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S&W Revolvers: 1961 to 1980 3-Screw PINNED Barrel SWING-OUT Cylinder Hand Ejectors WITH Model Numbers


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  #1  
Old 11-09-2008, 12:26 AM
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gaucho1 gaucho1 is offline
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I am going to convert to be able to shoot
.45acp from a highly cutomized 25 in 45colt.

For those who have or have fired this conversion.

How is the accuracy?

I have a 4"MG in acp and it is at worst,one the most accurate centerfire revolvers I have ever
shot.Sorry for the weird sentence.

I am hoping for something similar.

Thank You
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Old 11-09-2008, 12:26 AM
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gaucho1 gaucho1 is offline
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I am going to convert to be able to shoot
.45acp from a highly cutomized 25 in 45colt.

For those who have or have fired this conversion.

How is the accuracy?

I have a 4"MG in acp and it is at worst,one the most accurate centerfire revolvers I have ever
shot.Sorry for the weird sentence.

I am hoping for something similar.

Thank You
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Old 11-09-2008, 01:00 AM
john traveler john traveler is offline
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Gaucho,

I have shot a couple .45 ACP converted .45 Colt S&W revolvers, both M25, and found the accuracy unimpressive. By that, I mean that firing .45 Colt in these guns routinely produced 2.5" t 3" groups at 25 yards, but switching to .45ACP ball and 200 g SWC lead bullets would give at best, 4" to 6" groups at the same 25 yards.

I have also converted other M25 .45 Colt revolvers, and gotten similar reports. The accuracy was only mediocre.

I can only speculate on the reason for this, but it is known that the early M25 .45 Colt production used oversize chamber throats (often up to 0.456") while the barrel groove diameters were for for standard .45 ACP jacketed bullets (0.451"-0.452" diameters. I suspect S&W used standard M1955 barrel tooling when it first came out with the M25 .45 Colt.

The longer .45 Colt chamber is not conducive to great accuracy when .45 ACP is fired in it. The bullet must jump close to 1/2" from the case mouth before it enters the chamber throat, and such jumps are known to cause bullet distortion, a big reason for reduced accuracy. Too, the oversized (0.454"-0.456" chamber throats don't help accuracy either. I remember a Webley MkVI that was converted to .45 ACP with moon clips. That thing would not shoot worth a hoot using either .45 ACP ball or various lead bullet handloads. It wasn't until I loaded Remington hollow-based 255 g RNL bullets in .45 Auto Rim cases that I got acceptable accuracy. It had both oversized chamber throats AND barrel groove diameter!

An M25 .45 Colt conversion to .45 ACP with moonclips would certainly give acceptable self-defense accurcy, but I don't have much hope for it shooting anything like an original .45 Colt or an M1955 .45 ACP target competition revolver.

Let us know how it works out for you.

John
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Old 11-09-2008, 06:39 AM
Tom C Tom C is offline
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Shooting .45ACP from Coverted .45 Colt? Shooting .45ACP from Coverted .45 Colt? Shooting .45ACP from Coverted .45 Colt? Shooting .45ACP from Coverted .45 Colt? Shooting .45ACP from Coverted .45 Colt?  
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Unfortunately, I suspect the accuracy of a .45 Colt shooting .45 ACP isn't going to be too good. The .456" throat wouldn't help, of course, but the .480" chamber diameter for the first half inch or so has to be a disaster.

My 25-2 has .456" throats, and despite this, shoots very well. When I got it, the chamber alignment was off and it spit lead, but once I got the alighment and forcing cone taken care of, it shoots very well. My 625-8JM has .452" throats. It shoots well, but I had to fix the forcing cone on it, too.
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Old 11-09-2008, 08:13 AM
David Sinko David Sinko is offline
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I tried this once with a 25-7 and it was a disaster. The chambers were so sloppy and the .45 ACP cartridges had so much play in the cylinder (even in the moonclips) that the end result was lots of misfires and terrible accuracy, which included keyholing with cast bullets.

Results may vary with newer guns if they have tighter chambers. I have a Redhawk Alpine Conversion in .45 Colt that was re-bored from .44 Magnum and it has very tight chambers. I believe it would be a good candidate for such a conversion but I absolutely refuse to do it. That revolver is so good just the way it is that I refuse to butcher it, and a Redhawk cylinder is almost impossible to replace if there is a problem.

Dave Sinko
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Old 11-09-2008, 12:57 PM
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Well
I guess I will try and see how it works out.
My friend will be able to measure the throats,
and maybe reloading slightly larger lead
bullets will help.
If I am reloading special bullets in acp,I
might as well reload 45 colt,so unless I am
lucky why bother?
I will share the results.
What is a good accurate factory 45colt load?

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Old 11-09-2008, 01:50 PM
john traveler john traveler is offline
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I've had good results using WW and Remington 255 g RNL and SWC factory loads. Groups about 2" at 25 yards.

Some fellow shooters reported great accuracy from Federal 200 g HP loads, but I have not tried them. A couple of others stated that Black Hills Cowboy Action loads gave good accuracy also.

A good handload is he 250 SWC in Keith or Lee format with moderate charges of Unique (8-8.5g) or WW 231, or Bullseye. You have to really watch out for double chargin in the big .45 Colt case. Avoid hot (Ruger & TC only) loads in the S&W M25 platform.
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Old 11-09-2008, 06:37 PM
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I have a 5 inch 1988 M625-2 ...with a 45 colt sylinder I had fitted by a shop in Long Beach ... it is very accurate with 45 acp or the 45 colt cylinder. 8.5 to 9.0 gr Unique with 250 gr SWC shoot nice as I recall.
Have craved building one from a 45 acp Mountain Gun ever since they first came out ... though never did.
Maybe someday.
Had always heard converting 45 Colt guns to shoot ACPs would yield poorer results ...so it was best to start with an ACP gun and convert to 45 Colt.
Thats what I did and it turned out great.
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44 magnum, 45acp, bullseye, colt, model 25, model 625, mountain gun, redhawk, remington, ruger, webley

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