1849 Colt 31 cal for self defence?

[Carteret Kid]

Yep the 49 would have been seen as a lady's protector, easy for her to carry and conseal.
Remember the account of Phoebe Yates Pember holding off a gang of Richmond looters at the military hospital with one at the end of the war. They wanted the hospital whiskey supply but a determend aristocrat with a little Colt blocked the way. :nono:

 

[Zonie]

The 1911 ACP was always a smokeless cartridge as was the .32 and .38 ACP and the German semi-autos at the turn of the Century.

Getting back to the little .31 cal pistol I think folks, when they compare it to a modern .22 are forgetting one of the things we muzzleloaders keep mentioning.
The size of the hole produced and the amount of tissue that is damaged by a ball that is almost 1/8 of an inch larger than a .22 should have a profound effect on the person being hit with it.

Just like the large ball size of a .50 more than makes up for any lack of downrange energy when killing a deer the larger size of the .31's ball will (IMO) make any comparison in the real world with a .22 make the .22 rimfire come out playing second fiddle.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

O-K, I re-read the OP and see what you mean. I took it the "other" way, which it now appears I shouldn't have. :redface:

Sorry for the wrong "take"! Getting gut-shot and dying of bowel leaking into your abdominal cavity was a good deterrent in those days :thumbsup:

Dave

 

[BillinOregon]

We dismiss the .31 today, but it might have been the most common handgun caliber in the gold fields of California and southern Oregon circa 1849-1855.

 

[arcticap]

Excerpted:

Cap and Ball Ballistics
By Ed Sanow
Handguns February 1998
Cap and Ball Wound Ballistics


Calibre
Firearm
Bullet
FFFg
Velocity
Energy
1 Shot Stop

.31 Pocket
Baby Dragoon
46gr RB
11gr
821 fps
69 ft lb
30%

.22LR
Revolver
37gr LHP
FL
975 fps
78 ft lb
29%

.36 Navy
Colt 1851 Navy
70gr RB
22gr
1038 fps
189 ft lb
59%

 

[Leatherbark]

Leatherbark...I have no problem with cap fragments in my Uberti '49. I USE REMINGTON #10's.

.

Remington No 10's are what I've used for years in all my revolvers. Almost every shot fired from my Uberti 31 would send a cap fragement down. So I would fire a shot and turn it upside down and rake it out with a popsicle stick or something. I replaced the nipples but not with ampco's. I thought maybe the flash holes might have been too large. One thing that may have been my problem is that I think the mainspring was too weak. I shimmed it at the bottom to make it stronger and that seemed to help. None of my other open tops cap jammed this bad. It would have been a good candidate for the "Pin in frame and slot in hammer conversion" to eliminate this. I hope to get another someday. I should have tried the Ampco nipples.

Bob

 

[torn moc]

YEA..BETTER NIPPLES may have helped. I have seen the pin in the frame remedy but I dont have the nerve to drill a hole in my frame for the pin.
I am still shooting with the stock nipples that came with the '49....no probs yet.

 

[brubincam]

-----what kind of popcicle was on the stick--I wanna know----- :idunno:

 

[brubincam]

-----I like ice pops----- :thumbsup:

 

[Zonie]

Every popsicle I ever ate was on a stick. Actually, they were on two sticks and you could break them down the middle if your mom made you share them with your sister (the troll). :grin:

 

[Leatherbark]

Beeswax and olive oil flavored........I once got the bright idea to use a popsicle stick to smear grease over my balls.(revolver balls)..........I finally went back to using my finger so when I pick my nose I can smell blackpowder flavored grease and get excited.

 

[torn moc]

geeeeeeze. :surrender:
let's keep this clean.

 

[Jimbo453]

This is 5 shots at 10 yards with my 31 (still need to be able to hit what your shoting at to be any defence ) wish I could do that with my 9MM

 

[Zonie]

IMO, that's not bad for one of these little .31 cal guns.

Maybe it's just me but I find the little pocket pistols to be pretty hard to get good groups from.

It's not the pistols fault, it's mine.
The grips are small and the pistols are light weight and they seem to move all over the place when held at arms length aiming at a target.

