Fluted stainless (like) Pietta 1851 Marshal cylinder will fit Pietta 1860 & ASM's.

[Bill Akins]

I have the stainless (like) Pietta .44 1851 Marshal. The entire revolver is made out of some kind of rust resistant nickel steel that is like, and has rust resistant qualities like, stainless steel. Often used models are incorrectly advertised by the sellers as "stainless" when they are not. But having one and having shot it, it has all the same qualities of stainless steel. I'd like to know exactly what kind of nickel steel it is made from. But anyway.....I digress from my intended point.

Cabelas sells replacement fluted cylinders for the stainless (like) 1851 marshall for $64.00 each. Here's the link to that.....

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Piet...searchForm&search=Pietta&x=10&y=11&Ntt=Pietta

I really like this stainless (like) fluted cylinder. It is SUPER easy to clean. And also there is no nickel or gold plating to blow off/flake off on them like has happened to one of my gold tone fluted cylinder 1860 Piettas.

I knew that Pietta's 1851 .44 cylinders will fit onto the Pietta 1860 revolvers. So since I have one of these stainless (like) cylinders on my '51 Marshal I took it off and tried it on my other two 1860 Pietta's and also on my 1860 Armi San Marco (ASM).

It perfectly fit both my 1860 Piettas and also my 1860 ASM and turned and indexed perfectly and was nice and tight. But my ASM cylinder would not fit any of my Piettas. The ratchet on the ASM's cylinder is a couple of thousandths too big to fit into the ratchet cutout on the Pietta's recoil plate. Okay, no problem. So the Pietta 1851 Marshal cylinder will fit other Pietta 1851 and 1860 revolvers as well as fit at least the 1860 ASM. But my ASM cylinder will not fit the Piettas.

It looks so good on all three of my 1860's that I'm going to order 3 of them. Because not only are they highly polished and perfectly match the polished nickel of my 3 1860's, and with them on the revolver it looks like a factory job,.....but being stainless (like) all the way through, I can use them to shoot on my 1860 Pietta's and ASM 1860 so I can save my gold tone cylinders and keep them nice and not cause the gold to flake off from the cylinder's explosions like has happened to one of my fluted gold cylinder nickel plated Pietta 1860's. I'll post some pics of the '51 Marshal cylinder on my 1860's.

Trying it out to see how it looks replacing the gold tone plated cylinders on my Piettas and ASM, it's bright polished look and distinctive flutes really changes the look of the revolvers. I like it very much. With my 1860's all being nickel plated but with gold tone plated cylinders, this cylinder makes them all look like they are all completely polished stainless or all polished nickel. A very nice all nickel or polished all stainless look with the added feature of the fluted (actually half fluted) cylinder.
Stainless BP 1860 Colt style revolver replicas are not very plentiful and are very expensive. I saw one on Gunbroker going for around $900.00
This cylinder on a nickel plated 1860 is about as close as you can come to a stainless 1860 Colt without a huge expense. Plus the uber attractive flutes....DID I MENTION THE FLUTES?

Thought you fellas might like to know the '51 Marshal stainless (like) half fluted cylinder will fit all the other 1851 Pietta's and the 1860 Pietta's too, as well as at least the ASM 1860 model.




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[Hawg]

Most likely it's just polished steel. It will be somewhat rust resistant for awhile.

 

[Bill Akins]

Hawg, I've done some reading and found various posts online that discuss that this is not just "in the white" polished steel, but is some kind of special steel with qualities like stainless. There was one thread somewhere I read where someone posted exactly what kind of steel it is, but I can't remember. But it isn't just regular polished steel.

Since I have one '51 Marshal cylinder like this on my Marshal, I took some pics this morning showing me using it on other revolvers.

Here's my '51 Marshal. But it is a bit more shiny now than in this photo after a visit to my buffing wheel. Now it could pass for highly polished stainless or even nickel plated. It's cylinder is the one that Cabelas sells spares of for $64.00

Next are two pics of my Pietta 1860, engraved, nickel plated with gold (tone?) plated cylinder. This revolver's gold cylinder is perfect and I'd like to keep it that way and use a '51 Marshal cylinder on it to shoot it and save my gold plated one. Because on one of my other Pietta 1860's has had its gold blown off and flaked off its cylinder very badly from firing it.

