The .45 Super is a smokeless powder center fire metallic firearm cartridge developed in 1988 by Dean Grennell, a well-known writer in the firearms field as well as managing editor of Gun World magazine. Born of a desire to update and improve the 1906 era .45 ACP, the .45 Super cartridge is dimensionally identical with the older .45 round, but offers an average 300 foot per second (ft/s) improvement in muzzle velocity. The cartridge was co-developed by Tom Fergerson and Ace Hindman.