Ammo Capabilities of the RedHawk .45 LC/.45 Auto

[BPGuy]

I'm an owner of the "new" RedHawk .45 LC/.45 ACP. At the risk of overstating the obvious, this revolver can handle both .45 Long Colt and .45 ACP ammunition with aplomb.

Today, as I was perusing some videos on YouTube, I gained some information on a round called the .460 Rowland, which, to my understanding, is to the .45 ACP what the .357 Mag is to .38 Special, .44 Mag to .44 Spec, etc. Basically, someone the brought the chamber pressure into more modern specs and lengthened the case (by 1/16", I believe) to prevent a more powerful round from being chambered in a gun that may not be able to handle higher pressures.

This brought to my somewhat imaginative (though not particularly knowledgeable!) mind a question - could the .460 Rowland be safely fired in the new RedHawk? I don't have any on hand, though intuition tells me I should be able to put them on the same moon-clips used for ACP ammo, and that it would fit into the chamber. The question in my mind is - are the working pressures of the .460 Rowland too high for the RedHawk?

Similar questions about the .45 Win Mag - would it fit? Would it be safe to fire?

Are there rounds out there I haven't mentioned that would chamber and fire safely in this gun?

I'm just thinking that if these rounds are safe to chamber and fire, it would add even more versatility to the gun. This is more in interest of sparking a discussion. I don't have any plans to try it out, more than anything I'm just curious!

 

[NikA]

Anything with a case length less than .45LC should chamber. Safe to fire is a different matter entirely. It has be stated that the RH is capable of handling pressures up to 50ksi safely. If so, any cartridge that fits and generates less pressure should be safe. That would include both the .460 Rowland and the .45 Win Mag. I believe the Win Mag would be a better choice due to the longer case, which would lessen the bullet jump to the throat. An even better option might be .308W cases cut down to .45LC length, which should fit the chamber exactly and allow use of the full moon clips. I have intended to play with this but got focused on cylinder length shotshells instead.

 

[BPGuy]

Interesting! Thanks for the reply. My (admittedly limited) research showed the "+P .45 Colt" ammo was at about 30,000 PSI, which is below the 40,000 or so PSI generated by the .460 Rowland, and thus the cause for my concern. I haven't looked into the .45 Win Mag, I just saw it mentioned somewhere related, and so mentioned it here. As far as pure accuracy is concerned, I agree with your suppositions about the Win Mag being superior would be correct. Probably better ballistics as well.

Any other thoughts/input on this subject would be greatly appreciated!

 

[427mach1]

I would look at Buffalo Bore, Grizzly, Double Tap, or other ammunition manufacturers that offer hot 45 Colt loads. The case would extend the length of the chamber, making cleaning a little easier since there won't be a residue ring. Any of these loads should be powerful enough for anything you are likely to encounter in the woods.

 

[BPGuy]

427mach1 (nice name, btw!), my inquiry isn't so much about maximizing power, but about versatility. I realize that most .454 Casull loads fall within the 50K psi level of the RedHawk's cylinder. I'm just wondering what other rounds could safely be chambered and fired in my RedHawk.

Thank you for your input, though.

 

[sasu]

I had not heard of shooting 45 ACP in a 45 Colt cylinder so I did some investigations. A gunsmith can modify a 45 Colt cylinder to accept moon clips which headspace the 45 ACP correctly and 45 Colt will still work normally, too, with or without the clips. An interesting modification, good for the zombie apocalypse when you do not know what ammo you will find.

Has Ruger produced such dual use cylinders, too? EDIT: Yes!

http://www.ruger.com/products/redhawk/specSheets/5032.html

Chambered to shoot both .45 Auto and .45 Colt cartridges and ships with three (3) full moon clips that act as both a speed loader for the .45 auto rounds and aid in the ejection of the spent cartridges.

 

[DPris]

Where have you been for the last year?
Denis

 

[Mobuck]

"within the 50K psi level of the RedHawk's cylinder"

Are you absolutely certain the cylinder uses the same material and heat treat as the hot rocket chambered cylinders?

 

[NikA]

If you read my post (from which the 50ksi number comes), I said "it has been stated," not "I am stating." I think this figure comes from Brian Pearce or some similar gun writer. If that number is accurate, the 40-45ksi of 460 or 45WM should not be an issue. As I have stated before, I don't think the RH cylinder is stonger than the BH one in any significant way that can be discerned without destructive testing, and I would be hestitant to fire anything over 35ksi in either.

I don't have the equipment to measure cartridge pressures at the moment, so I will defer to the guidance of those who do.

