Stopped by my favorite little pawn shop with Sunday hours this morning and spied a sweet Pietta 1851 Navy revolver like the one in the link below:



I've already got a Pietta 1858 Remington so the fact that this Navy model was also in .44 cal was the icing on the cake. The final price of $115.00 OTD didn't hurt either.

Overall it's in mint condition. The previous owner either didn't shoot it much if he did he did an excellent job of keeping it clean. No rust or pitting, no holster wear, just like new. I guess next weekend I'll be burning some powder.

Anyone else into these oldies but goodies?

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BCCI Life Member #2068

Man I need to travel to towns like this where there's actual good stuff at pawn shops. All the ones around here have used Glocks, Taurus and the usual cheap Jennings and Cobra ****, all priced at retail.


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I know what you mean. This little shop doesn't have tons of firearms but they do have new and used as well as consignment pieces. Their inventory changes quite often and while they do have some of the cheap stuff they also have unique pieces like a Wilkenson Linda carbine as well as Milsurps and antique arms.

Their prices are also pretty decent and they aren't afraid to haggle. I hate shops that price high and refuse to budge or give you any break at all

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BCCI Life Member #2068

I don't have any black powder guns, but I have been tempted. Pawn shops I've been in would probably only want about $700.00 or so for a gun such as yours

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

A pawn shop in Athens, TX has a Colt snub for sale for 399 plus tax.
However it also has a long number deeply "inscribed" on both sides of it!!!!!
This ruined it for me as the price and availability to procure replacement parts.
How could someone do this??? Pure desecration!

Sounds like a police case number. I've seen that way to often.

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Eccentric old coot

I got into black powder guns about 5 years ago. Here is what I have accumulated since then...

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Ooops, I forgot about this one, and the holster I made for it...

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I only have reproductions, mostly Ubirti, but some Pieta.

I have a LaMatt that has "issues", 3 Walkers, 2 Army 1861's and 2 1858 Remingtons! I shoot all but the LaMatt. I only buy .457 round balls. I once used Pyrodex, but found it was inconsistent in velocity and accuracy. I switcher to FFFg & FFg Goex black powder. The Walkers will hold 70 grains of FFFg, but the 6 shot group at 25 FEET is about 3 1/2 feet. 50 grains (equivalent) of FFFg was about 4 to 6 inches, I switched to FFg and groups fell to 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches, good enough for me! In the 61 Armys and 58 Remingtons I use 25gr. eq. of FFFg and get similar groups, all sub 4 inch! I use lubed felt wads under the ball (1 in the 61's & 58's and 3 in the Walkers, then fill the cylinder mouth with straight Crisco or Bore Butter in cool weather or 50/50 Crisco/paraffin in hot as a lube to keep fouling soft.

I clean in hot soapy water, let dry and wipe down with a coat of Bore Butter for storage. It works like cosmoline, but cleans off easily!

I own a couple of 44 bullet moulds for casting round balls, but have been very happy with Hornady swaged balls (the weight consistency is the deal! I have repro powder flasks. The small simple flasks like an Colt 1861 model or a modern round cylinder from CVA of Knight work fine. The repro 1847 Walker Flask with the adjustable spout has been a disappointment! When developing loads, I always used a adjustable muzzle loading rifle measure, works great!

There was a LGS (now gone), that in the 60's and 70's was a Hunter Holster distributer. The holster for a 8" Super Blackhawk fits a Walker just fine. I never carried the smaller cap and ball guns in leather.

Ivan

Remember; Boys & girls, shooting Black Powder is a walk in the clouds!

I only have one now. A Ruger Old Army. I consider it to be the finest, cap and ball revolver ever made. But not historical at all.

I had a reproduction Remington for a while, it was good for what it was. But not very accurate.

My best friend had an early blue Old Army, That's what started me into Cap and Ball shooting in the first place! Bill Ruger's inspiration for the Old Army, was Remington's New Army. Of course the Old Army is the best, Bill had a hundred years of manufacturing improvements to work with!

