Still had Schofield rounds in the bunkers? What a hoot shooting them must have been. Knew an old fellow from Iowa who graduated HS circa 1933 who related how his local Guard armory still had Trapdoor Infantry rifles and ammo. They did not shoot them but used them for drilling occasionally.
You just KNOW they sometimes would get sent the wrong pistol ammo at Fort Out-Past-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere so the compromise round makes perfect sense except for the 255 grain bullets. Why not go with the 230s?
Colt sure as hell was not going to put the enemy’s name on their headstamps hence the 45 Colt Govt stamp for the shorter cartridge. Easy to imagine the obvious result though; Buckskin Zeke tells a shopkeeper he wants to replenish his supply for his hogleg. “Zeke, do you want the 45 short Colt or the 45 long Colt?” Since there were already short and long versions of other calibers this would be reasonable wordage.
In the 1980s our local junior college got its theater rebuilt...and behind one bricked-up interior wall were found the remaining trapdoor Springfield rifles that had been issued to the University's Corps of Cadets when they volunteered for the War in Cuba. They never got there but lost about as many as could have been expected to fall from enemy rounds to Yellow Fever. Their rifles were taken care of though, perfectly greased and packed in greased paper before being racked up in the security of the armory. And then one day, it was bricked up, the masons likely not having the slightest clue about those funny-wrapped lumps against the walls. Sixty-five, seventy years later, they saw daylight again, and now have deserving homes.
That would include Ft Riley, KS and Ft Laramie, Wyoming Territory, among many others, both of which were home to differing Cavalry detachments, including units armed with the old Civil War issue Remington 1858 percussion revolver- also often carried by Indian scouts, the Colt and Schofield, but also sometimes private purchase weapons to include the .442 Webley revolver possibly carried by General Custer during his 1876 demise, and any number of other personal or issued weapons. If the unit's armory didn't have it in stock- and not just for their own weapons, but for any other unit passing through that needed resupply- then the Post Sutler had better have a goodly amount. And after the Civil war, everything from Spencer and Henry repeaters to weapons converted from percussion to cartridge was to be found.
As for why 255-grain pills instead of 230s? Remember that the handgun carried by a cavalryman in those days had as its primary purpose the job of killing a horse, ideally that of an enemy but, sometimes, your own. And in some cases, like those Indian scouts still using paper cartridge Sharps rifles, the revolver bullet could be broken down and its powder charge and bullet could be used in a rifle, assuming a supply of percussion caps was maintained by its user.