Troopers complaining

[Scott Tschirhart]

I read an earlier post about the .45 Short Colt that the troopers complained about the recoil of the .45 Colt cartridge. I had heard that before and I had thought that it would be unlikely that the brass would care too much about troopers' complaints. But then I read this from a post Mike Venturino made many years ago in a thread about the guns used at the Little Big Horn battle:


The .45-55 was the U.S. Army's carbine loading of the .45-70. In those days they were actually called .45 Government. The original loading used a 405 grain swaged bullet of 1-11 tin to lead over 70 grains of blackpowder. In the seven pound carbines troopers complained of excessive recoil. So the load was reduced to 55 grains with the same bullet. Space in the case was taken up with a cardboard tube. Some of the cases recovered by archaeologists at the battlefield digs still had the cardboard tubes in place. Both loadings used the same 2.10 inch case.

Sgt. John Ryan of M Troop, 7th Cavalry carried a heavy barreled Sharps rifle with telescope to the battle. He said he traded an infantry Sgt. out of some of the 70 grain loads for his rifle so he could have a little more range. M Troop was with Reno/Benteen and so Ryan and his rifle survived the fight.

The famous 500 grain bullet infantry load didn't come about until 1881.

MLV

[Scott Tschirhart]

Now, that cardboard tube was not likely to be consumed......I wonder if it would cause any problems?

Mike also posted a photo of the .45 Colt ammo from Frankford Arsenal dated January 1874 and the box says that the cartridges were loaded with 30 gr of black powder.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showth ... -Custer-do

So I guess the brass did listen to the complaints of the troopers.

[Old No7]

So I guess the brass did listen to the complaints of the troopers.

My guess would be the brass took note of "how poorly the troopers shot" with the heavier loads, and they reduced the loading so they could actually hit something.

Brits did the same to the Webley, knocking it down to an anemic .38-200 because the recoil with the .455s was too stout.

Old No7

[2ndovc]

I read somewhere years ago that the .45-55 was developed for use in cavalry's carbines due to the lighter weight and heavier recoil. I would imagine that troopers issued rifles would use them as well if available.
Another thing for us to remember is that those guys were generally quite smaller than your average American is today. A .45-70 in a carbine would push some of those little guys around pretty good, I would think.

jb

[Old Savage]

Army Basic Training Fort Polk 1971, the drill Sgt. made a special point to demonstrate the M16 lack of recoil firing against the bridge of his nose.

[JimT]

Army Basic Training Fort Polk 1971, the drill Sgt. made a special point to demonstrate the M16 lack of recoil firing against the bridge of his nose.

Army Basic Training Fort Bliss 1966, the Drill Sgt. demonstrated the lack of recoil of the M14 by firing it against his chin. I noted the black and blue chin but was impressed by his demeanor.

[Blaine]

Army Basic Training Fort Polk 1971, the drill Sgt. made a special point to demonstrate the M16 lack of recoil firing against the bridge of his nose.

Army Basic Training Fort Bliss 1966, the Drill Sgt. demonstrated the lack of recoil of the M14 by firing it against his chin. I noted the black and blue chin but was impressed by his demeanor.

After the Drill Sergeant demonstrated the M-16 (Basic, 1972) I remarked that it was just a fkn groundhog gun.....I was in deep kimchee for an hour or so. The only thing I could do right in basic was shoot....probably the best shot in the platoon.

[M. M. Wright]

And at Fort Carson Colorado in 1961 our sergeant demonstrated the M-1 Garand's recoil by taking it on the chin. The same sergeant kicked a 'cruit in the head for turning around along with a loaded Garand pointed where he was looking when his name was called. Oh, he was shooting from a fox hole.

[Sixgun]

Obviously, everyone is dead from those days so the best we can do is speculate with some common sense thrown in. Even words written then are like words written now.....to the personal attitude and character of the writer.

What we do know......even the most powerful of handguns at the time for the average guy was the 1860 Army Colt, the '51 Navy Colt or a host of smaller guns......I've shot them all....there's not much recoil. All of a sudden troopers were handed a gun with probably twice the recoil so the troopers recoiled! I've also shot original 1873 Calvary Colts with full loads of black...and they bark!

