Questions about Cartridge Conversions

S

Slaeghunder

Inactive
I have a question. I know a little about modern rifles and handguns but didly squat about black powder and cowboy stuff.

Anyway, I bought a Pietta 1851 Colt Navy revolver, steel frame, .36 caliber.
As I understand it, there are drop-in cylinders that will convert this to fire cartriges.

The thing is this - all these cylinders say they're for the Pietta 1851 Colt Navy in .36 caliber, say that they convert it to .38 Long Colt.

Do I need a new barrel? How does a .38 caliber bullet fit down a .36 caliber barrel? Most of the places I have found that describe these conversions say the bullet is actually small for the bore and to use hollow points because they open up in the barrel and take up the slack.

I've got people telling me this can't possibly be right, but I've scoured the net and found no cylinder that is chambered for .32, which everyone keeps telling me is the right round.

I don't want to drop $200 bucks on the wrong thing.

Whats the story on this?
 
Your right ...the others are wrong ..the 36 does convert to a 38 cal..and the 38 will bounce off the walls in the barrel ..if you don`t shoot the heeled bullets that were suggested to you . I `ve heard alot of folks haveing the barrel relined to 357 to make it tighter so they could shoot 38 `s better .
There is some that convert to a 32 cal and thats the 31 cal cap and ballers like the remington pocket pistol.
 
Yes, I found on the internet a place where you can buy a cylinder with a "lined" barrel in a kit and it'll shoot conventional .38 ammo. That ran about $300, and I figure since all the cylinders are $200 and a box of 50 hollow heeled rounds in .38 long colt looks to be about $50 a pop (Ouch) that might be the smart way to go. Standard .38 can be gotten cheap.
 
I feel like a dumb little kid all over again with all this stuff. I used to think I knew a little bit about guns but I never heard of "hollow based" bullets or "heeled" bullets or any of that until I started looking into the cowboy guns. And all these weird calibers! It's like guns from another planet.
 
It's like guns from another planet.
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Nah, just guns from the past. Nobody that I know of makes heeled bullets anymore, except .22's. That's the way they all started out. With a heeled bullet the bullet is the same size as the outside diameter of the case with the heel part roll crimped inside the case. Just like a .22. Which in a .36 conversion would be just about right. So you need the hollow based bullet to fill out the difference between bullet size and bore size. Hollow based bullets got their start just before the Civil War in muzzleloading rifles. They were invented by Captain Claude-Etienne Minie of France. Hence the name Minie Ball.
 
Ahh, just shoot the cap and ball as a cap and ball and buy a Uberti cartridge conversion revolver if you want to shoot .38 specials out of it. That's what I did and I don't have to worry about heeled bullets, hollow base bullets or anything else, well except for using too high of pressures. I spent the same money and have two guns instead of one with a cylinder. But if you got to have the drop in cylinder, make sure you dont use the wrong bullets.
 
Slaeghunder -

You are aware the proper size round ball for a .36 cal bp revolver is .375" in diameter, correct? And some .36 cal bp revolvers need .380" round balls to seal properly and shoot accurately.

And the .38 Long Colt bullet is 0.361" in diameter, I believe.
 
Like I said earlier, I know squat about black powder. Nor do I know anyone who knows squat, which puts me off of messing around with it.

They tried to sell me the conversion revolver (45 long colt I think) but I didn't want it, because I wanted a Colt 1851 Navy. I like the looks of it, and it has historical, sentimental value to me because I'm a Missourian and they were popular with the Guerrillas. Josey Wales, man!

I just want to shoot cartridges because, like I said, I know squat about black powder.
 
[They tried to sell me the conversion revolver (45 long colt I think) but I didn't want it, because I wanted a Colt 1851 Navy. I like the looks of it, and it has historical, sentimental value to me because I'm a Missourian and they were popular with the Guerrillas. Josey Wales, man! /QUOTE]

I understand your affinity for the 1851, I really like it and think it points excellently. Uberti does make a cartridge conversion of the 1851, check here:http://www.uberti.com/firearms/armyConversion.tpl

I bought the 1851 navy conversion instead of doing the cylinder conversion mostly because the Uberti comes with a loading gate. I always thought it would be a pain in the butt to pull the wedge take off the barrel and cylinder and reload the cylinder again. But of course you can get conversion cylinders for your 1851 with a loading gate too, but you have to do some work to get it installed.

BTW, The Outlaw Josey Wales is one of my favorite westerns, just a kick butt movie.
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Sorry about that, I got Josey Wales mixed up with the Man with No Name - also some of my favorite movies.

However, according to a lot of different sources ("Age of the Gunfighter" is the only one I can think of off the top of my head) the 1851 Navy WAS extremely popular with the Missouri Guerrillas. Of course, other models were also popular - they commonly carried up to eight pistols between their person and their saddlebags, I doubt they were so picky they only carried one model.
 
I said MAIN guns. He also had a .31 in a shoulder holster.
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Yeah that too. There was an article in Guns of the old West that outlined the guns that Josey Wales used in the movie. Funny thing was that the guns mysteriously changed from cap and ball to cartridge conversions throughout the movie. Also, according to the article, the gun he pulled from his burned out farmhouse was an 1860 Richards-Mason conversion which kind of screws up the timeline of the movie. Even with the guns changing, the movie ruled in my opinion.

I think Wild Bill Hickock carried 1851s during his time in Missouri. At least it is reported that he shot a fellow dead with one shot from an 1851 at 75 yards in Springfield.


"Dying aint much of a living, Boy." - one of my favorite quotes of Mr. Wales.
 
I think Wild Bill Hickock carried 1851s during his time in Missouri. At least it is reported that he shot a fellow dead with one shot from an 1851 at 75 yards in Springfield.
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Hickok was a legend in his own time, some say of his own making but the fact is he did kill Dave Tutt with one of his fancy engraved, ivory gripped 51 Navies. He was given a pair of cartridge conversions but as far as I know never carried them. He preferred the C&B. One of them resides at the Autry Museum http://www.autry-museum.org/
 
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