Way back in the 1840's, the 44 and 45 cap and ball were carried into the gold fields and by pioneers heading west for California or Oregon, to be farmers or miners. The Civil War proved the utility of brass (metallic) cartridges rather than paper ones. They worked in the rain. This was a huge advance, and also made for faster loading revolvers and repeating lever action rifles. They are classics, though not inherently accurate and had a number of flaws which were gradually fixed.
There were all sorts of attempts made to simplify support of the cavalry after the Civil War, which was then fighting indians, who saw pioneers moving onto their lands and killing them off, so the indians started killing settlers or dying of plague (typhoid was common then). It was nasty, and raids tended to be sudden and violent, like most Westerns like to depict. Having lots of rounds to shoot back when attacked is a big part of why Westerners are pro-gun, even today. We know stuff goes wrong, and Eastern gangs and mafia types tend to attack in packs. See Legends Of The Fall for examples. There were also Civil War veterans who became raiders, using what they learned to attack towns, with a massacre in Kansas called the Jayhawk Massacre as a famous example.
Black powder was measured in grains, still the unit of measure today, and you had to limit how many per cartridge. The .30-30 Winchester was a 30 caliber bullet and 30 grains of black powder. This round has killed more wild game than any other, period. It remains popular in woodsy area hunters in the East. Its not that popular here because it has a very limited range. Most folks here hunt with a .30-06, even though it is overkill for our small deer. A .243 is plenty. In any case, that nomenclature of the caliber size and the dash, then the grains of powder, got used in a bunch of rounds. The 38-40, the 38-44, the 40-40 and 40-44, and 45-70 and 45-110 are all rounds that existed. The .44-40 Winchester became a popular official cavalry round which was used in their carbines and pistols, both. It wasn't enough range in a rifle, and a bit much recoil in a revolver, but militaries tend to do things wrong before they get them right, usually after lots of people die. The modern .44-40 is popular with historical recreationists in a type of sport called "Cowboy Action Shooting" which is a multigun shooting sport where competitors shoot targets while being timed and scored on that and accuracy for a combine score to determine the winner. Ham and spam shoots are common for this. Most wear a leather glove on their left hand in order to fan the trigger without burning off their fingers by the side-blast. Some of these revolvers had a cylinder set into the gap of a C-shape, with the barrell down the far side. When more powerful rounds were fitted, these would explode. This was fixed with a top strap, and original hinged versions like the Smith and Wesson Model 3, copied by the english Webley revolver, sort of fixed the issue, until strong rounds were fired, making the thing metal shear off and explode again.
Contrast this with the gunfighter's special, which was a smaller caliber .35 revolver, with better quality workmanship and better accuracy and sights, meaning a gunfighter aimed carefully and shot once, killing their target. .35 caliber is also 9mm, and the Germans made a cartridge in 1880 called the 9x19 Parabellum, still in use today. This round has killed more people than any other. Every military has a gun chambered in this cartridge, even ours, though lots of troops hate it because they want a .45 ACP 1911, despite it being very hard to hit things beyond 30 yards. A beefed up .45 like the 45-70 is too much for a handgun, and rounds in between still suffer at ranges over 60 yards since its big, heavy, and drops a lot being so slow. All rounds drop at the same rate vertically (1 G) but slower rounds drop more noticeably, so anything around the speed of sound is going to have problems. Rifle rounds are typically longer and narrower with more powder so they can go a lot faster and further before the drop is noticed, thus the .223 is magnificent at making nuisances like coyotes explode at 200 yards, and 243 at 350 yards. When you try and combine a pistol cartridge and a rifle cartridge into one or two guns you get all sorts of problems, with the mild utility of exchangeable ammunition and possibly magazines.
You also get lots of muzzle flash in a revolver, so you get one shot then you're night blind. Modern calibers like the 357 Sig is a 9x19mm length cartridge in a wider case with a bottle neck to hold the bullet. This is meant to go faster, but is usually shoved into a short barrel for self defense, utterly defeating the purpose, but adding the problem of severe night blindness.
More extreme bottleneck cartridges attempting to hold onto the power and speed gains of small caliber high velocity carbines result in things like the FN5.7, which is a modified short .223 in a bottleneck case duplicating the power of a .221 Fireball or .22 BOZ, which is a 10mm necked down to .223. A variation of this cartridge is used in the famous P90 Grendel, which is only used by TV shows and Saudi Arabia, much like the Desert Eagle .44 Action Express handgun. And this gets to a side issue of interest.
A pistol caliber in a rifle is called a carbine. A carbine is similar to a rifle, usually having a stock or a folding stock, made popular by paratroopers in WW2, used by both sides of the war. They were usually spray and pray weapons, not known for accuracy. The Nazis had their 9mm submachine guns. The allies had their Sten guns and other similar cheap weapons, and more effective rifles like the Garand. After the War a lot of designs came out with interesting value, like the AK-47, which was based on a captured German concept light rifle called an assault rifle. The Soviet version of that is still being fiddled with and there's been a couple other calibers for it. The Germans and Belgians came up with a roller-lock design for a semi automatic rifle which was picked up and used in big .308 rifles around the world, and shrunk and minified for a 9mm version called the HK-MP5, which we've all seen in those Die Hard movies, especially the first one. The setup is limited by the magazine well, and there's been a lot of variations of it, including the MP40, which is that chambered in a .40 S&W cartridge, commonly used by police. Its too slow for a rifle, but better than 9mm. It is somewhat baffling that nobody seems to make a longer version of this and magazines to support 10mm, .45 ACP, .460 Rowland (like .45 magnum), and various other cartridges to take advantage of the longer barrel and buttstock so you can aim it properly. You'd think there was a market for that, but so many Law enforcement and veterans would rather upgrade to a cheaper AR pattern rifle and avoid the expense of the Short Barrel Rifle single-exception. And the AR lets you shoot a lot more calibers.