They are fun to shoot though. :thumbsup:

 

[mingo]

I got a good deal on an Uberti '49 on gunbroker.
Purty little pistol, but not very inspiring for defense.
It is finicky about misfiring, but that can be remedied.
In actual practice it would be taking a toy gun to a gunfight for two reasons.
Reliability and lethality.
Real time life and death encounters require both.

I once had a FTF with a M16 against a NVA regular at a range of 20 feet.
His situation made it easier to dive into the bush and make off rather than waste time shooting young self.

 

I am interested to add a 1849 colt replica to my collection. Like the looks and feel of them. They seem to be quite concealable and I could see that people were carring them. Can't find much about how the compare ballistic wise with a modern cartidge and stopping powder. Where the enough for self defence. I know pocket pistols in 22 short were popular as were 25 autos later on, but personally, I think I would prefer a good sized knife over a 22 short....
So whats about the 31 roundball from a revolver....

To answer the question at hand, may I offer the following suggestions.

A.] Use Hodgdon's 777 as your powder.

B.] Use a ball rather than a conical.

C.] Buy a side of pork ribs, bottle of bar-b-que sauce and a beef heart. Wrap the heart with the ribs, secure with cotton twine. Take to your local range. At 5 yards, put four shots, five if you feel you need to, into this. Take photos of it to share with us, both while heart is wrappped with ribs, and after when you remove the twine.

D.] Return home, slice up heart, slather ribs and heart slices with bar-b-que sauce and grilled. Consume with beverage of your choice.

E.] Wash up and post your results back here.

This will tell you, and us more than us wrangling over what if. Why?:

A.] 777 has more umph per volume than regular blackpowder.

B.] A ball cuts a more ragged wound channel than a conical. More loss of blood, more blunt force trama.

C.] Pork is the media of choice in forensic science to replicate human wound results. Most shooting encounters occur at a distance less than 12 feet, so 5 yards, 15 feet is a good test for accuracy.

D.] Waste not, want not. Just check for bone and ball fragments.

E.] Earn brownie points with the members and staff of the TMF.

CP

 

[Flintlock Whiskey]

Have none of you crazy "yanks" ever heard of a Colt 1911 45acp?
Wasn't that a Black Powder cartridge... almost was
It is a hundred years old!
Old Ford :v

I've never heard that the 45ACP started out as a BP cartridge. Can anyone verify this?

 

[Rifleman1776]

I have been told that it compares to a .22lr in a pistol. A CW reenactor friend of mind says his has saved him many times. But, I strongly suspect he is speaking in the first person as a CW officer and not his present self. Seriously, any bp firearm is an obsolete weapon. Real self defense requires discarding notions of being 'authentic'. Buy one for fun. Get a modern no-no for real self protection.

 

[Old Hawkeye]

I shot one of the wife's pumpkins she put out for Halloween decoration with my 31 cal derringer the other day. With a 10 grain charge the ball "bounced" off. Left a dent about half a ball deep. Heavier charge & longer barrel of the '49 will probably help, but my 22 short Astra Cub is probably more effective, as it went inside the pumpkin!

 

[smoothshooter]

I am interested to add a 1849 colt replica to my collection. Like the looks and feel of them. They seem to be quite concealable and I could see that people were carring them. Can't find much about how the compare ballistic wise with a modern cartidge and stopping powder. Where the enough for self defence. I know pocket pistols in 22 short were popular as were 25 autos later on, but personally, I think I would prefer a good sized knife over a 22 short....
So whats about the 31 roundball from a revolver....

Sometimes caliber is the least important thing when getting a handgun for defensive ( not offensive ) use.
For most of us, carrying a handgun is a nuisance of varying degrees. I know because I carry a small one every day. That is the main reason even most people living in the American frontier did not carry guns most of the time.

Another consideration is that when someone points a pistol at you, you are not likely to be thinking about what caliber it might be. In an stressful situation, sometimes in poor light, a .31 could look an awful lot like a .36 or even a .44. All you know is that someone may be about to shoot you and that is a BAD THING, and maybe you should find something else to do with your time.