All Steel Spiller & Burr

[ebiggs1]

You never said if your Spiller shot outstandingly, well, fair, or poorly.

ebiggs,

If so, the S&B is typical of the period.

I am sorry. :hmm: I will try to make my answer more clear. It was a desperate attempt to make a gun for a desperate South that needed arms desperately. The S&B shows it!
I have all the available repos that are available on the market today except the two a fore mentioned, Walker and Patterson.
The Spiller and Burr, no abbreviations (?), is “typical”. The one I have is capable and average. It is no stand out. It is no dunce.
The one revolver that is a stand out, in my collection, is a full fluted Colt Army in 44 cal. It just works! :grin: It is one of those guns, the 1 in a 1000, type things. Everything just works and works well. :thumbsup:

If a person had to pick a revolver to use in that time period, the Civil War, the hands down choice would be the 1858 Remington. It is superior in every aspect to the others, even to my favorite Colt 1851. Except for feel and balance and that, my friend, is probably why the Colt was successful and the others, Remington included, were not. :hmm:

 

[Poor Private]

I have a, I guess you would call it pimped out 1851 colt navy. I bought it from Cabela's a couple of years ago. It has white grips, lazer engraving, and case hardened frame, and cobalt blued barrel and cylinder. It is a Pietta. it is a nice gun, and one of my favorites. You can still pick it up at Cabela's but the price is "oh my" now. I bought it with a $100 discount, free shipping, and a $20 off coupon. It fits my hand sjust rightr and balanced perfectly.

 

[B. Miller]

Ok going off of memory here. Whitney manufactured Colts prior to the completion of the colt factory. I can't rember which one. Whitney also had use of the Beals Patton,for the solid frame revolver prior to Remington, as Beals worked for Whitney. Eli Whitney matched the 1851 colt loading lever with the Beals solid frame in a 36 caliber revolver.
Peitta does have several versions of the S&B revolver on their web page. Original revolvers submitted to the Confederate Government were a silver plated brass frame. The silver plating was omitted in the contract to expedite production. I am guessing now, that the frames on the pictured S&Bs on the Pietta site are either silver or chrome plated brass to simulate the original firearm.

 

[Zonie]

Whitney's company made the Walker pistols for Colt in 1848.

The loading lever on the Whitney and the Spiller & Burr is not like a Colt or a Remington loading lever.

The Remington loading lever is held in place by a fairly stout screw in the frame and this screw takes the force to drive the loading levers ram into the chambers.

The Whitney on the other hand attaches its loading lever directly to the cylinder pin with a smaller screw.

Not only is this weaker but the entire load from ramming the ball is taken by the cylinder pin.
This load in turn must be taken by the cross pin that holds the Whitney's cylinder pin into the frame.
All in all, it is a weaker system.

Spiller & Burr copied the Whitney so it uses the same weaker design.

Photobucket is down for maintenance but when it comes back up (if I remember) I'll post a picture that shows the Whitney/Spiller& Burr loading lever.
It also shows how Spiller & Burr increased the thickness of the frame ahead of the cylinder to increase the length of the barrel threads.
This was needed because of the brass frame.

 

[Dickydalton]

I just think it was amazing that those men could figure all that out and give us the guns we have today. :hatsoff:

 

[swathdiver]

Yes, the 1862 Pocket Models use a rebated cylinder in .36 to fit on the 1849 Pocket frame.

Compact and a hoot to shoot too!

 

[swathdiver]

But let me add/clarify to my original post, the frames while of the same design internally, are not the same at the water table, where the frame was modified to accept the rebated .36 cal cylinder.