If you haven’t noticed, I have been reviewing with regularity a number of new handgun loads being introduced by SIG in their Elite Performance line. All previously tested calibers have turned in fine performance, and I highly recommend the line.
SIG’s Elite Performance ammo is not just some PR-related foray; it is a serious, long-term venture. SIG has proven this not only by the quality of the ammo they are producing, but also by the fact that they are now manufacturing several calibers that they don’t chamber guns for, including the .38 Special (which I just recently reviewed) and the subject of this report, the .45 Colt.
The .45 Colt (not to be confused with the .45 ACP), which is sometimes improperly called the .45 Long Colt (there never was a short one), was introduced in the Colt Single Action Army (SAA) revolver in 1872. Originally a black powder load—which explains its long case—the standard loading pushed a 255-grain plain lead bullet to a quite respectable 850 feet per second, which produces 369 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle.
When Colt and Smith & Wesson later introduced double-action revolvers, law enforcement agencies, including the RCMP, adopted these big handguns as their duty weapons and carried them for many years.
After WWII, the popularity of .45 Colt handguns began to diminish—primarily because of the .38 Special finding favor with American law enforcement agencies due to the lighter and smaller guns it could be chambered in.
Two things saved the .45 Colt: the first was the popularity of cowboy westerns in the late 1950s and ’60s. Demand for SAAs was high enough that Colt—which had stopped manufacturing them in 1941—decided to reintroduce them in 1956. The second was the emergence of the Cowboy Action Shooting sports in the 1980s, which eventually saw rifles being chambered in the easy-to-reload .45 Colt for the first time.
While these events breathed new life into the .45 Colt as a recreational round, it was no longer a popular defensive round, and modern hollow-point loads were not readily available. There just wasn’t any demand for it as a defensive arm.
Fast forward to Bond Arms and their introduction of their marvelous derringers chambered in .45 Colt/.410 shotshell. It was this gun, as well as the Taurus Judge and Smith & Wesson Governor revolvers, that gave new defensive life to the .45 Colt round and also to the .410 shotshell.
Although most folks who carry Bond Derringers or the Taurus or Smith & Wesson .45/410 revolvers likely carry their guns stoked with .410 shotshell loads, there are times and situations where the use of .45 Colt ammo would be preferable. It is for these times and situations that the use of the new .45 Colt Elite Performance V-Crown load would be ideal.
Loaded into a shiny nickel-like case for easy extraction and feeding, the .45 Colt Elite Performance load is topped with a 230-grain V-Crown jacketed hollow-point bullet. With a quoted muzzle velocity of 850 feet per second and 369 FPE on tap, this load replicates the ballistics of most .45 ACP loads, including SIG’s, rather than upgrading to the potential of .45 Colt loads topped with 255-grain bullets. This works out well for a smaller gun like the Bond Arms Derringer.
I went to the range with my 3-inch .45/.410 Bond USA Defender, and began testing at 30 feet using a standard silhouette target. Touching off the first shot revealed a pleasant surprise! The V-Crown .45 Colt was an easy-handling load and a lot of fun to shoot!
I was able to keep all my rounds in the head of the silhouette target with both the upper and lower barrels from two-handed and one-handed shooting positions. It could be fired fairly rapidly since there was little muzzle rise to worry about. The reason why this load was a pussycat was uncovered when I ran it over the chronograph.
While my Bond USA Defender has a 3-inch barrel, part of that length is chamber. In the case of the .45 Colt V-Crown—which is 1½ inches long—this leaves only 1½ inches of actual barrel for the bullet to travel down. Most of the propellant gases vaporize into the air without actually pushing the bullet (or generating recoil). Velocity for both barrels averaged only 558 feet per second and 159 FPE at the muzzle.
All is not lost, though. It’s not like a 230-grain, .45 caliber slug moving at BB gun speed is, well, a BB. It is still a solid close-range defender, as was proven in the clay block test.
The slug entered the 10-inch-long, 25-pound clay block and created a cavity that was 3 inches at its widest point. The slug exited the block intact with an approximate .45-caliber diameter. It is not likely that there was much in the way of expansion. A 300-feet-per-second reduction in operational velocity is just too great a variance to allow the V-Crown to expand. But it still had enough momentum to penetrate 10 inches of moist modeling clay, and it should prove quite attention-getting in a self-defense situation.
While the .45 Colt V-Crown may not be the very first choice for defense for everyone using a Bond Derringer, its low recoil may make it preferable to a hot .410 load for those who are recoil sensitive, or for those who may want to use the Bond at greater than contact distances. When fired from a Taurus Judge or Smith & Wesson Governor, the .45 Colt’s performance will be right on par with the performance seen with the other SIG Sauer Elite Performance V-Crown Loads.
Visit www.sigsauer.com for more information.
