Traditions 1860 Colt Army .44 Black Powder Revolver

[Idara Viengxay]

TheColt Army Model 1860 is a cap & ball .44-caliber single-action revolver used during the American Civil War made by Colt's Manufacturing Company. It was used as a side arm by cavalry, infantry, artillery troops, and naval forces.

The Colt 1860 Army uses the same size frame as the .36 caliber 1851 Navy revolver. The frame is relieved to allow the use of a rebated cylinder that enables the Army to be chambered in .44 caliber. The barrel on the 1860 Army has a forcing cone that is visibly shorter than that of the 1851 Navy, allowing the Army revolver to have a longer cylinder. Another distinguishing feature of the Colt 1860 Army, first introduced on the Colt 1855 Sidehammer Revolver, is the "creeping" loading lever.

More than 200,000 were manufactured from 1860 through 1873. Colt's biggest customer was the US Government with no less than 129,730[1] units being purchased and issued to the troops. The firearm was a single-action, six-shot revolver accurate from 75 up to 100 yards, where the fixed sights were typically set when manufactured. The rear sight was a notch in the hammer, only usable when the revolver was fully cocked.

The Colt .44-caliber Army" Model was the most widely used revolver of the Civil War. It had a six-shot, rotating cylinder, and fired a 0.454-inch-diameter (11.5 mm) round spherical lead ball, or a conical-tipped bullet, typically propelled by a 30-grain charge of black powder, which was ignited by a small copper percussion cap that contained a volatile charge of fulminate of mercury (a substance that explodes upon being subjected to a sharp impact). The percussion cap, when struck by the hammer, ignited the powder charge. When fired, balls had a muzzle velocity of about 900 feet per second (274 meters/second), although this depended on how much powder it was loaded with.

The unfluted cylinder was "rebated", meaning that the rear of the cylinder was turned to a smaller diameter than the front. The barrel was rounded and smoothed into the frame, as was the 1861 Navy Model. The frame, hammer, and rammer lever were case-hardened, the remainder blued; grips were of one-piece walnut; and the trigger guard and front grip strap were of brass while the backstrap was blued."[1]

A distinguishing feature of the Model 1860 was that its frame had no top strap, or no component running above the cylinder. Instead, its strength came from the lower frame and the massive fixed cylinder pin. This made the gun slimmer and lighter than its main competitor, the Remington Model 1858, but the fixed cylinder pin meant that the barrel had to be removed to remove the cylinder, unlike the Model 1858, which only required removal of the cylinder retaining pin.

There are very few variations on the 1860 Army Revolver, but there was limited production of a 7.5-inch barrel model below serial number 3500, and a lightened model with cylinder flutes below serial number 8000.[2] According to importer Cimarron Arms Company, this was called the "Texas Model" because a number of them came into Texas shortly after secession. The goal was to make use of silver spring steel of controlled carbon content and greater strength, but the thinned cylinder proved inadequate and sometimes exploded.(ibid Wilson) Patent inscription in cylinder flute: PATENTED SEPT. 10th 1850. Rebated cylinders above serial number 8000 were roller indented with a Texas Navy and Mexican battle scene and stamped with COLT PATENT NO followed by the last four digits of the serial number.[2]

Military 1860s had elongated screw lugs on the side of the frame to mount a detachable shoulder stock. Some shoulder stocks were also hollow on the inside and intended to be used as canteens and were, unsurprisingly, called "canteen stocks". Stocks were typically made of wood, but other materials were also used, such as, in rare examples, pewter.

Pietta makes a Replica of the 1860 Colt Army with a 5 1/2 inch barrel, coined as the "sheriff's model. Although Colt did not produce this model during regularproduction runs, that is not to say they did not produce some as a special order piece. Moreover, undoubtedly some were modified by cutting the barrel down tothis length by gunsmiths during the era in which the revolvers were commonplace.

Loading is a somewhat lengthy process, with each of the six chambers drilled into the revolving cylinder being loaded from the front of the cylinder. A measured amount of black powder is poured into each chamber. Next a lead ball, or conical bullet (as pictured to the right), is placed at the opening of the chamber and seated by firmly pressing it in with the pivoting loading lever which is attached beneath the barrel of the revolver. For sealing each chamber, an oversize 0.454-inch-diameter (11.5 mm) lead ball is trimmed slightly by the rim of the chamber as the rammer forces it inside. Cap and ball shooters also often place a lubricated wad between balls and powder, or, alternatively, pack lard or a commercially-sold bore lubricant at the mouth of each chamber in an attempt to prevent powder in an adjacent chamber from being ignited by when the gun is fired, which is known as a chainfire. To complete the loading process a percussion cap (described above) is placed on the 'nipple' located on the rear end of each chamber of the cylinder.

