By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The .45 Colt cartridge dates back more than 150 years, and that long test of time has verified it to be a versatile, fairly accurate and formidable round which has put meat in the cooler, good guys and bad guys in the ground, stopped bad behavior merely by its presence and given rise to some very modern single-and double-action revolvers.
Introduced in the Colt Single Action Army revolver back in 1873, it was in service with the Army until 1892, but it has remained in production through the years. General George Patton carried an engraved and nickel-plated .45 Colt as a sidearm during WWII, and we’ve seen countless screen cowboys pack such sixguns in movies and on television for generations.
As a cartridge, the .45 Colt is a classic. Case length is 1.285 inches and the overall cartridge length is 1.6 inches. It operates with a maximum pressure of 14,000 psi, according to SAAMI specs listed at The Ballistic Assistant.
My personal favorite “packin’ pistol” (as the late John Taffin called them) in .45 Colt is a Ruger New Vaquero single-action of modern design, capable of being fully loaded with all chambers in the cylinder loaded because of a frame-mounted, retracting firing pin and transfer bar.
Long story short, like every other Ruger sixgun I own, this particular specimen is well-built, was fairly accurate right out of the box—I had to stone the front blade sight down about 0.001-002 some years ago to adjust for my favorite handload, and beyond that and grip swaps—it wears either a set of Magna Tusk aged ivory grips from Arizona Custom or a snazzy pair of elk antler grips crafted by the crew at Eagle Grips, where longtime pal Raj Singh is proprietor—I haven’t really touched it. Windage has always been very good with the rear sight notch, and when I’ve missed a can or other small target, the distance was so negligible as to clearly assure me if I was shooting at something bigger, I’d have hit it.
The short-barreled New Vaquero these days has an MSRP of $1079.00. Its barrel measures 4.62 inches, is cut with six lands and grooves on a 16-inch right-hand twist.
New, with the factory hardwood grips, it scales at 40 ounces, according to Ruger, and I’ll take their word for it. In my holster(s) it packs comfortably, and responds fast when necessity requires.
As mentioned above, the front sight is a traditional blade and the rear sight is a traditional notch at the top rear of the frame. I can manage to keep a tin can rolling around out to 20-25 yards on most days, which means I can definitely hit something bigger if required.
The .45 Colt load I worked up which seems to perform pretty well out of the New Vaquero uses 6.9 grains of Hodgdon HP-38 to launch a Hornady 255-grain RNFP lead bullet (0.454) in the neighborhood of 850 fps, and I’ve been lately toying with CFE Pistol powder as a substitute, and getting decent results, though I haven’t shot those loads enough to make a good comparison. Velocity is better, but there doesn’t appear to be much difference in accuracy; they still go where they’re sent!
Overall length of the handgun is 10.25 inches, which makes it carry well while I’m driving around the backcountry in my pickup.
As I’ve written in this space previously, out here in the Pacific Northwest where I live in the Cascade foothills, one should not be surprised to encounter black bears or even mountain lions, coyotes or an occasional bobcat, like the one my security camera picked up on two different occasions making its way through my backyard at zero-dark-thirty.
In the backcountry, a 255-grain piece of lead speeding along at 850 fps is going to get immediate attention from whatever it hits.
Having carried this sixgun off the pavement for more than a decade, I’m convinced it was not crafted just for weekend cowboys at shooting matches. Ruger designers clearly put a lot of thought into the New Vaquero, and they don’t appear to have skipped any steps.
My gun has a decent action, it clears leather quickly and recoil even with full-power standard .45 Colt loads has never been anything I couldn’t handle. With either set of my grips installed, it rocks back into my hand like a sixgun is supposed to.
When this gun isn’t being carried in a leather holster on a traditional cartridge belt, it slides into a high-ride rig I built some years back out of very stiff shoulder leather, along with six spare cartridges carried in a belt slide rig.
For serious business, the .45 Colt is no slouch. I’ve read about people shooting deer-sized game with it, stopping a horse or cow, and certainly about its performance in gunfights. Just peruse any history of the Old West and the .45 Colt is going to be there.
It may be the quintessential wheelgun cartridge, and definitely stands right there next to the .44-40 and .44 Special as calibers that conquered the West.
