Pleasant Surprise " Pedersoli Colt Lightening .45 Colt

[AJ]

A few years ago I bought a Pedersoli Colt Lightening in .45 Colt at an auction. Bought it for $900, when a new one was advertised as costing $1800.00. Shortly thereafter Pedersoli stopped production. Got it home and had problems with the rifle feeding ammo from the magazine. Asked questions all over, with no real help in fixing the problem. One gentleman sent me a shop manual and I tore the rifle down and looked for a problem. No joy, so into the back of the gun safe as a future project. All that changed last week. Received the new "GUNS" magazine and lo and behold there was an article on a new Pedersoli pump rifle. In the article it stated there were there was a problem in that Pedersoli copied their older pump after an original and that present day .45 Colt was to long. The original .45 Colt was a meplat bullet (read flat point) and therefore shorter than present day .45 Colt with round nosed bullets. Also found a discussion on another forum the rounds for the older Pedersoli needed to be 1.5" to 1.55" in length. For some reason the action should be open when loading and to push the rounds well up into the magazine using your "Pinkie" finger. Made some ammo up to the stated OAL and took the rifle to the range this morning. It worked as advertised!!!! Now I have another new toy to take to the range to shoot.

 

[BB57]

Yes, the original .45 Colt was designed for the Colt Single Action Army (1873) and had to fit the cylinder length with some room for fouling on the forcing cone.

 

[AJ]

You would have thought that the engineers that copied the rifle would have checked the dimensions of the .45 Colt rounds as manufactured today. But obviously not, also that the company would have put something out referring to this instead of just ceasing production. Have never looked at overall length of currently manufactured ammunition, when buying it for a firearm in current production. Considering that if it fit in the chamber on a revolver it should fit into the loading mechanism of the rifles. Fouling has nothing to do with fitting in the chamber. It is about fit between the cylinder and the forcing cone. Since there is no forcing cone in a rifle chamber this fouling should be a none issue on a reasonably clean firearm. A long time ago a friend and I shot our M1911's until they quite working from build up from lack of cleaning. We got up to 2500 rounds before the pistols quit.
When all is said and done the problem with the rifle was a lack of attention to detail by the engineers who copied the rifle from the original.

 

[erikpolcrack]

I'm pretty sure the original Colt Lightning rifle was never chambered in .45 Colt.

 

[AJ]

I'm pretty sure the original Colt Lightning rifle was never chambered in .45 Colt.

No, the original was not. The article in "GUNS" magazine refers to that and says that the feeding mechanism had to be altered IIRC.

 

[BB57]

You would have thought that the engineers that copied the rifle would have checked the dimensions of the .45 Colt rounds as manufactured today. But obviously not, also that the company would have put something out referring to this instead of just ceasing production. Have never looked at overall length of currently manufactured ammunition, when buying it for a firearm in current production. Considering that if it fit in the chamber on a revolver it should fit into the loading mechanism of the rifles. Fouling has nothing to do with fitting in the chamber. It is about fit between the cylinder and the forcing cone. Since there is no forcing cone in a rifle chamber this fouling should be a none issue on a reasonably clean firearm. A long time ago a friend and I shot our M1911's until they quite working from build up from lack of cleaning. We got up to 2500 rounds before the pistols quit.
When all is said and done the problem with the rifle was a lack of attention to detail by the engineers who copied the rifle from the original.

The .45 Colt was originally designed as a black powder cartridge. Colt wanted to stuff as much powder into it as possible, thus the .45 caliber and the parallel wall case. It was basically the .44 Mag of it's day.

If you look at contemporary rounds like the .44-40, .38-40 and .32-20, that were designed for use in both lever (or slide action) rifles and pistols, they all have tapered bodies to help improve ejection from a fouled chamber, as well as a mild bottle neck that helped seal the chamber quicker to reduce fouling of the chamber when the round was fired.

The .45 Colt was never intended to be fired in a lever action or slide action rifle, like the other rounds, so Colt dispensed with the tapered body and bottle neck. They could do that as extraction wasn't via a hook extractor on the rim, but rather by an ejector rod that could provide a lot more ejection force without tearing a rim.

The original .45 Colt also had a very small rim meant only to provide headspace as they wanted to minimize rim diameter to minimize cylinder diameter.