Now three pics of the same above revolver with its gold cylinder replaced by the stainless (like) '51 Marshal cylinder.

The pictures don't really do justice to how good this cylinder looks on the revolvers.


Continued next post due to 6 pics per post limit.



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[Bill Akins]

Continued from last post.



Next are two pictures of my engraved, 1860 ASM, that is also nickel plated with a gold plated cylinder and gold plated engraved rammer.

And now two pics of the same 1860 ASM with the Pietta '51 half fluted Marshal cylinder.

Continued next post.



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[Bill Akins]

Continued from previous post.


Next up is my NON engraved, totally smooth, nickel plated with gold fluted cylinder Pietta 1860. This one I replaced a hammer on recently. This is the one that has all the gold plating blown off the front face of the cylinder and quite a few big patches of gold are blown off the sides of the cylinder too. It looks like flaking but was actually a result of the explosions causing the gold to flake off. So it was blown off. I called Traditions and they sent me a non fluted gold cylinder as a replacement. Great customer service. Anyway, hope you can make out the patches of gold blown off this cylinder in this one pic closeup of it.

And now 3 pics of the same revolver with the '51 Marshal cylinder on it.

If you look closely at the gold cylinder underneath the revolver you can see the blown off gold patches.

That's a purty thing isn't it?
Funny the difference a half fluted, highly polished cylinder makes isn't it?
Since few 1860 Colt clones are made in stainless, and those few that are being very expensive....this is about as close to an all stainless 1860 Colt that you can get without going to a big expense. A nickel plated 1860 using the Cabelas '51 Marshal stainless (like) cylinder that Cabelas sells separately as a spare.

I'm going to order 3 for all three of my 1860's to shoot with so I can save my other good gold cylinders from losing their gold like one of my Piettas did.


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[Fingers McGee]

Hey Bill, You've stumbled across something that I've done in the past. I had a pair of the Nickel/Gold 1860 Sheriff's models that I used the Marshall cylinders on so I could shoot them and not mess up the gold plated cylinders. Don't have the Sheriff's models anymore. Someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse on them; but, I still have the pair of Marshal models.

There were 1290 of the 2nd Generation Colt BP stainless 1860 Armies made. They have been selling in the $750-$900 range recently. Uberti also sold SS models from 1983 thru 1987. Don't know how many of them got made though. ASM also made some SS models on the 80s and 90s. I've got a 2nd Gen, Uberti and ASM in SS. The ASM was well used when I got it and the Uberti and Colt are as yet unfired.

 

[Bill Akins]

Yep Fingers, I saw one of those stainless Colt clones going for $900.00 on Gunbroker. I have about $200.00 in my nickel plated with blown off gold plated fluted cylinder 1860. With the stainless (like) Marshall cylinder adding an extra $64.00, that comes out to about $264.00 for what looks just as nice and cleans and shines up just as good as a full stainless one going for $900.00 Plus like you and I found out, it saves your gold cylinders and looks good doing it. Almost looks better in some cases because when that highly polished fluted cylinder replaces the gold one, it's a toss up of which one looks better.


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[madcratebuilder]

Is this thread inspired by Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez? I love the scene when he builds the pistol from parts.

I'm partial to nickle myself.

 

[Hellgate]

Bill,
Before shooting that ASM with the USM/Pietta cylinder, take a look down the barrel or use a dowel to check for proper chamber to barrel alignment. It could be off a bit and cause lead shaving or bind up the cylinder. I've had SS Pietta Remmies & a Euroarms Remmie that were so out of synch that they'd suddenly freeze up when shot and the cylinder would jump out of the bolt notch. Look for that crescent moon.

 

[Fingers McGee]

Is this thread inspired by Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez? I love the scene when he builds the pistol from parts.

I'm partial to nickle myself.

Aaaaaaggghhhhhhh my eyes!

 

[Bill Akins]

Is this thread inspired by Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez? I love the scene when he builds the pistol from parts.

