Hello All
I have a beautiful Mod 625 (5" bbl round butt) in 45acp and have been trying to have it converted to 45 long colt, however no one
can source a SS 45LC cylinder for the job. Any suggestions?
Many Thanks
Dante

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Dante
60,66,686,625,629,M1917

Welcome to the Forum.

Have you tried Smith & Wesson? Brownells? What about our Classified-Want to buy?

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Get a 629 cylinder and have it reamed. I have a bunch of 45 colt conversions and all my cylinders started out as 44 mag cylinders. Way easier to come buy. Right now I have a 25-5 in the shop and I am junking the original 45 colt cylinder and replacing it with a reamed 44 mag cylinder. Original cylinder had huge throats as per most early ones did.

I was lucky. I bought a new 4" blue M25-5 in June 1980 and it won't pass a .451" jacketed bullet through the chambers without a bit of pressure.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Never tried a slug through this one, but a good set of calibers reads them at .458 and thats so big I am not even going to mess with it. The model 29 cylinder I have is got great blue and recessed so gonna have a 5" (cut down from 8 3/8) 45 colt. pinned and recessed.

I figure to blow up the huge throat cylinder just to see what it takes.

You'd get the most useful information by very gradually increasing your preferred heavy load until you see the first dimpling over the back side of the cylinder stop notches.

I made my 25-3 group by loading castings from my lightest .45-70 mold. You could use that as an excuse to get out of the shop for an afternoon.

I am going to machine a block of steel to hold the cylinder and a barrel and use a remote released firing pin and then just start at about 22 gr of 2400 and a 255 swc and go up 1/2 gr at a time. will check cylinder after each firing. Fun project.

Over pressure also weakens the top strap and frame threads for the barrel. Hope your cylinder destruction test doesn't get your top strap.

Be safe
Ruggy

In this conversion, wouldn't he have to face-off the barrel? The cylinder for the .45 ACP is shorter so the barrel protrudes too far into the frame window to fit the longer cylinder from a 29. Face the barrel and recut the forcing cone?

He's going the wrong way - start with .45 C and machine the cylinder for moon clips so you can shoot both .45 ACP and Colt. Much easier, faster and cheaper.

Adios,

Pizza Bob

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NRA Benefactor Member

Yes, you would need to shorten the barrel extension and redo the forcing cone. You would also have to adjust the frame lug that holds the cylinder from moving to the rear when open and ejecting. 45 colt cylinders are longer in both directions.

But, finding a 5" 45 colt with a round butt frame isn't very likely. Reason I make my own is 45 colts are hard to find. I have made 2 of them for 629 frames and another from an 45 acp frame. I have the parts to do another after I mod this 25-5 and am going to use a 28-2 frame.

I went with a .44 Mag cylinder when I had Andy Horvath do my 25-2 .45 Colt conversion. Reamed the throats to .451 and boy is this gun accurate. Kept the cylinder full length so I can use any .45 Colt bullet.

If you reload you can make 45 Colt level loads in 45 ACP or 45 AR cases, with 255 LSWC bullets and some medium slow powder. If you don't reload you can buy some warm 255 Gr 45 AR ammunition from Buffalo Bore and probably some others. Something you can do to make your 625 shoot "45 Colt" while you're looking for resources to convert it.

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Tom
"Panem et Circenses"