I've shot a fair amount of 1861 Springfields and while the recoil was noticeable, it was manageable but was still less than the many trapdoors I've owned and shot...the carbine trapdoor with its poorly designed stock let's you know what recoil is.

I'm not sure about this but if I had to bet I'd say I'm right, that the blackpowder of the day was noticeably more explosive....I've pulled apart many original 45-70 military loads just to get the powder and reloaded them in a 45-90 case and shot them out of an '86...they also barked...about the same as a full load of 3031.

So you combine a generation of average guys who are used to lesser recoil and hand them something more powerful, you can reasonably bet they complained. These guys didn't shoot like we do today....they were lucky to be issued 50 rounds a year to play with....(that's speculation on my part)

It's all really no different than what we see today....it's the rare guy who can manage a 44 mag without flinching...except if your name is Tutt.....Cowboy Tutt! ----006

[JimT]

Good thoughts there Sixgun.
Most gunowners today don't shoot a lot.
I have met a lot of gun owners who only fire their guns several times a year!
Some who came and shot with me brought a partial box of shells that they had for a couple years. 10 or 20 rounds and they were done. That was a lot for them.
I shoot weekly as much as I can. Before I got older I shot almost every day. Now I shoot on good days, sometimes 3 or 4 times a week but quite often only once a week. I have become a fair-weather shooter. -sigh- When younger it was not uncommon to go through a thousand rounds a week .. various calibers of course.
Those who shoot competitively are not a large percentage of all who own guns.
It's one reason the 9mm in handguns is so popular. It makes a lot of noise. It penetrates well. And it does not recoil much, at least in a Colt Combat Commander.

[Blaine]

I've shot a bunch of 45-70 out of a BFR I used to have. Grizz shot some thru that BFR as well. I wish I still had it. Recoil was quite manageable. Shooting Garrett's monsters were right on the edge of being too much. A couple of those were enough. My own loads were 405s at about 1800 fps.
.44 mags stopped being intimidating a very long time ago.

[308magtip]

Reminds me of basic training oct nad Nov of 1964 at Ft Jackson,SC.We were issues M-14 rifles.When it came time to qualify we did so on the "trainfire" range with pop-up mtargets from 25 meters out to 350 meters. The NCO said just spraying dirt from a low miss onto the target will not make it fall.Some did.he also did the rifle butt on the chin trick to prove what little recoil and M-14 had. Well I guess loaded with a full 20 rd mag and rifle most likely did have the stock compartments whic held the cleaning tools plugged with lead and loads just strong to work the action recoil was light. This was the time when the Army went from M-1's to the M-14.I qualified expert on the trainfire range.16 weeks later in hanau,germany I had to requalify and we had the old style bullseye pull down targets and I had to run the course and class like a new recurit since all our training was with hit it anywhere falldown targets in basic. Have a nice Spring action with a Marlin barrled M-1 now for fun shooting.Dead zero at 100ys with 14 clicks of elevation.

[jeepnik]

Being as the USAF was the first to get the M-16, and thus responsible for the worst travesty in modern small arms, I went through the entire two day firearms qualification in basic. That's right a whole two days. One day learning how to clean it. The second day you fired a few rounds to figure which end of the barrel the bullet came out of then 100 rounds to "qualify". All you had to do was hit the target, anywhere, with if I recall correctly 50 rounds. What was amazing is a few fellows had well over 100 rounds in their targets while others had none.

The M-16 was a jam o matic and I doubt anyone got through the course of fire without multiple malfunctions. If you did have a malfunction you were supposed to call a RO to correct it. That was the scariest live fire range I have ever been on. Muzzles were flying all over the place. Why no one was killed on a regular basis is beyond me. Of the Flight only for or five of us had any shooting experience.

Add to that the RO's paid absolutely no attention to those that could shoot. Oh I don't mean they ignored you, if only they had. No. When ask if any of us were lefties some responded, me being among them. They then ask which had I wrote with and I told them my right. I was told I was a righthanded shooter. My protest went unheard.

I did qualify but even though I easily scored what would have been expert they gave no such recognition in basic training.