"When you got to shoot,.....shoot, don't talk" (Tuco "The Ugly"). I love that line almost as much as...."There are those with guns and those who dig....you dig" (Blondie).

No, I wasn't inspired to do this thread by Tuco's scene. But that was an interesting scene. Only problem is that some of the revolvers Tuco picked up and discarded were not even invented nor produced yet and were incorrect to use in that time period before they actually existed.

What also was interesting is that Tuco for some inexplicable reason, chose one cylinder strictly from looking at it externally, over another cylinder that was already on the revolver and took it off another '51 to put on another '51. As if he could tell from looking at it externally that it was better than the cylinder ALREADY on the other '51. Chuckle.

He did NOT look down the barrel as he turned the cylinder to see if the chambers matched up with the barrel. Instead he listened to the clicking of the action to supposedly fool the viewer into thinking he knew what he was doing. Actually that scene has no basis at all in scientific fact or logical gunsmithing or even just common sense things to look for when inspecting a '51 to purchase.....or in that case "steal" as Tuco did. But it was good theatre and no doubt fooled 99% of the unknowing public who has no idea about the mechanics of black powder revolvers, into thinking Tuco was a real revolver expert. Chuckle again.

Another interesting thing about that movie was when during the same scene, one minute both Blondie and Tuco are shown using discretely BP cylinder (with nipples) only 1851 Colts and the next minute they are using either cartridge conversions or 1872 open tops. Just like when Blondie was cleaning his revolver when the Mexican banditos of Tuco's were creeping up to his room, and Blondie barely gets the CARTRIDGES into his revolver in time to shoot all of them. Incorrectly showing Blondie using CARTRIDGES in at least as late as 1865 (because the war was still going on) BEFORE cartridge conversions were done on the '51 Colt and before the '72 open top cartridge Colts were made. Totally non factual. Chuckle again.

Another funny scene was when Tuco had his '51 Colt in the bathtub with him and shot the guy with his .51 after supposedly having it either underwater or under the soap bubbles. More good theatre but if he had submerged that '51 I doubt it would have fired. That was the scene where right after it Tuco said his famous line of "When you have to shoot....shoot....don't talk".

It was a great movie and one of my favorites, but the property master or weapons master on that film used an AWFUL lot of "artistic license" with the weapons.....to say the least.

What actually inspired me to create this thread, was having the gold blow off one of my Pietta's gold cylinders, and then realizing that my Pietta '51 Marshall's fluted stainless (like) cylinder would also fit my Pietta 1860's and my ASM 1860. That way I can shoot them with the solid stainless (like) cylinder and not have to worry about blowing off the gold plating on my original to the revolver cylinders.

Like you Madcratebuilder, I'm partial to nickel (or stainless) too. Love your nickel 1860.


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[Bill Akins]

Hellgate wrote:
Bill,
Before shooting that ASM with the USM/Pietta cylinder, take a look down the barrel or use a dowel to check for proper chamber to barrel alignment. It could be off a bit and cause lead shaving or bind up the cylinder. I've had SS Pietta Remmies & a Euroarms Remmie that were so out of synch that they'd suddenly freeze up when shot and the cylinder would jump out of the bolt notch. Look for that crescent moon.

I sure will Hellgate and thanks for pointing that out. I do know to look for that but thanks for reminding me anyway, because if I (or other readers here) didn't already know that, it would be a good thing to know and as you pointed out, it can cause lead "spitting" out the side of the forcing cone and if real bad even push the cylinder out of bolt alignment on firing.

Yep, like you said, look down the barrel's muzzle with a flashlight and inspect each individual chamber to make sure it is lined up with the barrel and there is no sliver or "crescent moon" surface of cylinder showing in the same view as the barrel's tube.

I have seen some BP revolvers where their own original cylinder was not even properly aligned with the barrel and you could see that "crescent moon" of the face of the cylinder looking down the barrel rather than just seeing the chamber's hole directly in line with the barrel's hole.

Absolutely a "must do" check when inspecting a revolver to buy or after changing to a non original cylinder.


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