When the Colt Model 1860 was used by 19th century soldiers, they most often loaded the gun using paper cartridges. These cartridges consisted of a pre-measured load of black powder and a ball, or conical bullet, wrapped at its base in nitrated paper (paper that had been soaked in potassium nitrate and then dried, to make it more flammable). Loading was thereby simplified to a degree as one only had to slip the premade paper cartridge into the front of the chamber, then seat the protruding conical bullet with the loading lever ram, and finally afix the percussion cap.[3]

The Colt "Army" revolver is to be distinguished from the Colt "Navy" revolver of which there were two models, the octagonal barrel Model 1851 Navy, and the round-barreled Model 1861 Navy, both Navy models being in the smaller .36-caliber. Replica Navy revolvers sold today are often sold in the historically incorrect .44-caliber; originally, all Navy revolvers were manufactured only in .36-caliber.

But if some outfit were to make a conversion cylinder that would be a different matter. Not likely as there is zero demand. On second thought there may be some interest in Britain but I do not know about that .

As posted by Driftwood, the Pietta 1973 is specifically designed and dimensioned so it can't be converted to .45 Colt. The better suggestion has already been made however. Convert the 1873 Cap Gun to cash, then convert the cash into a suppository shooter. Or, convert the cash into a Pietta .44 Cap Gun, and add a conversion cylinder to that.

you can convert your 1873 pietta black powder peacemaker to fire 45lc cowboy ammo without welding or any major alteration to the revolver. first you'll need a 45lc pietta 1873 sa cyl.(colt 1st. or 2nd gen.) a cyl. base pin bushing a base pin shim kit and a stronger hammer spring, i used an 1851 navy spring. the sa cyl. will be shorter then the bp cyl. because of this it will give you undesirable end shake(back and forth movement of the cyl. in the revolver) i added to the base pin bushing .030 of the shim kit to get 0 end shake. (your revolver may need more or less shims)and then swapped out to the stronger hammer spring. then the only alteration i did was to the firing pin on the bottom i filed 1/16 in x 1/16 up, on the rounded side filed 1/32 down x 1/16 back, leaving the legnth and flat side alone, this gave me a strike on the primer and not hitting the casing. little story, first field test i loaded one round in the revolver and without shimming out the end shake and stock hammer spring i fired the revolver, not good, hammer kicked back to fire next cyl. and the primer blew right out of the shell casing, i read where one fella had multiple chain fires,so it's imperative to get rid of all end shake and swape out the hammer spring. results, the barrel bore and cyl. line up perfectly, timeing is perfect, locks up like a ducks butt and fires without any issues, all for the same price as a 58 remmy conversion cyl. one downfall becase the 45lc cyl. is shorter then the bp cyl. the barrel to cyl. gap is .040, i can live with that for now just make sure nobody's standing to your side and only use cowboy loads. the only way i know of to fix the barrel gap is to turn in the barrel or get a longer 45lc cyl. which i for the life of me can't find. i'm no gunsmith, your results may vary so try at your own risk. i hope this helps and enlighten's the sceptic's, happy shootin.

Congratulations. An excellent description of turning a perfectly serviceable percussion handgun and turning it into an UNSAFE contraption that will actually fire a cartridge. Don't bring it to any range I'm on. You'll be sent home.

I had none of the spacing and clearance issues with my '75 Remington. I did have to go back and re-weld and drill the firing pin hole after mistakenly drilling it too large the first time. I bought the gun new for a greatly reduced clearance price and even after purchasing a cartridge cylinder and a hammer, I had less money in it than in the used cartridge gun I that I bought as a mate to it. No timing issues and it shoots reliably and smoothly.

I had a Uberti .45 Colt cylinder in the parts box that fit my Uberti 1873 C&B just fine, so I swapped out the offset percussion firing pin with a centerfire one, and egged out the recoil shield hole a bit to clear the firing pin.

I put two rounds in, stepped outside, and touched it off. Nothing out of the ordinary, really, so I thumbed the hammer back again, pulled the trigger, and *click*. I opened the loading gate, turned the cylinder, and immediately noticed the first case to come up had no primer. I ejected it, and discovered the next one also had no primer... and no bullet...? Apparently, the oversize hole allowed the primer to blow back through the recoil shield, and the primer and escaping gas re-cocked the hammer, dropping it on the second cartridge, repeating the process. I didn't really notice any extra recoil or a drawn out BAAAANG, but apparently I had inadvertently made a full-auto revolver. I put the percussion cylinder and offset firing pin back in and shot it with BP and round balls from then on.

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