Questions about Cartridge Conversions

Yeah I did read that Wild Bill favored the 1851 Cold Navy.

He was an interesting character, even if he did fight on the wrong side (in Missouri, anyway).
 
Hey - if I do the .38 long colt conversion to my 1851, I have to use the hollow base bullets. These are pretty pricey (A dollar a shell!?) - can you use the spent brass and reload em, or are they no good after you shoot em? Can you buy the brass to reload your own any cheaper?

I'd like to shoot the cowboy round but with the price of it, relining the barrel to shoot standard .38s seems to be more.. uh, economically sound - unless I can do my own reloads.

I want to take my time and weigh the pros and cons before I lay my money down on anything.
 
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.
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Couldn't agree more! If you want a percussion style pistol that shoots cartridges, buy an 1851 cartridge conversion. You also get the much easier to find .38Spl chambering. I'd buy another gun LOOOOONG before I sank a bunch of money into a Pietta percussion pistol that still won't be historically accurate or as easy to manipulate. I firmly believe that the factory cartridge conversions (by Uberti) are much better built guns than the Pietta percussion pistols. Cimarron would be my first choice.


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.
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Not sure what you mean by that as they do produce 1851 Navy cartridge conversions that are entirely historically accurate. Much more so than the Kirst and similar drop-in cartridge cylinders. Far easier to manipulate without need for removing the cylinder to reload. Simply open the gate and eject empties.
 
Conversions.

Yeah, but I want a couple of those boxes the cowboy stuff comes in.
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Not hard to find. Check out any of the sites that supply cowboy shooting goods. Most offer some form of vintage repro ammo box.

As to your Pietta, if you want to get a .38spl conversion to save some $$, check out www.randdgunshop.com. R and D specializes in conversion work. They not only sell the drop in cylinders, but they offer barrel lining in their gunsmithing services. Think the webpage said about $60 to line a barrel to the proper diameter (.357) for the .38 conversion. Not a bad investment provided you don't want to shoot C&B again. If you do, get a .44 pistol and conversion. Round ball .44 and .45 cowboy slugs are close enough in diameter to be interchangeable without too much loss of accuracy and no damage to the gun.
 
Well, after chewing on the whole thing for a while, I took the black powder gun back and got a Cimmaron 1851 Richards-Mason conversion chambered in .45 long colt. Its almost as cool as the one I had, and I have a buddy that has all the stuff to reload .45 Long Colt.
 
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