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The .45 ACP<\/a> is my favorite handgun cartridge. I have to get that out of the way before I begin. Just the same, I have an open eye and mind, and I am not blind to other developments.<\/p>\n The .45 ACP was developed to offer a reasonable substitute for the .45 Colt<\/a>, save in a self-loading action.\u00a0The .45 Colt was designed to give troopers a fighting chance and to drop an Indian war pony at 100 yards. The cavalry was an immensely important and influential department of the Army when the 1911 and the .45 ACP cartridge were being developed.\u00a0The .45 ACP was actually developed much earlier and chambered in the 1905 Colt. Standard performance was a 230-grain FMJ bullet at 830 fps.<\/p>\n The Colt soon earned an excellent reputation for stopping dedicated adversaries.\u00a0The .45 ACP wasn\u2019t designed for civilian personal defense in the beginning, but for use against warhorses and hardened fighting men, it did the job well.<\/p>\n Interestingly, among the original requirements was that the cartridge be useful against dangerous animals such as Jaguars.\u00a0The Army had serious problems with bears and wolves as it moved out west, and many of the early rimfire and .44 cartridges were very weak.\u00a0The .45 Colt, and later the .45 ACP, offered real power without excess recoil.<\/p>\n A great deal of development went into increasing accuracy potential in the time between the World Wars, eventually giving us superbly accurate handguns.\u00a0Ammunition<\/a> development stalled at times. Some of the hollow points introduced in the 1970s would feed or they would expand, but not both.<\/p>\nHistory of the .45<\/h2>\n