gun dreams

[Mortblanc]

Over here we have several companies making conversion cylinders to transition the .36 navy to .38 spl and .44 Remington and Colt BP revolvers to .45 Long Colt calibers. They do not require "pipsqueak loads" and shoot full power 38 and 45 cartridges.

We even have a special classification for those conversions in our competition shooting.

If one is restricted to converting to cartridge using the existing cylinders one can simply reload the metallic cartridge with BP and have the same pressure level while retaining the convenience of cartridge use.

A person with moderate mechanical knowledge can build a conversion in a home workshop in a few hours. I have seen it doe with no power tools except for a hand drill.

The original conversions done for the Colt and Remington patterns in the late 1860s were simply cartridges loaded to the same power levels as the C&B units. The first of the Colt conversions being for a .45 rim fire and .38 rim fire. The rim fire cartridges were quickly replaced by center fire versions.

Historically, the military specs of the U.S. military revolvers were a bit unusual. After the 1860 Army model was adopted it set the power standard. When the change to cartridges occurred the specs called for a .45 caliber metallic cartridge that was equal in power to the 1860 Army Model. Then in 1900, when auto pistols were tested, the spec called for an auto-pistol equal in power to the 1873 Single Action Army. That is how we wound up with our 1911 .45acp. An auto pistol based on the power of a BP cartridge.

The .45 Colt revolver cartridge was developed using a 255 grain bullet over 30 grains of BP, which gave about 750 fps and killed a lot of stuff very dead.

The .38 special was originally developed as a BP cartridge, using a 158 gn bullet on top of 20-23 grains of BP. That load will still produce the ballistic equal to a factory .38spl standard load, which is hardly wimpy.

Do not underestimate the potential of your BP firearms.