Conversion cylinder

Driftwood Johnson said:
For some reason, Ken sold his patent rights to Taylors. Taylors now has somebody else making their cylinders. Because he sold his patent, Howell cannot make a cylinder with angled chambers. So the only six shot cylinder he offers for the 1858 Remington is chambered for 44 Colt, not 45 Colt. Do not make the mistake of buying that one.
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That one can be made to work. Awhile back I learned that the original Colt Richards-Mason cartridge conversions weren't chambered in .45 Colt, they were chambered in .44 Colt. Back then, the .44 Colt cartridge used brass sized about like our .44 Special, but it used a heeled bullet with a diameter of .451x inches. Starline makes the .44 Colt brass (properly headstamped .44 Colt). There are molds available for the heeled .44 Colt (original) bullets, and a company called Alpha Bravo Manufacturing sells the bullets by special order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.44_Colt

But the commercial ammo being sold today as .44 Colt doesn't use a .451" bullet, it uses a .44 caliber, .427" bullet. So the question would be, for the .44 Colt conversion cylinder, does Kenny Howells use a .451" throat, or a .427" throat? If the latter, it would have to be reamed out for use with the proper .44 Colt (Original) cartridge.
 
.427 bullet thru a .452/.454 bore? I presume bad accuracy results...

By the way...good name that Águila Blanca. Sounds familiar to me...
 
That one can be made to work. Awhile back I learned that the original Colt Richards-Mason cartridge conversions weren't chambered in .45 Colt, they were chambered in .44 Colt. Back then, the .44 Colt cartridge used brass sized about like our .44 Special, but it used a heeled bullet with a diameter of .451x inches. Starline makes the .44 Colt brass (properly headstamped .44 Colt). There are molds available for the heeled .44 Colt (original) bullets, and a company called Alpha Bravo Manufacturing sells the bullets by special order.....But the commercial ammo being sold today as .44 Colt doesn't use a .451" bullet, it uses a .44 caliber, .427" bullet. So the question would be, for the .44 Colt conversion cylinder, does Kenny Howells use a .451" throat, or a .427" throat? If the latter, it would have to be reamed out for use with the proper .44 Colt (Original) cartridge.
Click to expand...

Don't bother.

I have an original Colt 1860 Richards Conversion.

Richards%20Conversion%20with%2044%20Colt%20Cartridges_zpsri8k0jva.jpg




It is chambered for the original 44 Colt Cartridge that used a heeled bullet.

There is no 'chamber throat' in the chambers, the chambers are bored straight through, all one diameter. This is because the 44 Colt cartridge was designed to be shot out of the old Colt 44 Cap & Ball cylinders. The brass had the same outside diameter as a '44' caliber ball (about .451). We can get into a discussion of why they are called 44 caliber another time.

Left to right in this photo, the cartridges are 44-40. 44 Henry Rimfire, 44 S&W American, 44 Russian, 44 Colt, 44 Special, and 45 Colt.

44-40%2044henry%2044am%2044russian%2044colt%2044sp%2045colt_zpsgecm7dda.jpg





You can see the 44 Colt round uses a heeled bullet.

I bought a mold for 210 grain heeled bullets from Old West Bullet Moulds. I also bought a special crimping die from them for crimping heeled bullets.

The Howell cylinder for 44 Colt is for the modern version of 44 Colt, using a 44 Special sized bullet. It has a chamber throat. The only way to use this cylinder in a modern 1858 Remington is to use hollow based bullets so the base of the bullet expands to fill the rifling. Otherwise the bullet will not engage the rifling at all.

Just buy the standard five shot cylinder for 45 Colt from Howell, or buy the six shot 45 Colt cylinder from Taylors. As I said before, I chose the Taylors version, before Ken Howell set up his new company, because it used a six shot cylinder. Still the only six shot 45 Colt conversion cylinder for the 1858 Remington on the market today.

https://www.taylorsfirearms.com/hand-guns/cartridge-conversions/1858-remington-conversion-cylinders.html
 
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Driftwood Johnson said:
Don't bother.
Click to expand...

I wasn't advising doing it, just saying that it could be made to work.

Since the modern conversion cylinder has throated chambers, to use the .44 Colt Original you would have to bore out the troats to .451" or .452" -- which would then render it unusable in a firearm with a modern .44 caliber barrel.
 
I'm considering getting a Howell conversion cylinder for my Pietta 1858 Remington "Navy" - don't want to steal this thread but do have a question that others may wonder about as well. On the Howell conversion for the Remy Navy - cylinder would be in 38 Special - are the chambers "straight bored" - i.e. with no throats?

You are shoving a .358 lead bullet down a bore that is .374 ish- so I would be using a 145ish grain hollow base round nose lead bullet. I'm just wondering if they are straight bored or throated so you can use a "heeled bullet" that is .375 on the business end but that can be seated in a 38 Colt Long casing (Starline). In reading he description of them on Taylors, I don't see anything as to how the chambers are bored (cylinders for 38 Colt Long/38 Special)?

Thanks.
 
1860 Army snub nose with kirst konverter

COLT 1860 Army cartridge conversion snub nosed. Came out nice. Functions flawlessly.
 

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