What gun Would I have in the 1880s? Part 3
What gun Would I have in the 1880s? Part 3
Percussion Revolvers – Let the fun begin!
Pre the 1800s a few attempts had been made to make a repeating firearm, and one of the methods tried was a revolving cylinder. 1818 saw the first patent for an American made revolver by Artemas Wheeler, with the same design being improved and patented by Elisha Collier later in the same year. This turned out to be an evolutionary dead end. The real hero of our story turned up with a patent in 1936, a certain Samuel Colt. Colt goes on to make nearly a million percussion revolvers, more than twice the number of his nearest rival Remington.
By the 1880s over 200 different patents had been lodged for revolvers or improvements to revolver design and probably nearly as many gun makers had come and gone during that time. The Civil War had seen the country flooded with home production pistols as well as handguns imported from Europe, so our choice is wide. Or it should be!
If you have deep pockets real antique pistols are available, but look to spend at least £600 for a working but tatty revolver and you can easily part with a couple of grand! No licence is required, and you can fire (percussion) caps to get a bang but maybe not something you want to run around in the woods with.
The main options are modern made replica/ blank fire pistols. This really limits your choice to a few Colt and Remington models. But you do come across the occasional Starr or Spiller and Burr replica. Most are made by Italian arms companies such as Pietta and Uberti but there are others. They make high quality revolvers with the same model made in several different forms, as a real shooting pistol, as an inert pistol and a blank fire pistol. While we need a licence to own a real shooting pistol, one that has been deactivated is useful to us if it can fire caps. Inert versions with blocked barrels are again useful as they can also normally fire caps and of course blank fire pistols work for us.
This limits us to only a few models: - Colt Navy (1851), Colt Army (1860) and Remington 1858. These were all very common, quality, military percussion revolvers of the period and were normally made with a 7 ½” barrel and steel frames.
But a modern-day reworking of history has given us a few extra variations! During the Civil War the Confederates made a few Colt copies with brass frames, so you can now get a Confederate Colt Navy, Confederate Colt Army and Confederate Remington pistol all with brass frames. The barrel lengths have also been changed to give us a shorter version in each. With 5 ½” barrels this version is normally referred to as a “Sheriff” model. So, you can get, for example, a Confederate Sheriff Navy – A navy style pistol with a brass frame and a shorter barrel. This variation can be applied to the Colt Army and Remington as well. While we have only got a choice of 3 base models, each has 4 variations, with a choice of steel or brass frames and long and short barrels. If you wish to be 100% correct go with a steel frame and a long barrel. But brass framed pistols are normally cheaper and short barrels are often more convenient.
I will leave blank fire pistols until next time as we must get out heads around “cartridge conversion” pistols and the story of Rollin White. But for now, you can “Google” Colt Navy, Colt Army and Remington 1858s as the internet has loads of info on our 3 favourite percussion revolvers.