Carrying Extra Cylinders for a C&B Pistol

[Zonie]

Sometime back, there was a discussion about people back in the mid 1800's carrying extra cylinders for their Cap & Ball pistols.

Although many members felt that they must have done it no one knew of a written contempory record of anyone doing it.

In the book “Seventy Years On The Frontier”, by Alexander Majors (with a preface by ““Buffalo Bill” (General W. F. Cody)”, Ross & Haines, Inc., Minneapolis, some light on the question appears on page 179.

To give some background, Alexander Majors was a partner in the company, Russell, Majors & Waddell. This company was primarily a Western freighting company in the mid 1800's.
They are the company that was approached in by Senator Gwin of California in 1859 with the idea of creating the Pony Express.
With some serious Government financing, the company had bought the horses, created the change stations and the Pony Express was in business.

Mr Majors knew many of the riders personally and among these riders, one of them noted for his exceptional ability known as “Pony Bob” is quoted in the book.

At the time, Pony Bob was riding in the Eastbound direction. He had descended the Eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. The Piute War was underway with the Indians controlling all of the lower region in the lower areas of the mountain.

With that introduction I will quote from the book:

“When I reached Reed’s Station, on the Carson River, I found no change of horses, as all those at the station had been seized by the whites to take part in the approaching battle. I fed the animal that I rode, and started for the next station, called Buckland’s, afterward known as Fort Churchill, fifteen miles farther down the river. This point was to have been the termination of my journey ..., as I had ridden seventy-five miles, but to my great astonishment, the other rider refused to go on. The superintendent, W. C. Marley, was at the station but all his persuasion could not prevail on the rider, Johnnie Richardson, to take the road. Turning then to me, Marley said:
“”˜Bob, I will give you $50 if you make this ride.’
“I replied:
“”˜I will go you once.’
“Within ten minutes, when I had adjusted my Spencer rifle- a seven-shooter- and my Colt’s revolver, with two cylinders ready for use in case of emergency, I started. (Italics added)...”

He completed the ride without needing his guns and ended up riding a total distance of 185 miles before he was relieved by another rider.

What I found interesting is he not only was carrying back up cylinders for his Colt pistol but he was carrying a heavy Spencer rifle.
The story and the book don’t give any further explanation of what kind of Colt he was carrying or if his carrying a Spencer was unusual but I think it must have been.
The total weight of the letter package they were carrying was 10 pounds and they were expected to ride at a speed averaging about 20 mph for distances of 20-30 miles without a change of horses.

Now, we have at least one documented case where back up cylinders were used.

 

[BGRooster1]

Good to have finally found an account of what, I think, most believed true.

 

[dickydalton]

Thank You, Zonie.

 

[Grumpa]

Thank you, Zonie, for a most interesting account.

After completing the eastern ride, and resting 9 hours, Pony Bob made the return trip for a total of 380 miles round trip - the longest Pony Express ride ever.

The London-born Robert Haslam later became a Deputy U.S. Marshall in Salt Lake City, and was good friends with Buffalo Bill Cody.

Until I saw your post, he was unknown to me.

 

[garra]

Interesting Zonie. A nice bit of history from my neck of the woods. It makes sense carrying extra cylinders for a cap and ball pistol, imagine how difficult reloading would be on horseback.
Here is a bit a information on Reeds Station and it's location.

162. Miller’s/Reed’s Station (N39 17 37.9 W119 27 24.7) (P)

Miller's Station Today the site of Miller’s or Reed’s Station is on private land ~8 miles from Dayton down the Old River Road. Nothing remains because the lumber in the building was used elsewhere. It was originally one of the 20 or so stations along the Carson River branch of the California Emigrant Trail in 1849 and 1850. It became a relay station when the Pony Express started in 1860. It became known as Reed’s Station when G.W. Reed purchased it on July 1, 1861.


Fort Churchill or portions of it are still standing. For those inclined and traveling in Northern Nevada, it is located on alt 95. Last time I was there they shot off the cannon there at the visitors center for us.

 

[swathdiver]

Didn't the Pony Express riders carry pocket colts (.31s) and then dispensed with the rifle and later the extra cylinders to save weight and that they weren't really needed (save for one instance?)?

