Black Powder Designation Question

[phantombear]

I need to pick your brains to possibly get an answer to this burning question. Here goes. The 1873 Winchester was chambered in various center fire cartridges, all using black powder when introduced. Hence, we have the 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, 25-20 etc. etc. Not sure about the others, but the 44-40 dates back to the Winch '73 in 1873. It was a great year! Colt brought out the SAA, also in 1873. It was chambered in most if not all cartridges as the Winch 73 plus the great .45 Colt. My question is: All of the other cartridges have a second two digit number designating the black powder charge. Why was this common practice not used for the .45 Colt or shorter Schofield round? Both originally black powder cartridges. I have seen old Winchester's stamped .44WCF and an old 94 30-30 stamped 30WCF but never saw an ammo box that did not use the complete caliber designation like in .44-40 Just curious if there is a specific reason the black powder designation was not used for the .45 in 1873

[Tuna]

Don't go by the 30-30 as it was the first smokeless powder round in the US. But it was a carry over from Black powder days to put the second 30 there. Later when the smokeless powder was in wide spread use many companies just dropped the second numbers as it was not loaded with black powder but smokeless instead. So if a box said .44WCF it was smokeless and if .44-40 Black powder. I'm not sure why the .45 Colt or S&W rounds were just marked .45.

[Johnny P]

When the rounds first came out they did not have the powder charge. They were .44 WCF, .38 WCF, and .32WCF. The powder charge was added later, probably to differentiate them from the cartridges with the same caliber designation. In fact, my 1873 Winchester is marked .44 Cal. on the barrel and bottom of the elevator.

The .45 Schofield was later marketed as the .45 S&W.

[dogtag]

I wonder if the guys who shot 45 Colts way back then really cared
about how much powder was behind the bullet.
If I had been manufacturing ammo back then I would certainly
have taken that into consideration and labeled accordingly.
It's not as though there was a huge choice of makers.

[OD#3]

A lot of firearms makers back then seemed to think it advantageous to design a firearm around a cartridge that they had designed and named after themselves. So what we think of as 44-40 was originally just 44 WCF (.44 Winchester Center Fire). Also, if other firearm makers chambered a firearm in that cartridge, they were loathe to engrave another firearm maker's name (or even initials) on their guns. So I think Colt was the first to start labeling the .44WCF cartridge the .44-40 once they started chambering SAA's in them. And they followed suit with the .38-40 and beyond. Some people mistakenly believe that it was for this rivalry alone that Winchester never chambered any of its rifles in .45 Colt back then. Truth is, the .45 Colt had no extractor groove in front of the rim like it has today, and that rim was just too tiny for reliable extraction in a rifle. I'm firmly wedded to the .45 Colt, and my reproduction Winchester lever guns are in that caliber, but I have to admit that the .44-40 is the slightly better of the two when using blackpowder. There was just no practical incentive for Winchester to make a rifle in .45 Colt back then. But I bet if Winchester could have produced lever guns in .45 Colt back then, they would have called it the 45-40 cartridge or some such.

Smith and Wesson vs. Colt worked the same way sometimes. They each made a .38 revolver that had identical chambers, but one called its chambering a .38 S&W, and the other a .38 Colt New Police. I understand that it was considered quite a big deal when S&W first started stamping .45 Colt CTG on the side of their .45 Colt chambered revolvers.

Anyway, I think the diameter and powder designation (sometimes even included a bullet weight in the name) was a very practical and helpful way to name cartridges back when the only propellent was black powder. It gave someone a much better idea of how powerful the cartridge was vs. "magnum", "action express", "maximum" and other more vague designations today.

[jjrothWA]

It was a carry over from US arsenals, when IDing the 45-70 as "45-70-405" which was the .45 caliber, with 70 grs of black powder , using initial the 405gr bullet.
When a "Carbine" round" was added the bullet dropped in weight?? [Please confirm, think it was 325grs???]
Commercial rounds were; 38-40-180gr and the 44-40-240 were the original designations.

[dave]

The second 30 in 30-30 did indicate powder charge, but smokeless not black.

[Johnny P]

Likewise, when the .30-30 came out it was the .30 WCF as was the .32 Special (.32 WCF).

[raymeketa]

The 45 Colt cartridge was developed as a U.S. military revolver round and there was no need to identify the bullet weight or powder charge in the designation. Box labels designated it as "Cartridges for Colt's Revolver, Cal. .45" and later as "Revolver Ball Cal .45".

The rifle and carbine ammunition were designated by bullet weight and powder charge because they were different. The original rifle cartridge was the 45-70-405 while the carbine cartridge was the 45-55-405. The rifle cartridge later became the 45-70-500.

[Sunray]

Marketing. Sam Colt was a genius at it.

[jjrothWA]

38WCF = 38 cal [actually .403 diameter bullet over 40 grains of black powder not sure if "FFFg or FFg" propelling a bullet weighing 180 gr [lead, the jacketed] ]