Pietta 1860 Army Revolver

[Terry Fairchild]

I don't work for Cabela's nor have any interest in the company, BUT they are having a sale on their Pietta 1860 Army .44 revolver for $199.00 with a free starter kit. I have 4 Pietta's and am quite pleased with every one. The free starter kit makes this a good deal if you are considering a m/l revolver.
All you would need is powder and caps and your shootin'

 

[Tommy Bruce]

Saw that today. Think I'm going to buy one this weekend.

 

[Cowboy2]

I picked one up a year or two back, and I've been really happy with it. I'd owned a couple of Piettas produced 10 years ago, and this last one was definately a big step up in terms of fit and finish. Equal to uberti in almost every way.

But the brass frame .44 1851 I got so long ago, its still the tightest shooting bp revolver I own. Go figure.

 

Call me snobbish but I would rather shoot conical bullets out of a bp revolver like what would have been loaded in our civil war.

The starter kit is a decent deal. My first black powder handgun was a Pietta 51 navy with a starter kit. I just hope you are not looking to get a brass framed gun.

 

[fort fireman]

I have one ordered. :grin: should have it here in a couple days. I didn't really need the starter kit but if its free its for me. I have the 51 confederate( brass frame) and not a thing wrong with it, a 58 new army remington ( steel frame)and soon a 60 colt. All Piettas and so far very happy with them all.

My next one will be a 51 colt in the 36 cal. Like they are supposed to be.

 

[swathdiver]

Them blue bellies shot mostly conicals while the rebs shot lots of round ball, they liked the way they took all the fight out of a man with one shot whereas the conical just punched holes through and through.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Them blue bellies shot mostly conicals while the rebs shot lots of round ball, they liked the way they took all the fight out of a man with one shot whereas the conical just punched holes through and through.

Wasn't it one of the old Confederate cavalrymen Elmer Keith interviewed who commented conicals were good for little but shooting pigs?

 

[swathdiver]

Wasn't it one of the old Confederate cavalrymen Elmer Keith interviewed who commented conicals were good for little but shooting pigs?

I believe so, conicals for shooting dinner.

 

[Curt LaManna]

Elmer Keith was born in 1899, so, he was a bit later than the Civil War.
On that note, I never can get the conicals to shoot well in any of my BP revolvers. Maybe a better made mold would help? And the loads are light in .44, with about 14-16 grns?
I gave up trying... :idunno:

 

Elmer Keith was born in 1899, so, he was a bit later than the Civil War.
On that note, I never can get the conicals to shoot well in any of my BP revolvers. Maybe a better made mold would help? And the loads are light in .44, with about 14-16 grns?
I gave up trying... :idunno:

-----
Which conical are you shooting and in what?
I have two 35+ yr old Navy arms NMA and I can load 30 gr of FFFg behind the lee 45 -200 and in my ASM 1860.
But I felt they were a bitch to load.
So I ordered a custom mould.
Has a rebated base is .455 diameter at the sealing rings and is shorter than the lee.

 

[FishDFly]

Seems like Elmer Keith talked with lots of veterans about their experiences and he learned from them from first hand about being shot.

 

[Zonie]

The only conicals I've shot in my Colt 1851 were cast using one of the brass bullet molds that are often included in box sets.

This particular mold produced one round ball or one heeled bullet. I cast some using pure lead.

The reduced diameter of the heel did a good job of lining up the bullet with the chamber during loading but the amount of force needed on the loading lever was severe.

The accuracy I got shooting them was fairly poor. Much worse than a roundball.

The main reason I lost interest in shooting slugs in my C&B revolvers is because while it is fairly easy to shear off a small ring of lead from a roundball, shearing off the outside of a long cylinder of lead takes a lot of force.

The loading levers and screws that attach them to the frame on these reproduction pistols aren't the strongest material and it's pretty easy to damage them.

This includes the "creeping lever" used on the Colt 1860 and 1861 pistols.
Although the lever on these is case hardened the barrel isn't and over the years, several of our members have reported that the levers teeth ended up tearing out the metal in the holes that the creeping loading lever teeth engage.

My suggestion to anyone who wants to shoot bullets from their C&B pistol is to use a dedicated loading press and load the cylinder when it's out of the gun.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Seems like you're having more trouble than you should! I harvested a 280+ pound Sow with a one-shot stop using my Uberti Colt Walker, 52 grains of 3Fg Goex and a Lee .456 225 gr. conical. Using a custom-built Pistol Loading Stand, I compressed the 52 grains of powder with the rammer, then dropped-in the conical, then tapped it down some with a wooden mallet, which caused it to just skim under the indented loading port cut into the frame. The loading lever on the Walker is built really strong, and no matter how much I "lean on it" during loading I can't bend it!

If I were going to use a 1860 Army with the ratcheted teeth, I'd buy the external cylinder loader and ONLY load the cylinder that way so as to save all wear & tear on the teeth (just like Zonie says to do)!

Dave