 

[pargent]

I still say utter BS :bull: and I will let the Colt records speak for me 1 there were no CNC machines back in the 1850s , 2 just how the hell would you do this on a galloping horse 3 yes Colt did supply the occasional spare cylinders but that spare cylinder cost more than the gun (it had to be custom hand made and fitted to that gun ) of note to the historical holliweird mind the gun was fitted to the cylinder that was selected as the parts for the assembly of a pistol ,supplying a spare required that a cylinder be selected and fitted to an already fitted up and tuned gun .

 

[graybeard]

If you dropped a loaded and capped cylinder, wouldn't it be likely to go off and put a ball in the man trying to reload? Having little or no experience ahorseback I don't see how you could change cylinders at a full gallop. I wouldn't want to try to reload a revolver while driving down a gravel road at 30 mph in my Chevrolet. graybeard

 

[crockett]

Thanks Zonie for that good quote. I posted a while back that I was reading a book on Quantrill during the Civil War. Frank James found a beat up Yankee revolver- a Colt 1851- and Frank carried an 1851 so he saved the cylinder on the beat up/damaged revolver. That quote doesn't mean he did a cylinder change but logic would tend to point to that as the reason he saved the cylinder. That was the only time I had ever come across anything from the day mentioning a cylinder change.
Apparently cylinder changes are PC but from the writings, etc. it seems they were not common.
Your quote is a definite reference- only one I've ever heard about.
The second issue- about the PRACTICALITY of changing cylinders. My experience is that slight manufacturing variations can mean a second cylinder has ratchet teeth that are a little different and that could change the timing. BUT- that has nothing to do with trying to determine the historical record of whether such was or wasn't done.

 

[Artificer]

The second issue- about the PRACTICALITY of changing cylinders. My experience is that slight manufacturing variations can mean a second cylinder has ratchet teeth that are a little different and that could change the timing. BUT- that has nothing to do with trying to determine the historical record of whether such was or wasn't done.

I politely disagree to a point. It is not just timing that is affected, it also is how the hole in the cylinder aligns with the bore and whether or not the bullet gets shaved when entering off center to the bore or at worst too much of the bullet hits the barrel and ruins the revolver. There can be other problems as well.

I come at this from both being trained at the S&W Armorer's Academy in the early 1980's where each cylinder had to have some hand fitting and adjusting to the bore and also working on Original and Reproduction Black Powder Revolvers for many years at the Spring and Fall Nationals of the NSSA.

I agree with 1601phill in that the only way to be sure a spare cylinder would work and be safe to fire was if the second cylinder was fitted to the revolver at the factory when the pistol was made. Though I was not able to try swapping many cylinders from one original M1851 Colt or M1858 Remington to another of the same model, I have tried it a few times with each style of original Revolvers. There were even more problems than just the cylinder holes and barrel bore not aligning when attempting such a switch without more fitting. Some cylinders would also require lapping the cylinder pin or filing on them and more problems. To make a long story short, it would have been extremely uncommon that a spare cylinder that was not fitted at the factory would fit and work in another revolver unless everything was rather to very loose fitting and then one gets into reliability issues at best and safety problems at worse.

Sure, that doesn't mean some folks didn't try or do it anyway, but I have no doubt it usually did not work well and often gave more problems than it was worth.

Gus

 

[The O'Dea]

More :bull: Regarding the Spencer rifle. The Pony Express rider could not have been carrying a Spencer. Why you ask, well, the first deliveries of the Spencer rifle were made to the Ordnance Dept. on 31 December 1862 well after the Pony Express has ceased operations.
I am familiar with the country round Ft. Churchill. Gawd awful it is.

The Irish Mick
Arizona Territory

 

[Rockwell Torrey]

Thanks. Good story.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Thanks so much for the homework.

I once visited the Buffalo Bill Museum in Le Clair, IA. Hours in that wonderful place! If anyone here ever gets a chance--please go enjoy yourselves!

As to all of the speculation about extra cylinders, I wonder if tolerances were really that tight as others here suggest. In my mind, after the Battle, they cleaned guns in buckets & sat around a camp fire to dry them. The term "campfire gun" signifies originals used in battle, but slapped together in darkness post-cleaning, thus losing their matching serial numbered parts. Such guns are valuable to historians & sought after, but the true collector wants matching serial numbers & pristine, non-service examples. Camp fire guns being what they are, IF the tolerances were SO finicky, one could assume the guns never worked right again. There is nothing to support these camp fire guns not being functional in battle.