N.B.: what can be done one time in an ammo crisis or during a magazine test is not necessarily safe for the life of the firearm. This is what disturbs me about the claims made on the ultimate strength of these platforms. Appropriate engineering would dictate use of fatigue failure as opposed to yield failure as the ultimate failure criterion; if this is considered, the max "wise" pressure maybe be much less than the max "one time" pressure.

 

[22/45 Fan]

Appropriate engineering would dictate use of fatigue failure as opposed to yield failure as the ultimate failure criterion; if this is considered, the max "wise" pressure maybe be much less than the max "one time" pressure.

I believe the "maximum one time pressure" is known as a "proof load". You certainly don't want to feed any gun a steady diet of these.

 

[BPGuy]

Appropriate engineering would dictate use of fatigue failure as opposed to yield failure as the ultimate failure criterion; if this is considered, the max "wise" pressure maybe be much less than the max "one time" pressure.

Agreed. However, your response begs another question - what is the max "wise" pressure?

 

[NikA]

That's part of my point here. SAAMI spec for .45LC is 14ksi. A 100% proof load would be 28ksi. SAAMI only mandates a 40-55% proof load for the LC; not knowing what Ruger proofs these guns at, we can only say that these guns were proofed up to around 21ksi (ETA: I guess we can say they're proofed for .45ACP levels, so 31ksi). A gun writer lists loads at 32ksi and possibly up to 50ksi. Are those loads safe for a small sample of shots? Most likely. Are those loads safe for extensive use in the firearm? There's no way to tell without further input.
Based on what I have found from Ruger on the heat treatment of their steels and my measurements, (1) I believe the weak point of these guns are the cylinder walls between chambers, which measure .066" in both RH and BH cylinders and (2) I believe a reasonable pressure limit for these guns is not more than 35ksi, which by my basic calculations yields a hoop stress about ~10% less than the highest yield stress Ruger lists for the steel they use in these cylinders. I infer here that the heat treatment is not significantly different between the .44M and the .45LC cylinders and calculate that Ruger must be heat treating these cylinders to near maximum yield strength because that would be required to pass the .44M proof without yield. When I put in the 50ksi number, I come up with a stress approximately equal to the tensile strength of the steel, meaning that while the cylinder shouldn't fail catastrophically, it should permanently deform when a 50ksi load is fired. Based on the normal fatigue strength of steels, I would might further lower my number to 25ksi, but that would assume a number of firings that would probably wear out most other parts of the gun.
In conclusion: can you fire it once? Probably. Should you fire it on a regular basis? Probably not, and what's the point anyway since you've not address the bullet jump issue inherent to shorter cases.

 

[tinman]

You will hear that these wonderful guns will indeed handle the high pressure ammo.....but there is another question..........can you handle the gun with that ammo? Shortly after getting mine I had such questions......I love this gun. It handles all my "regular" .45 Colt ammo with ease and makes a .45 ACP feel like a .38 target round. So, wanting to see what it would do with the ammo I would likely use in dangerous game country (I have told this story before) I bought two boxes of Garrett Hammer Heads. One box each...... LFR/GC/365gr/1250fps/35,000psi and a box of their RHO/405gr/1250fps/45,000psi.
Luckily (????) I chose the lighter of the two first.......
With that ammo, the round butt, with its multi angle checkering (that, under normal circumstances, is very comfortable to me) became a weapon unto itself. The first shot was an attention getter........not just for me........but for everyone else on the indoor line..........the second shot was a warning (that I did not heed)......and the third shot actually cut me........yup, dripdripdripdrip....left a blood trail all the way over to the first aid box. Stopped on the way home to buy two pairs of shooting gloves. Still looking for some grips to tame this critter.

 

[BPGuy]

I have no intention of extended use of high pressure rounds; if I did, I'd have gotten a .44 mag rather than the .45 Colt/ACP version of this gun. I've already installed Pachymayr Presentation grips to help address the issues tinman addresses above.

I do, however, like the idea of using .460 Rowland as carry/defense rounds. It's a significant upgrade to .45 ACP. And, like I stated in the first post, this is intended more to spark a discussion on the subject of ammo versatility.

 

[s4s4u]

I do, however, like the idea of using .460 Rowland as carry/defense rounds. It's a significant upgrade to .45 ACP. And, like I stated in the first post, this is intended more to spark a discussion on the subject of ammo versatility.

Ammo versatility is one thing, but accuracy trumps that in my book and you will not get the same accuracy from the shorter 460R as you will from the 45 Colt. I would like a 45 Colt Redhawk, but couldn't care less about the 45 ACP aspect of it. However, I do like the idea of the cut down .308 cases and moon clips.