the wrong rounds. Swing out cylinder revolvers can get away with that by using moon-clips which keeps proper headspace.

[Doughty]

I tried this a while back, out of curiosity. It worked in my rifle and gave, at least, minute of coffee can accuracy at 50 yards off hand. I made a post about it in case others might be curious.

[Doughty]

For fun, I took my Marlin .45 Colt to the range yesterday afternoon. This is the same rifle that I used to test fire .45 ACP ammo in several months ago. Since that time I fave fired about 1000 rounds of 45 Colt through it. During this time I used this rifle to compete in Ranch Dog's postal match. In the bench open sight event I shot a score under an inch. Later I put a red dot sight on the rifle and used it to hunt with, taking two whitetail does and a small bear.

Before going to the range yesterday I grapped a handfull of .45 ACP ammo that had been loaded to use in a 1911 pistol. They had 200 grain cast slugs, a moderate amount of 231 powder, Winchester LP primers, and mixed cases. The sight setting was left at its hunting setting for my heavy 45 Colt loads. Below is the group that I fired offhand at fifty yards. Five of the rounds fired on the first attempt. One round failed to fire, so it was extracted, rotated a quarter turn, and tried, at which point it fired into the group.

I've got lots of Colt brass too, and it is certainly the most efficent cartridge in this rifle, but....... I was just curious.

[frugal]

I did not consider the headspace effect on the acp brass, but I guess that might be a consideration although the acp is usually considered a low-pressure cartridge. What may work is to apply a viton o-ring to the extractor groove of the acp cartridge, in a dummy round it holds the shell from entering the breech and allows positive contact with the breech face. will try this with some live rounds next time the weather breaks, think this will work. Thanks for the ideas on this one, especially to Old Vic for having the original idea.