Ivan

I have always enjoyed the description from Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece Blood Meridian of scalp hunters being issued their Colts:

“Two men carried from a wagon a stenciled ordnance box from the Baton Rouge arsenal . . . [and] pried open the box with a pritchel and a shoeing hammer and handed up a flat package in brown butcherpaper translucent with grease like a paper of bakery goods. Glanton opened the package and let the paper fall to the dirt. In his hand he held a longbarreled sixshot Colt’s patent revolver. It was a huge sidearm meant for dragoons and it carried in its long cylinders a rifle’s charge and weighed close to five pounds loaded. These pistols would drive the half-ounce conical ball through six inches of hardwood and there were four dozen of them in the case. Speyer was breaking out the gang-molds and flasks and tools and Judge Holden was unwrapping another of the pistols. The men pressed about. Glanton wiped the bore and chambers of the piece and took the flask from Speyer.
She’s a stout looker, said one.
He charged the bores and seated a bullet and drove it home with the hinged lever pinned to the underside of the barrel. When all the chambers were loaded he capped them[…]”

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No school like the old school.

I started BP revolver shooting over 50 years ago with a no-name 1851 brass-framed replica that I bought at a gun show for $25. I had way more than $25 worth of fun with it. I later sold it, but I don't remember why, as there was no problem with it.

I also still have an 1858 .36 Remington and a .44 1860 Army, both Pietta, both excellent revolvers. I also have an original 6-shot 1849 Colt .31, but that one is a family heirloom. One of my wife's relatives on the losing side carried it in the War Between The States. I also have his 3-band Enfield .577 with bayonet. With 8 notches in the stock.

[QUOTE=DWalt;139724380]I also have an original 6-shot 1849 Colt .31, but that one is a family heirloom. QUOTE]

I believe that was nicknamed, "The Baby Dragoon"

I had part of an original Colt 1855 Root revolver in something like 31/32 cal. I had the cylinder, barreled frame and hammer. All the small parts and stocks were missing. It got lost in one of the moves I made when newly married. I acquired that frame and such dad, and planned on rebuilding it from parts from Dixie Gun Works, but there were 2 or 3 parts I couldn't get, and it sat around, got buried, and went missing.

The Root's were a top strap revolver with a side hammer. The same design was used on the Colt revolving rifles and shot guns. I think his name was James Root, he was a design engineer at the Hartford plant in the 1850's and 60's after Sam Colt's death.

The guns described here were a pound lighter and the barrel a couple inches shorter and the cylinder slightly shorter than the Walker. There were 1100 Walkers in the only batch made and a few assembled from parts. The Dragoon were made starting 2 years later in 3 models for about 15 years and there were over 20,000 of them. The 1860 Army is much smaller and lighter, and the cylinder holds a lot less powder!

On Antiques Roadshow, In Dallas, Texas, a young woman had part of a brass framed Dragoon, that had been dug up from a Civil War battlefield on her ranch. The rusted, non-functioning and mostly missing gun was identified as a Texas Dragoon. One of one Hundred made, with less than 20 remaining! That historical artifact was valued at $20,000. Good Condition Colt's aren't worth near that! But a functioning Actual and Original Walker is worth over $50,000 (Colt reissued them in the 70's or 80's starting with SN 1101, Colt considered them "real" or "authentic" but meh! They are a lot more money than my Italian copies and really no better functioning! Dragoons and Army revolvers were in the reissue also.)

Ivan

Here is a very interesting article on the guns of Blood Meridian. Especailly on the various Colt models of the time.

Firearms of the Frontier Partisans — The Guns of ‘Blood Meridian’ - Frontier Partisans

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No school like the old school.

Those brass frame Piettas in .44 (which never existed on a '51 frame except the round barrel Confederate guns) are rediculously fantastic deals. Look what that gun cost you then think about how much it would cost alone to have a grip maker make one piece grips for a gun that fit as good as those do on their guns. You could buy two Piettas for that price. And they are well made shooters. I traded a Redhawk for a nickel 4" Model 19-3. But the guy said I also had to buy his NIB .44 brass frame Pietta for $125. I didn't want it. And he went down to $25 on his own. It was a deal at $125 IMO.

