While I’m sure rustlers, owlhoots and stagecoach robbers were quite a handful, I also suspect they were pretty irrelevant to the majority of ranchers and cattle drivers’ day-to-day operations. And by 1870, so were frontier Indians. The Colt .45 is a lot of weapon for the occasional wolf or coyote. Whom or what were the intended targets of all these high-powered firearms in the Old West?
If I can only afford one hand weapon, I want it to cover all the uses.
Why the 44-40, IIRC, was so popular, one cartridge fits a long & short weapon.
YMMV
A lower clibre might do for coyotes and rattlesnakes, but is a .45 too much weapon for mountain lions and bears, though? Or an angry bull, I suppose?
Remember that, given the powder of the age, a lot of these large caliber weapons had nowhere near the stopping power of modern weapons.
And no, a .45 is not too much for a mountain lion or bear, or a wolf. Anyone who knows their guns would never think that.
It was a rhetorical question.
Guns are like horsepower…you’ll always have more than you need, but less than you want.
Don’t know but I’d guess that the availability of pistols would play a part. And fashion. If everybody you knew had a .45 and that was the most common gun, then that is what you would buy.
Plus GunSpot above makes a very sound point - the ammunition was useful in a rifle.
This begs the question that did a cowboy - ie., a guy who herded cattle on horseback, carry a handgun as part of his normal kit?
While .44-40 was good for larger game, another popular round was the .32-20. Designed in 1882, it was useful for small game, varmints, and predators. Although not a very powerful round, it was used for taking deer as well.
Of course the .44-40 was around for nine years before the .32-20 came out.
Hey, that’s a new one to me! Looks like it might originate from bandits hooting like owls to coordinate their attack? Thanks for the fun word.
Cowboys generally weren’t stalker-hunters shooting their prey from a distance, from what little I’ve read outside of western novels. They would likely need a handy weapon for close-in targets threatening them or the cattle. I’m guessing usually they would avoid taking long shots into or around a herd, they’d ride up to the problem and then deal with it point blank. I would imagine even a bear (or more likely wolf) would respond to a few good shots on the torso or head in the same manner as humans. Plus, a rifle could be kept in the wagon if they did need to occasionally stake out and watch for incoming predators, but for general random occasional handy use, nothing beats a small pistol on the belt.
Snakes – a rifle back at the wagon is useless when a snake is close to your foot. A pistol carried on the belt is needed.
I had my Grandfather’s .32-20 for a while. I was given to understand that there are different loads for the pistol and rifle.
I fired it at a snake, and he was able to withdraw from the conflict because I could not hear or see for a couple of seconds. 
Really? I have an 1897 Winchester Model 92 rifle (not the carbine everyone is familiar with) in .32-20. Basically no recoil, and not as loud as other things I shoot. This is with commercial loads.
That’s a good question, I think. I picture ranchers with a rifle strapped to the saddle as much as I picture a cowboy with Colt .45’s on his hips.
In fact, Wikipedia’s article has a section about the classic Frontier Six-Shooter that says it was popular partly because one kind of ammunition could be used in both their rifles and pistols.
In my opinion probably the usual targets were empty tin cans and glass bottles. The thing about firearms is you never really need one. Until you need one very badly. And what Gus said about dual use for a cartridge.
Lots of noise and so much smoke that I tried to waft the cloud away. Very old ammo.
A dollar-a-day cowpoke might have been able to save enough for a gun, but he was never going to be able to afford to practice enough to become an expert shot with what was in any case a very inaccurate weapon. A snake is a small target and possibly moving - A whip would have been a far better weapon - free to make, and no cost to practice.
Define “inaccurate.”
Is a Colt Peacemaker capable of sub-MOA groups? No. Can it hit a snake from less than 10 feet? Most certainly. I can blow the center out of a bulls-eye target at 50 ft. with my Remingtons, and they’re black powder.
Herding cattle on horseback is only a small part of a cowboy’s duties. Caring for the horses & cattle, assisting in calving, building & mending fences, repairing outbuildings, maintaining equipment (everything from saddles to wagons to tools), and … yes … defending the livestock from predators were regular parts of the job. Roundups and moving herds were, with a few exceptions, shorter seasonal gigs.
Being out in the wilds generally meant carrying weapons. A good knife doubles as a weapon and a tool, but not too many people can claim to have taken on wolves, mountain lions, or bears with a knife. Not all of the hands could afford a gun, but somebody in each group would be well-armed and ready for whatever might go awry.
Also, depending on the era, you might be dealing with human targets, whether they be bandits or raiding natives.