Your opinion on this would be most appreciated.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Dave

 

[Zonie]

The first deliveries may have been made to the military on 31, Dec. 1862 but here are several dates concerning the Spencer that may be of interest

Patent date: Mar. 6, 1860

Pony Express first delivery Apr 3, 1860.
Pony Express ended Oct 24, 1861

Paiute War: May 1860 thru Aug 1860

First Spencer Navy test June 1861

I'll concede that the time period between the original issue of the patent and the time of the Paiute war probably does not give enough time for a civilian production to supply the rifle although it was not uncommon for arms to be sold to large private concerns long before the military got around to testing them.

Be that as it may, this topic is about multiple cylinders being carried for Cap & Ball revolvers.

IMO, some of you are greatly underestimating the machining abilities and skills of companies in the mid 1850's. Especially companies like Colt who were making precision parts for mass production guns with totally interchangeable parts.

It does not take a CNC machine to machine precision parts.

Slide rest lathes, screw cutting lathes, milling machines, shapers, turret lathes, pattern lathes, drilling machines and metal planers were all in use before 1840.
With good tooling like drill jigs. milling fixtures and holding fixtures, parts can be produced that are every bit as accurate as any modern CNC machine can make.

As for the quote I gave at the start of this topic, I don't know why Pony Bob would have mentioned his use of spare cylinders for his Colts if it was not true. His mention of them was a casual reference to his armament. It's not like he was trying to hype some selling point.

As for the Pony Express pistol which is usually thought of as a Colt 1848 or 1849 without a loading lever, I have never seen any documented evidence that these guns were carried by the Pony Express riders.
It does make for a good story though. Especially if one is trying to sell the Colt pocket pistol that was made without a loading lever.

 

[Artificer]

As to all of the speculation about extra cylinders, I wonder if tolerances were really that tight as others here suggest. In my mind, after the Battle, they cleaned guns in buckets & sat around a camp fire to dry them. The term "campfire gun" signifies originals used in battle, but slapped together in darkness post-cleaning, thus losing their matching serial numbered parts. Such guns are valuable to historians & sought after, but the true collector wants matching serial numbers & pristine, non-service examples. Camp fire guns being what they are, IF the tolerances were SO finicky, one could assume the guns never worked right again. There is nothing to support these camp fire guns not being functional in battle.

Your opinion on this would be most appreciated.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Dave

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours as well, Dave.

OK I am not Zonie, but do have some comments. Grin.

I sincerely hope no one takes this as personal criticism as it is not meant to be, but I often cringe when I hear terms like "camp fire guns" and other things as an explanation of why some guns have different serial number parts or different manufacturer's/maker's parts in them.

How does one KNOW a gun without matching serial numbers was a "camp fire gun" rather than a gun that was repaired sometime in the long history from the time of the gun's normal period of use to today? Many Pre Civil War and Civil War era guns that were dropped on the battlefields were collected and used or sold or destroyed by the side that won the battle. Some to many of these guns had battle damage and Artificers/Armorers would fix some of those guns by hand fitting replacement parts. Some broken/damaged guns were cannibalized where parts from two or more guns were used and fitted to make a functional gun. Some guns were sold as surplus or scrap and some of them were repaired with correct parts or even incorrect parts such as many “Bannerman Guns.” How come we rarely if ever hear about these things? Well, as one who has tried to research and study Artificers/Armorers from the 18th through the mid 1950’s I will suggest it is not something even many collectors are interested in and there is not a whole lot of information available. Many times one only finds an odd quote here or there.

Then there are examples of civilian repaired guns during or after or long after the guns were made. One example is a large number of what has been described as Colt Peacemaker "camp fire guns" were actually guns that came back from Mexico in the 1930's through the 50's when they were cheap down there. Extra barrels and cylinders were common then and not very expensive, so either or both were often replaced by gunsmiths as repairs or just at the desires of their customers. Also, guns were changed from their original calibers with extra cylinders or barrels and that is why collectors check the serial numbers of those guns so carefully to see if the caliber and barrel length are correct. They also usually ask for or get a letter of authenticity from Colt before paying big bucks.

Some myths and stories to explain guns with non matching serial numbers or parts just don't stand up to close scrutiny. This because many people do not really understand a lot about the nature of "interchangeable parts" in the 19th through the middle to third quarter of the 20th century in military and most civilian guns.