But overall length still mattered as they needed adequate clearance in front of the cylinder to account for fouling on the forcing cone that would very quickly virtually eliminate any gap. They also needed some margin of error for bullets that might start backing out under recoil.

 

[BB57]

I'm pretty sure the original Colt Lightning rifle was never chambered in .45 Colt.

Correct. The .45 Colt, in the black powder era, was never chambered in any lever action. That only happened after the switch to smokeless powder, and the elimination of black powder fouling related extraction issues with the parallel wall .45 Colt case (right).

 

[AJ]

The .45 Colt was originally designed as a black powder cartridge. Colt wanted to stuff as much powder into it as possible, thus the .45 caliber and the parallel wall case. It was basically the .44 Mag of it's day.

If you look at contemporary rounds like the .44-40, .38-40 and .32-20, that were designed for use in both lever (or slide action) rifles and pistols, they all have tapered bodies to help improve ejection from a fouled chamber, as well as a mild bottle neck that helped seal the chamber quicker to reduce fouling of the chamber when the round was fired.

The .45 Colt was never intended to be fired in a lever action or slide action rifle, like the other rounds, so Colt dispensed with the tapered body and bottle neck. They could do that as extraction wasn't via a hook extractor on the rim, but rather by an ejector rod that could provide a lot more ejection force without tearing a rim.

The original .45 Colt also had a very small rim meant only to provide headspace as they wanted to minimize rim diameter to minimize cylinder diameter.

But overall length still mattered as they needed adequate clearance in front of the cylinder to account for fouling on the forcing cone that would very quickly virtually eliminate any gap. They also needed some margin of error for bullets that might start backing out under recoil.

Fouling has nothing to do with this problem.

 

[BB57]

Fouling has nothing to do with this problem.
View attachment 785141

That's undedrstood. Fouling had everything to do with keeping the COAL within in a certain limit when Colt designed the round for the Colt SAA in the black powder era.

COAL and point shape also still have a lot to do with feeding in lever action and slide action rifles.

Winchester 1892s and 1894s and their derivatives can have similar issues where the cartridge guides need to be opened up to accommodate a longer overall cartridge length or a point shape that hangs up on the top of the chamber. The effect is the same, to allow the rear of the cartridge to rise more.

 

[AJ]

That's undedrstood. Fouling had everything to do with keeping the COAL within in a certain limit when Colt designed the round for the Colt SAA in the black powder era.

COAL and point shape also still have a lot to do with feeding in lever action and slide action rifles.

Winchester 1892s and 1894s and their derivatives can have similar issues where the cartridge guides need to be opened up to accommodate a longer overall cartridge length or a point shape that hangs up on the top of the chamber. The effect is the same, to allow the rear of the cartridge to rise more.

Fouling has nothing to do with the rifle problem. Yes, fouling had to do with the cylinder movement in an SAA (revolver). It is the build up of fouling (burnt powder) that impedes the movement of the cylinder with the forcing cone. This has nothing to do with a rifle.

The problem arises for the OAL of the new .45 Colt cartridges vs the original .45 Colt cartridges. Also the lack of redesign to take in account for the straight walled pistol cases.

The point shape of the bullet in this rifle has to be flat. In every other rifle that I own not so much if at all. Usually a pointed bullet will feed easier in a rifle, unless the OAL is to long. Lever guns can feed a pointed bullet if the OAL is correct. Case in point is the Model 1895 Winchester https://www.google.com/search?q=cal...CCLACAfEFpHIvWpaG98Q&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Also now the Leverevolution rounds.

Bottom line is the rifle now works as it should and is a hoot to shoot. Fits in well with my S&W Model 25-9 and my Ruger Vaquaro.

 

[erikpolcrack]

A long time ago, the reason the 45 Colt wasn't chambered in rifles was explained to me in some detail. It had to do with the original baloon head cartridge cases. There was no need for much of a rim because of the ejector rod on the Colt SAA revolver. When the Schofield showed up, the Army shortened the case and gave it a little more rim. That was actually a new cartridge variation and was the only one produced for the Army for a while. When the New Service revolvers with their star extractors appeared, the case was redesigned with a well-defined, larger rim and an extractor groove. Only then was it really feasible to chamber a lever-action or pump-action rifle for the 45 Colt cartridge. There was now enough rim for the simple extractors of the rifles to gain enough purchase. We're talking 1910-ish timeframe now. In fact, there was no interest in chambering the 45 Colt in lever actions until just a couple of decades ago. I think cowboy action shooting was the impetus for it.

