I have to rethink the spare cylinder idea

TNGhost said:

There is little evidence our army issued or promoted the use of spare cylinders for reloading, likely due to the doctrine of using the handgun to to close and them employing the saber. Most troops did not carry a handgun, they were mostly limited to officers and cavalry troops (hence the saber doctrine)

There was though at least one army that issued the colt 1851 with a spare cylinder and a holster pouch combination as well are sperate cylinder pouches and that was the large and well known and well-respected Prussian Army, as evidenced in my earlier post in this thread.

That we see little evidence of it here is due to that fact that handguns themselves were not "general issue" and confined to certain types of soldiers, mostly officers and cavalry. Calvary likely didn't make use of the spare cylinders for two reasons, the aforementioned use of the saber in close quarters and, as they were on a horse, the ability to carry more weight in the form of extra revolvers. They even had those pommel holsters designed to carry extra larger heavier revolvers. And officers, well likely reloads were not a priority for most of them for the obvious reasons and if they were in combat, they also carried sabers.

You would also, in the case of the Confederacy have to take into account the general shortage of guns, and in particular revolvers, which would have likely driven the use of spare cylinders as getting one revolver was difficult and multiples more so, so the cylinder thing would have been more likely.

The only thing that there is little evidence of is pouches, that spare cylinders were sold and even advertised is well documented as well as pistols coming with spare cylinders. On thing I tend to dismiss those naysayers that right about this issue is, when they start citing the dangers of carrying a "loaded" cylinder, comparing them to hand grenades or claymore mines. Yes, a capped loaded cylinder would present hazards, but a loaded uncapped cylinder would not as we all here should be well aware of, and these "expert" writers more often than not do not differentiate or even mention this. Even an uncapped loaded cylinder would greatly sped up the reloading process, especially if on had a capper around their neck. Uncapped cylinders would also be easier/safer to carry, thus not requiring a special pouch, explaining their scarcity.

A good question may be did those carry spare loaded cylinders carry them capped, or uncapped?

As far as commonly done, I would say the Prussian army's use pretty much says it was "common". Depends on how you define common though as it is a subjective concept.

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KingOfKindling said:

That would be interesting. I've never tried to time any of my shooting, and never done anything close to competition, so I don't have any gear. Could just record things and get the timing off the recording.

I would probably be pretty darned slow. Don't practice as much as I should. Finally got a setup where I can shoot in my backyard with wax bullets. Need to do it more.

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Malamute said:

Some competitions dont really require much gear. I had a huge amount of fun shooting some steel challenge shoots, they were 5 plate and 6 plate, no reloads required. I shot my best time with an SA revolver, very close second with DA revolver, 1911 was last in hit ability and time for me.

The main thing is having fun and learning.

Wax bullets would be fun for yard practice.

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M. De Land said:

Yeah, can you imagine a chain fire in your britches ! The muzzle blast would probably do as much damage as the projectiles !

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Eutycus said:

It is not an impossibility but I still think spare cylinders had a spare revolver wrapped around them.

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AlexB said:

Personally I would have had as many of both I could afford or carry.

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Loyalist Dave said:

This is a good point, BUT nobody has showed evidence the reason for the spare cylinder was, and only was, a "quick reload".



The problem with this is "damaged" from what? How? So you don't get the revolver repaired OR it was so badly damaged that it cannot be BUT the cylinder survived?



Again, this simply shows that as far as the army is concerned, the government wasn't buying and issuing spare cylinders. So you're probably not swapping cylinders if you are a private in the cavalry.

The first article mentions that when the conversion cylinders started to appear, some revolvers were sold with the conversion, BUT still came with a cap-n-ball cylinder. This is in case the owner can't find cartridges, and has to switch back for a time. THIS might be the key, but not quite the reason....

So the cylinders are NOT for a "quick reload" but we can find scenarios where they could be faster than the conventional way of reloading. WE however miss a couple points.

ARE they for reloading in combat, OR CONSIDER..., was the owner of such a cylinder a little wary of the durability of the cylinder in his revolver? There were a LOT of fakes made of Colt's open top, especially the .44 versions. Steel quality in these might vary a lot, and they were often tough for a person not well versed to detect. EVEN IF the person could tell the revolver was not really a "Colt", did they have the option to buy a different revolver, or was it the default option for them?

Which brings up the question, Had these still existing examples of spare cylinders of which many are still loaded, been carried by folks who had seen or actually experienced a chamber failure in the past? Not necessarily a catastrophic failure where they were injured and the whole handgun ruined, but one where the cylinder cracked and deformed a bit? Did they carry that loaded second cylinder because although slow, they thought they might have a chamber failure and would need to replace that cylinder ASAP?

AND the fact that when a person got a conversion cylinder, they kept their original cylinder, PLUS the revolvers sold with a pre-fitted conversion cylinder would come with the previous cap-n-ball cylinder. Folks assuming that was for situations where cartridges were scarce. Really? OR was it also because the buyers of the new tech of the conversion cylinder were not fully confident the cylinders wouldn't fail? HOW do we know that all of those "spare" cylinders, especially those found loaded, were not mostly carried by folks using conversion cylinder revolvers, and those cap-n-ball cylinders were the extras, and loaded "just in case"?

So perhaps it WAS commonly done, when one had a conversion cylinder, and those conversions were "all the rage" for about a decade.

LD

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Widows Son said:

It’s my own opinion that our idea of how the old west was is mostly influenced by the movies. Movies are intended to entertain.

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TNGhost said:

Yep, starting with the fact that there were a lot more cap and ball revolvers left over from the civil war in play in that era, in movies supposedly set int he 1870s, 80s and 90s, when all you see is SAAs in movies for the most part.

Same can be said for Winchester level rifles being overrepresented, vs civil war muskets, trapdoors and Sharps,

And that just is concerning the area of firearms.

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nhmoose said:

I do that with my Glock. I don't use a C&B but for fun.

Don't want to screw up real life with Fantasyland, sorry

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1stnamebassist said:

I hear that. I use modern weapons to potentially save mine or my family’s life. Now if the country went to manure, I would still use modern weapons, but I would load up my cap & balls and keep them around and ready for backup if needed.

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Eutycus said:

That can really ruin a western movie for me, the showing of the wrong hardware.There had to be alot of war surplus cap and balls floating around the west.

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