I believe that was nicknamed, "The Baby Dragoon"

No. The Baby Dragoon is a little different, and earlier, critter. The BDs have no loading lever. The 1849 does have a loading lever. Early 1849s had five-shot cylinders, later ones had 6-shot cylinders. Mine is from 1860 according to the SN. There were more 1849 revolvers made than any other Colt C&B revolver, and were very popular due to their small size.

I wish I could find a pawn shop that didn't think their guns were collector condition priced.
I would have jumped for joy getting that gun for that price.

The modern-made Italian replica C&B revolvers are for the most part superior in quality, materials, and workmanship to the 19th Century originals. And most are priced very reasonably. No real reason to shoot the originals today. The only part I don't like is the cleanup job after shooting them. Back in my early CAS days, I used a pair of Remington C&B replicas, and they worked OK for me. Except for the hassle of cleaning and reloading between stages.

I only saw one guy shoot Frontiersman class with a white shirt, next shoot he had a black shirt, black hat, & black pants. I shot frontier cartridge a couple of times, but from my BP shot gunning, I already knew how to dress!

I agree the brass framed guns are a great value, especially used. None of the LGS's around here will take a cap & ball pistol or muzzle loading rifle on trade. So the used market is very inexpensive, especially brass frames! The last brass frame 44 Army I bought used was $65, and I don't think it was ever shot!

I have a tool box "kit" for all my front loader shooting. I keep 3 or 4 sets of nipples (for the different thread patterns and lengths) at hand for when one of my sons come over with a some friend's non-functioning cap & ball revolver. (dry firing is pretty hard on those guns!)

Ivan

I bought my 1860 Army .44 Pietta used (but in like new condition and with the original box) for $90 about five years ago. I had to do a little tinkering with the barrel wedge to make it fit right, but no big deal to do. Nothing like shooting a C&B to slow you down. Fire six shots in 30 seconds, then spend the next ten minutes cleaning and reloading. And another half hour cleaning when I get back home.

Good point about it slowing you down. You basically bring a self contained reloading bench with you.

I learned to shoot handguns with a muzzle loader, cap and ball single shot. Made me a very deliberate shooter. I don't spray and pray.

It was a CVA kit I bought and my Dad and I made. It was our only gun for years.

Then when I was 18 I bought the replica Remington cap and ball Revolver and shot it a lot, until I waited too long to clean it and could not get it apart. LOL!

By then I had my real pistol permit, and stepped up to a .357 Ruger Blackhawk. It was like going to heaven.

Years later somebody gave my Dad the Ruger Old Army, he loved that thing.

"Skin that smoke wagon". Kurt Russel as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone.

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John

I thought your gun was the brass frame .44 since you called it a Navy. But you posted a picture and it's an 1860 Army and an even greater deal for $115. And with a steel frame. Cabela's used to sell thes will 3" barrels and no ramrod. wish I bought one of those.

"Cabela's used to sell these with 3" barrels and no ramrod. Wish I bought one of those. "

My Pietta 1860 came in a Cabella's box. Ever heard of the "Avenging Angel" 1860 snubby used by Porter Rockwell, Joseph Smith's and Brigham Young's enforcer? I think its barrel was also cut to 3".

I just posted a link not a photo. A moderator edited my post and must have added the photo. Can't recall the link at the moment, may have been the wrong revolver. Pretty sure mine is the "Navy". It has the brass frame, round barrel and the engraving on the cylinder.

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BCCI Life Member #2068

I own two black powder Colt replicas and used to have a stainless '58 Remington. The Remington was fitted too tightly and would bind up tight after just four or five shots. Some other poor soul owns it now.
My first Colt is a Pietta 1860 Army fluted cylinder model I bought from Dixie Gun Works nearly thirty years ago. A very good looking and surprisingly accurate gun with 25 grains of fffg under a Hornady .454" ball and a wonder wad. OK accuracy with Pyrodex P, which I use now because nobody local sells fffg black powder for a sane price.
I haven't shot the second Colt clone yet. It's a Hawes .44 caliber 1851 Navy model made in Italy by Armi San Marco, I believe. Got it a few years ago for $100 at my LGS. The '51 has a superb trigger! Man I wish all of my Ruger single actions had a trigger just like it.

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Virtue,Liberty & Independence