Colt Lightning Revolver in American Rifleman

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

 

The "I Have this Old Gun," article in this month's American Rifleman was about the Colt Lightning revolver.  It was a pretty good article, but I have to admit that I had two issues with it.  The first was how they didn't point out that the earlier ones had a .375" bore, and later ones had a .357" bore, reflecting the change in the .38 Long Colt cartridge that it was chambered for.  I can confirm this, as I have an 1880's vintage one that has the bigger bore, and a 1900's one that has the smaller.

The other issue I had with the article was how there was a picture of a vintage box of .38 Long Colt ammo with the revolver that was clearly labeled as being smokeless.  I have read many times how even as late as 1909, the last year Colt made them, that they were sold as black powder only guns.  I find it odd that American Rifleman would make a mistake like that.

[watab kid]

i read it , i think they tried to keep iy short and simple , they may well not have researched enough for the articole to know the details you mention or they left a bunch out for brevity , the phot was possibly staged by the photographer for content not detail quality , at least they were long colts 

[Cholla]

As a gun writer I have some experience in this. The editor give me a maximum word count so I have to decide what makes it in and what doesn't. Most readers are not going to reload for the Colt M1877 so the bullet size is going to take back seat to other more interesting data.

And, I use props such as cartridge boxes in my photos. I pay for those props out of my pocket. I have a .38 LC smokeless box I have used in my article on the M1877 because it cost me less than $30. An original black powder cartridge box is most likely going to cost more that what I make for the article.

If you read what Savvy Jack has posted, many early smokeless powders replicated black powder pressures because that was what most guns needed at the time, so the rounds shown are most likely a correct representation of what was used.

[H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619]

13 minutes ago, Cholla said:

many early smokeless powders replicated black powder pressures because that was what most guns needed at the time

 

That is interesting to me.   Too bad that there isn't such a powder on the market today to use in handloading for these old timers. 

[Cholla]

On 6/24/2022 at 6:13 AM, H. K. Uriah, SASS #74619 said:

 

That is interesting to me.   Too bad that there isn't such a powder on the market today to use in handloading for these old timers. 

Here is a very hard to read newspaper article from 1899. Part of it talks about the differences between smokeless and BP. I thought you might find it interesting.

Handling Firearms.pdf

[Alpo]

I recall this in one of Elmer's books - don't remember if it was Sixguns or Hell - but he told about shooting something with a 38/40. Seems like it was a mountain lion. It did not put it down. He had to shoot it twice. That was with factory smokeless ammunition. Between the fact that it did not do as good on game, and it did not recoil as much, he suspected that it was not loaded as hot. So he did some comparison shooting between the new factory smokeless rounds and the older factory black rounds. His conclusion was that the black powder rounds were much more powerful.