Incidentally, the Desert Eagle is a miniature AR system on a pistol frame. No kidding. This is also why they cost $1500 each and weigh in pounds, not ounces. No military arms itself with a Desert Eagle. Its JUST in movies, and IMI enjoys the profits of selling this ridiculous movie prop to rappers and action movie fans. Sorry if that hurts your feelings. Consider a Raging Bull instead. A big ported revolver in 357 is probably as much recoil as you can stand and costs a fraction as much.
When it comes to powerful revolvers, there's a market. The .454 Casull is dangerous junk, due to being based on the .45 Long Colt and having very finicky loading, too much or too little powder or bullet slightly too deep or too shallow and it will explode on your hand like a grenade, taking your fingers with it. I don't recommend this firearm, ever. It is too unsafe. It sometimes kills a Kodiak bear in Alaska when someone is out walking their dog on the island, or fishing. Bears have personality. Bears don't have a trustworthy setting. Sometimes they leave you alone, and other times they eat you. They have a lot of brain parasites, which contributes to this problem. Arming yourself when in bear country is a life-extending move, even if it offends your Vegetarian friends. Be sure you can run faster than them. Quite a few of the above cartridges were used in revolvers against bears. Experts recommend a shotgun with buckshot and slugs if you have to travel in bear country, but a .357 is enough for a black bear, and a .44 magnum will do for a brown or black bear. Just keep in mind that you might have less than 2 seconds to draw and fire, and people with dogs pay for those seconds with the life of their dogs, and are much more likely to survive because of it. However, dogs and bears are enemies so the bear is more likely to attack a dog than a person without one. Just to make things more complicated. And before you laugh about the lack of bears where you live, a tourist in New Jersey filmed the bear that ate him at a park within sight of Manhattan, bears eat pets in Florida. Bears have been spotted swimming in pools in the edges of Los Angeles, and bears run 40 mph, which is much faster than you can sprint, and possibly pedal on flat ground. So don't laugh at bears. They think you are tasty and crunchy, and your kids even moreso.
Surprise! Mama bear with cubs charges cyclist on mountain singletrack trail, no warning, less than 2 seconds to react or die. He reacted and lived. Others try bear spray or the wrong shot placement with a gun and they get badly mauled. Bears have personality. They aren't consistent.
The dangers of the oft-exploding .454 lead to the creation of more safe rounds like the .450 and .460 S&W Magnum, and 475 Linebaugh, or .480 Ruger, all of which kick like a mule in a revolver and are probably safer in a lever action repeater. The .44 magnum is well liked for good reason, because you can load it up or down using combinations of powder and projectile to .45 ACP power (aka .44 Bulldog/Special), or up to full magnum (and hurts your wrist) and anywhere between. The recoil is bad enough but its better than harsh language. The Winchester repeater rifle is available in .357 and .44 magnum for a reasonable sum, though its safety is problematic, and racking the action when a bear is attacking is probably your final action before dying, since they run 40 mph. The shotgun is cheaper and more effective, but a .44 magnum or .357 is much more handy.
Police and deputies swore by the .357 revolver, but they were forced to "upgrade" to 9mm, which was not good enough for bears, and later got to upgrade again to .40 S&W, which they mutter about but admit is "adequate". I think most would prefer a 10mm or to go back to the .357 they all carried for decades and still own as their personal firearm for off-duty. I know deputies used to things here, and they are sensible folks. You don't live to retirement if you aren't sensible, though some of the new guys need to spend more time at the range, practicing.
The 45-70 was an inadequate round on San Juan Hill in Cuba, and Teddy Roosevelt who carried one to great disappointment there, was a big proponent of the .30-06 Springfield, which served this country through two world wars and remains a popular big game hunting round today. The .357 is the pistol equivalent, being effective, popular, hard recoilling but acceptable for most people. It ended up getting fiddled with for size, but longer tends to work better and its a couple or three times more powerful than the old western 45 revolvers. For modern times, the .357 is a peacemaker. If you needed to do this dual-use trick, you'd probably want the full power 10mm. That will drop a target at 150 yards, and maybe at 200, but keep in mind those cartridges are $1 each trigger pull. This is not a hobby for people who care about money. You can buy a nice bottle of wine for 6 rounds of that. Or a quality microbrew 6-pack of bottles for less than a magazine. And when you start comparing the cost of firearms to food, it really does make you ponder your choices. Is it that hard to avoid bears during the time of year when they're most active and dangerous? Give that some thought, before you invest in the perfect calibe for your pistol and rifle.
If you want to do cowboy action shooting, load your own and save. Making ammo with a reloading press is more fun that knitting, and 38-55 or 38-40 have their followings, much like 44-40, and that might be fun. But after I spent lots of time and money experimenting I got it out of my system and took up photography. I can "take a shot" and post it on the internet. And I suspect most people interested in this would probably do well to take up bicycling rather than buy yet another firearm. Its good for your health, and a great motivation to insure the Communists never gain control of your life. They want everybody to bicycle or stay home, like good serfs. Just keep this in mind.
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