 

[AJ]

I use to own a Colt M1909 U.S.Army at one time. I also had my 25-9 and the Ruger Vaquaro. So when someone offered me twice what I had paid for it, they owned it. The round for the M1909 has an OAL to long to work in the Pedersoli. Right now I am using a 200 grain RNFP, and seating them deeper than I normally would to get the OAL down to 1.50-1.55.

Not to sure when the interest came out for the .45 Colt in a lever/pump rifle. A friend had a Winchester Trapper with a 16 inch barrel in .45 Colt.

 

[wileyjackhammer]

A few years ago I bought a Pedersoli Colt Lightening in .45 Colt at an auction. Bought it for $900, when a new one was advertised as costing $1800.00. Shortly thereafter Pedersoli stopped production. Got it home and had problems with the rifle feeding ammo from the magazine. Asked questions all over, with no real help in fixing the problem. One gentleman sent me a shop manual and I tore the rifle down and looked for a problem. No joy, so into the back of the gun safe as a future project. All that changed last week. Received the new "GUNS" magazine and lo and behold there was an article on a new Pedersoli pump rifle. In the article it stated there were there was a problem in that Pedersoli copied their older pump after an original and that present day .45 Colt was to long. The original .45 Colt was a meplat bullet (read flat point) and therefore shorter than present day .45 Colt with round nosed bullets. Also found a discussion on another forum the rounds for the older Pedersoli needed to be 1.5" to 1.55" in length. For some reason the action should be open when loading and to push the rounds well up into the magazine using your "Pinkie" finger. Made some ammo up to the stated OAL and took the rifle to the range this morning. It worked as advertised!!!! Now I have another new toy to take to the range to shoot.View attachment 784865View attachment 784866View attachment 784867

Thanks for the ammo tip.....I also have one of those in the back of the safe waiting to figure out the feeding problem you have with it, if you try to run it fast in cowboy shooting....did you do a flat 1.5 or ??

 

[Kinman]

I have an Italian Lightening repop in 44-40, I use the same ammo I used in my Italian repop Colt Bisley and Italian repop Schofield and Italian repop '72 Winchester. I use the recommended .427 RN FP bullets, I ran into problems with just about any other bullet and was even told the originals preferred a smaller diameter bullet. I shoot black powder almost exclusively in these firearms and to this date have not experienced any problems other than some being quite a pain to clean well. I use the old cap and ball revolver trick of sealing up the bolt stop and hand area with light grease (STOS), works like a charm at keeping fouling from getting into the inner workings requiring a major tear down which only has to occur about once a year if I'm lucky.

 

[AJ]

Thanks for the ammo tip.....I also have one of those in the back of the safe waiting to figure out the feeding problem you have with it, if you try to run it fast in cowboy shooting....did you do a flat 1.5 or ??

I tried to make them as short as possible. I used a 200 grain round nose flat point cast lead bullet. I made them at 1.5 inches. Make sure you put a slight crimp on them. I usually don't crimp much as I was using them in revolvers. HTH!

 

[wileyjackhammer]

I tried to make them as short as possible. I used a 200 grain round nose flat point cast lead bullet. I made them at 1.5 inches. Make sure you put a slight crimp on them. I usually don't crimp much as I was using them in revolvers. HTH!

Thank You
I will give that a try in the next few days, we have company thru the weekend w/plans....
I just finished loading some .44 Spl's with a 200 Gr RNFP (actual weight is 205 gr) and they came in about 1.450...
I just loaded 215 gr .45 Colt's that came in at 1.570-80.....
i will shrink them down even if i have to use .45 Schofield brass or a 185 gr bullet

 

[AJ]

Thank You
I will give that a try in the next few days, we have company thru the weekend w/plans....
I just finished loading some .44 Spl's with a 200 Gr RNFP (actual weight is 205 gr) and they came in about 1.450...
I just loaded 215 gr .45 Colt's that came in at 1.570-80.....
i will shrink them down even if i have to use .45 Schofield brass or a 185 gr bullet

Keep us posted.