"Interchangeable Parts" did not mean the parts were "Drop In" with no fitting required to ensure the parts functioned correctly. “Interchangeable Parts” meant there was not as major hand fitting required, but hand fitting was still required and especially with revolvers.

When I was trained as an Infantry Weapons Repairman in 1971, the Marine Corps still had .38 caliber S&W revolvers and about the same time period had Ruger Revolvers. The Ruger Revolvers were much, much easier to repair by those of us who had not gone to S&W or Ruger School. Many of the S&W revolvers were in really bad shape because so many Armorers had never been properly trained to fix them. This was due to the fact that S&W revolvers were still basically a 19th century design needing more hand fitting and adjusting, but with modern steels, while the Ruger Revolvers were a much more modern and may I say “forgiving” of a design. I confirmed this with the Instructors when I attended the S&W Armorer’s Academy for Revolvers in 1984. S&W revolvers were and can be “slicked up” much more easily and better to far better than a Ruger (if one knows what to do) while Rugers are easier to fix and are a bit more crude, though more robust and harder to damage.

And finally to the forum moderators. I apologize for using modern gun examples, but I feel strongly this is one time such examples should be mentioned. This because most people today are used to modern guns more than black powder guns and that experience clouds their thinking when dealing with earlier arms and/or earlier gun designs are not in their common experience.

Gus

 

[Poor Private]

I still say utter BS :bull: and I will let the Colt records speak for me 1 there were no CNC machines back in the 1850s , 2 just how the hell would you do this on a galloping horse 3 yes Colt did supply the occasional spare cylinders but that spare cylinder cost more than the gun (it had to be custom hand made and fitted to that gun ) of note to the historical holliweird mind the gun was fitted to the cylinder that was selected as the parts for the assembly of a pistol ,supplying a spare required that a cylinder be selected and fitted to an already fitted up and tuned gun .

A couple of things I se wrong here. 1- A horse at full gallop or run is a very smooth and easy ride, especially over a trail as compared to open country. Watch how little a jockey moves during a horse race. The body is still but the knees flex like they are supposed to. Those of you who havn't grown up around horses may not be aware of this.
2. I and my son have several Colts and Remingtons that we swap back and forth cylinders in our revolvers. I have 2 Uberti Remington revolvers 1 a 5 1/2" barrel and the other the 8" that I constantly swap back and forth, one is manufactured in the early 2000's and the other about 2010 or 11. And the cylinder is not made by Uberti it is one of those cylinders we aint supposed to talk about.

 

[Arek]

Paterson was only Cap & Ball Colt pistol ever sold with spare cylinder. And probably only early models. After attachment of loading levers to the barrel lugs first appeared on the Patersons late in 1839 Colt stopped adding extra cylinder to cased sets.
Colt was open to any custom orders (long barrels, dovetailed sights, engraving) so I'm sure it was possible to get few spare cylinders hand fitted for specific revolver. I don't think many did it.
Better option to increase fire power was to buy more revolvers. It was more practical and the price was similar. There are many records about people doing it. For example during Civil War Quantrill's men were reputed to have carried as many as eight Colt Navy pistols spread around their belts or in saddle bags.

And I don't know that anybody carried spare cylinders for Remington NMA ( Clint Eastwood doesn't count :grin: )

 

[BrownBear]

I find it curious that there's such a good market for spare cylinders today.... With no sending your gun in for timing adjustments, alignment or anything else.

Sumpin's not right, whether then or now.

 

[rodwha]

"IMO, some of you are greatly underestimating the machining abilities and skills of companies in the mid 1850's. Especially companies like Colt who were making precision parts for mass production guns with totally interchangeable parts."

That is what I was thinking as the Walker was produced and assembled from several different parts makers, yet they worked.

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

Gus, very well thought out and accurate, front to end. You are experienced and the statements are based on experience and correct, thanks for posting.

As far as changing cylinders when riding a horse at full gallop? :bull: I have been around horses all my life and know that a horse at full gallop needs control requiring at least one hand on the reins, especially under battle circumstances with panic the only thought on the horse's simple mind - it wants to bolt and run and if the horseman decides to release what little control he has of the animal to do something that will further distress the animal (setting off explosions a foot or two from the horse's ear) then he will not be mounted for long. No matter how well trained and experienced the horse is, the man barely has control under any and all situations even on smooth ground under quiet countryside conditions.