Double action cap & ball?

[bkovire]

has any one seen know of this pistol? it is a starr DA black powder pistol, i thought all blacks were sa actions, not da and i also thought sw made the first da?

 

[m-g willy]

I owned a reproduction DA Starr for a SHORT time.
The action was TERRIBLE!
I guess it was a faithful reproduction though.
Because durning the Civil War the North who had a contract for the DA revolver changed the order to a single action because the DA was such a POS!

 

[bkovire]

:shocked2: so it is a true firearm, not just some :bull:, the way things are now, :idunno: one never knows, what cal did they come in?

 

[Robert an saa fan]

Below is a link to Dixie Gun Works Starr DA with 17 user reviews. They also catalog the SA.
http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_92_187_189&products_id=3539

These may be out of production...

 

[bkovire]

thank's now i know were to get my walker!, i dont think i would want the starr, maybe the true one for a wall frame.

 

[Rock Island]

The DA Starr is no longer made, they had problems with the design of the lockwork, and the copy was close enough to also have the same problems as the original. My own is shot very slowly and only a couple of times a year, it has not been a problem, but I don't push the DA. It's already worth more used than I paid new so I think I will keep it a bit and see what happens, I need things to hang on the wall anyway.

 

[Homesteader]

It's no longer made, huh? :hmm: Well, I'm glad to read that, since I've got one with a spare cylinder that's never even been put in the gun. Maybe I'll actually make money on it some day!

Mine's actually pretty fun. It's the only cap & ball I shoot modern / two hand style, but I think it's a blast to rip through a cylinder rapid fire. Not very accurate that way. I keep it mostly as a curiosity.

 

[m-g willy]

:shocked2: so it is a true firearm, not just some :bull:, ,

Yeah they were really around back then.
The real :bull: guns are all the brass frame Colts and the brass frame 1858 Remmingtons.
Also the 51 Colt Navy in 44cal. never existed!

 

[redwing]

The Savage Navy 1860 .36 Cal. Ring Cock Revolver. Savage produced 20,000 the Union bought over 11,000 early in the war. The public bought the rest. The ring lever is pulled, this cocks the gun. The trigger is pulled to fire. This is a type of DA. The Starr was ugly, but this thing. :barf:

 

[Norinco]

I thought the South produced brass frame Colt 1851's. They nominally adopted the 1851 as their standard issue handgun. Obviously it never turned out that way.

 

[bkovire]

yep just did a "google" on the brass framed hand guns, their was lot of them made, and just about every model too, more than i thought their was, numbers varied, the spill and burr 1862-64 copied after the rem 58 a sum of 1,451 were used in the war, as well as 4 other model, types, and makers, colts were copied to, numbers uk, maker uk, that would be a find, a brass framed colt, would think long and hard before i would shoot it, wonder how many went boom in some poor reb's face it was the reb model 1860.

 

[Poor Private]

I have no trouble firing a brass framed revolver. Matter of fact there are three or so in the house.

 

[bkovire]

i have one, my 58 rem, but i think the brass was a dif mix back in the 1860's, from what i was reading, the was no set regs, if it went boom, made a hole and was cheap, it was used, some of them guns went for less than a buck. some might fire once, others still shoot to this day.

 

[Norinco]

I just remembered the Griswold & Gunnison revolver was a brass framed copy of the Colt 1851 with a round barrel.

A lot of Confederate revolvers had wrought iron cylinders. The iron bars were welded together with the fault lines perpendicular to the cylinder axis. That allowed for more strength than if the fault lines were parallel with the cylinders.

 

[cgn71]

The Gunnison and Griswold was a brass frame copy of the 51 colt in 36 cal with a round barrel and non-engraved cylinder. Between 3200 and 3700 made. They were made in Griswoldville GA which is now Grey GA about 15 miles outside Macon.

The Spiller and Burr is a brass frame 36 cal. copy of the Whitney revolver actually with 1451 made, production started in Atlanta GA but was moved to Macon.

The Schneider and Glassick is another brass frame copy of the Colt 51 navy 36 cal and made in or around Memphis Tenn.

Chad

 

[m-g willy]

There were a lot of copies of the Colt that had brass frames but Colt didn't make any Armies or Navies with brass frames.
Most of the southern copies used a round barrel like those seen on the Colt Dragoon pistols.
No one made a copy of the 1860 Colt Army with the streamlined barrel.
The Spiller and Burr with brass frame was a closer copy to the Whitney than it was to the Remmington.
It seems that anyone that could produce a handgun in 1860 no matter how bad the design was, had a good chance for a government contract (A REAL GOOD CHANCE) if they were in the south!

 

[Coot]

Well, since the thread has drifted to brass framed Confederate revolvers, some tidbits from William Albaugh's "Confederate Arms":

Griswold & Gunnison produced the largest number of Confederate revolvers at nearly 3600 .36s based on the Colt '51 Navy but with brass frames and a round easier to machine barrel. As an interesting note on the G&G, the "factory" only employed 24 men, 22 of whom were slaves.

The Leech & Rigdon was the next largest in terms of production. Like the G&G, the gun was copied from the '51 Colt but with a round barrel. Unlike the G&G, the L&R did not use brass for the frame.

After the partnership with Leech broke up in Dec. of 1863, Rigdon made a new partnership in Augusta and guns were produced under the name of Rigdon - Ansley.

The Spiller & Burr was a brass framed gun based on the Whitney .36. A total of just under 1400 is believed to have been produced, the first 1/2 at Atlanta and the second 1/2 after the machinery was bought by the government and moved to Macon.

Others made in very small numbers include:

Columbus Fire Arms Manuf. Co. (GA) (est less than 100)
Thomas W. Cofer from Portsmouth, Va was a brass framed version of the Whitney or Remington (est less than 50 made)
Schneider & Glassick in Memphis made a couple of guns - examples are known in both brass and iron frames, again based on the Colt '51 Navy.
Dance Brothers in Texas made both .36 and .44 revolvers patterned on the '51 except for a round barrel and flat (no recoil shield) frame.
Tucker, Sherrod & Co made a copy of the Colt Dragoon in .44 caliber.

 

[Norinco]

Can a moderator split these posts into a new topic?

What is it that I hear about there being no Remington New Army copies being made?

 

[Zonie]

There are no known brass framed copies of any of the various versions of the 1858 Remington revolvers made by the North or the South prior to or during the Civil War.

The Confederate contracts for revolvers stated that the pistol was to be based on the 1851 Colt Navy pistol. It did not specify the frame material.

Spiller & Burr signed that contract but had bought some machinery that was for making a copy of the Whitney, a closed frame pistol that at first glance looks somewhat like a Remington.
A closer look will show that the frame is different and the loading lever is different.

There were several different double action revolvers made prior to and during the Civil War.
Smith & Wessons early guns made during this time period were all single action.
Their first double action pistol was made in 1880.

 

[cgn71]

Yep we've kinda gotten off track from the OP question, Like some said the DA Star is a reproduction of an original and so close a reproduction that it has alot of the same problems. If you want one just to have a wide variety of BP revolvers it is a neat one and you can shoot it without many problems if you aren't to hard on it or you can shoot it single action style. If you just like the looks of the Starr go with the SA version, but now you just gotta find a used one for sale.

Chad