Picked up this A.S.M. engraved, nickel, Sheriff's model yesterday

If you want to make money, buy silver, not guns.

You've a real nice gun ZeenaFlen. If you shoot it, keep the powder charge low - 20 grains FF max.
 
ZeenaFlen Both of ours are brass frames. Brass frames are much softer than steel frames and can stretch and deform if loaded with too hot of a powder charge. I shoot no more than 15 grains of black powder in my .36 caliber brass frames (which both your's and mine are here in this thread) and no more than 22 grains of black powder in my .44 caliber brass frames. Those are light enough loads to still get the job done but a little below what some others might shoot. Like 4v50 Gary told you to shoot no more than 20 grains maximum in your .36 caliber brass frame, but mostly I shoot my black powder at targets and not for hunting, so I load mine down even further. That way I never have to worry about the brass frames stretching or deforming. It's a whole different loading ball game with steel frames. For instance, a steel frame in .44 caliber can be safely loaded with 40 grains of black powder. And I sometimes use that load in one of my steel frame .44's. While I only load 22 grains of black powder in my brass frame .44's.

Oh, one other thing. On my 1860 Pietta reproduction .44 caliber nickel plated ones with gold plated cylinders, when I fired one of them a few times, the gold plating on the front and side edges of the cylinder started flaking off. I contacted Pietta about that and they said that most people don't even shoot the ones gold plated like that and just keep them for collectable purposes and conversation pieces. But they did send me a free solid cylinder that was gold plated because that's all they had in stock at the time even though my cylinder was fluted. But I just kept that cylinder with the rest of the gun's accessories and never fired it on the gun and instead bought two fluted, stainless steel cylinders from Cabela's and use them on both my nickeled Pietta .44's and they work great and I don't have to worry about any gold or nickel plating flaking off. I still haven't fired my .36 caliber one in this thread yet and here it is 2021, five years after I started this thread! And I don't intend to fire it unless I can find a fluted stainless steel cylinder for it like I found for my .44's because I don't want to take the chance that the nickel plating might start flaking off the front and front side edges like happened to my gold plated .44 cylinders. So far I haven't seen any .36 caliber stainless ones at Cabela's or elsewhere. But hopefully I'll find one one day. If not, I could always get a non plated blued one either fluted or solid and use that to avoid flaking off any nickel from the one that's on it currently. I would keep your gun, it is a beauty and just like mine, and if you have other blue or stainless black powder guns, there's really no need to shoot it. It is a beautiful piece, like a piece of jewelry. No need to degrade or take the chance the nickel might flake off of it by shooting it unless you use either a blued steel or stainless steel cylinder in it for shooting. Keep it. Or if not, hey....sell it to me! Seriously. I wouldn't mind having a matched set. If you decide to sell it, contact me at Akins_Bill@yahoo.com
Rats, darn thing underlined my whole email hiding the fact that there is an underscore mark between my last and first name and there are no spaces in my email. Just be aware that it is Akins and then the underscore mark _ and then Bill @yahoo.com

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Glad I clicked on this. An elderly friend gave me one of these. He really liked black powder guns, just didn't shoot them. While it was NIB, the finish is falling off and work. Its never been shot, I just think it wasn't stored well. Not being a black powder guy I didn't know what it was. Recently bought some FF and FFF powder to shoot some of the things he has passed along. This is not one I plan on shooting though.

ZennaFlen if you shoot yours, please post up your impressions!
 
I hope you guys have good luck with them. I have no personal experience with Armi San Marcos black powder guns.

Do have a little experience with their "Schofield" in .45Colt. The gun was as new, and beautiful. Really looked sweet.

operationally, it was crap. Tested with standard 45 colt ammo.

The gun misfired, and came OPEN at least once every cylinder full.

I will not pay for any Armi San Marcos gun, and if given one, I'd hang it on the wall.

I hope your experience is better, mine was entirely unsatisfacory.
 
Sorry you had that negative experience 44 AMP. But maybe you just got a "lemon" and maybe all their Schofields weren't like that. You said when you got it that it was "as new", so I assume you bought it used. Perhaps there were issues with it and that's why the seller sold it. If it were mine, I wouldn't give up on it and would either take it apart myself to try to diagnose and fix the problems, or have a competent gunsmith look at it. You know how it is with anything, sometimes you're the bug and sometimes you're the windshield.
 
A couple of us here bought ASM Schofields instead of Ubertis because of a favorable gunzine article.
It took three guns to get two that worked at all.
They shot far left on target. Gunsmith ran a range rod down the barrels and it would not go all the way, curved barrels.
We sent them back. After a while we heard that the importer had sent them back to Italy.
Eventually we got partial refunds, the wholesale price. Not a terrible loss, the local dealer had not marked them up much so we were only out about $20 each plus shipping two ways.
I put my refund into an ASM SAA which has been fine.

By the way, Bill, how is your ASM doing after five years?
 
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Wow! Good info for me to file away in my mind about ASM Schofields Jim. Sounds like they had a bad production run on the barrels and by what happened to 44 AMP, the barrel latch and internals as well. I've owned several other ASM black powder revolvers in the past that I shot and had no problems with them. So maybe it was just the ASM cartridge using Schofields that had negative issues.

Oh, to answer your question about how my ASM .36 sheriff model is doing after five years, she's still an unfired (by me) safe queen. After the gold plating started flaking off the fluted cylinder of one of my 1860 nickeled Pietta .44's, I was afraid to shoot the ASM and am still waiting to find a stainless fluted cylinder for it like I bought for both my nickel Pietta .44's. Last time I checked, Cabela's where I bought my fluted stainless cylinders for my Pietta's, doesn't even have those anymore. So it was good that I got them when I did and they have worked great in shooting them. So far, I've been unsuccessful at finding fluted stainless cylinders for an open top colt clone .36 caliber. Might just have to settle for a fluted or solid blued one. But maybe not, I have my two white grips nickel .44 caliber 1860 Pietta's, my Uberti .44 caliber 1858 Remington, a long barrel Uberti carbine .44 caliber 1858 Remington and my CVA mountain rifle in .50 caliber. So I've got plenty of other black powder guns to shoot, so no hurry in finding a stainless cylinder for my .36 caliber ASM. Sometimes I take it out of the safe just to admire its engraved nickeled beauty. Like a piece of art. Know what I mean?
 
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