would anyone ever conceal carry a cap and ball revolver?

I'm not a bad guy, and these aren't throw aways...but your point is well taken.

Your snubby C&B is in .36? Mine is in .44.

mine is a .36, the Pietta, with a grip and frame to match my .357 Thunderer, that I bought from VTI Gunparts, and installed by me. Quite the pain to do so, as the gun was Pietta, and the grip and grip frame were Uberti, nothing lined up, and it even used slightly different screws.

My grip and frame came off of a Pietta 'Gold Rush Begins' model in.36. I put it on a Pietta 1860 Army I had gotten off Gunbroker that had the 3" barrel and an 8 1/2 " barrel. I'm in the process of getting another 1860 barrel cut down to 5 1/2 ". I call my 1860 "Mijolnir"

Very cool. I built mine before you could generally even find bird's head's grips to put on BP revolvers.

Looking for a part on Dixie's site and noticed their lead gun on their christmas flyer is an abbreviated'51/44 with Thunderer grips.

Just thought folks might want to know.

-kBob

@ jason41987: Unfortunately no they don't. It's a front strap/trigger guard used only by those type grips.

@ kBob: And that gun is sold out until after the holidays. Dixie sold out of it in two days.

I had a walker in my glove compartment for a good 8 months when I was in the states, reloading wasn't an issue as u really should only need one bullet!! Right! Plus the size of it and the smoke would scare anyone down range of it. Hell shoot the walker somewhere safe to scare them the smoke alone out of that thing will confuse them.

Would I conceal carry a C&B revolver? Sure, I have in the past and still do from time to time. Not in the summer months, I'm a decent sized guy but I can't conceal a five inch barrel 58 Remington without some kind of jacket or workshirt over my regular clothes. So it's fall and winter months at most and really not as often as I would like. Where I work allows me to CC if I wish to do so (actually encouraged at times as my boss likes having a CC permit holder on property), but in that situation I stick to my modern 45 auto...keeping in mind that if one is ever involved in a defensive shooting at a workplace, you don't want to have to explain why you have a blackpowder revolver on you in addition to any other questions that you will have to answer.

When I am not at work, sometimes I still pack shorty with me just because I am very comfortable with a revolver in general, actually prefer revolvers to semi-autos...different discussion...but I'm a good shot with the old single action, I've shot it enough to be confident with it. Some of the discussion on here seems to center on reliability...somebody always brings that up when talking about C&B revolvers, if you use the right components and the right loading technique you'll have no worries about reliability.

A word though, some finish gunsmithing is a good idea with these replica guns, just knowing where to smooth out certain parts and where the typical problems come from is 90% of the battle here. Caps hang on corners and jagged stuff as the cylider turns, cylinders bind (on the remmies) without sufficient lubrication because of a design flaw and a small diameter cylinder pin. If the caps you use give you periodic misfires, its time to try a different brand...I like CCI, I'll get maybe one true misfire in 1000 caps.

As far as loading technique goes, finesse is the key to that lock, a proper seal at both ends of the cylinder gives you a load that will fire when you want it to. I recently fired out two cylinders that I loaded three years ago...no hangfire, just BOOM X 12, just as if I had loaded them that day. BP shooting is an art that requires a little more thought than just stuff in the brass and pull the trigger as fast as you can. In general though I would say that there are valid points on both sides of the CC argument, but you gotta make your own decision.

BHP FAN - where could I get revolvers like yours? Especially the one on the right? I've seen an Uberti "sheriff" model with a 3" barrel, but no bird's head grip. I'm dying to have one!:banghead:

"anyone big enough to conceal a walker is someone im probably not going to want to mess with anyway"

I've seen a Walker that someone cut down nice and small. I can't seem to find it though. Still a little big.

VTI Gunparts has the ''Thunderer'' grip frame to make one Jenny, and Dixie has one already made on the front page of their flyer....SS1249 1851 Yank Snubnose, a nice .44 for $295.00.

I liked the post on how the C&B Handguns killed so many during the Civil War. The facts are these handguns were not popular weapons during the war. A very long study of handgun wounds and death was done a few years back. The average victim of a BP handgun wound lived 10 days after being shot.

BHP FAN - I'm starting another thread on this bird's head stuff so as not to hijack this one....

thats their fault for not having a permit

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It's also illegal to hunt with a BP pistol in less than .50 in PA.

I have/had a variety of short barreled C&B revolvers, a 4" Pocket Police, a 4" 1851, a 3" 1860, and a '5" Walker. All were fun to shoot and except for the Walker, fun to carry but for other than "fun", I opt for an N frame.

Maybe something like this?



Or how about this?



Still not enough? What about this?

If thats all I had access too,sure why not.Especially if you know how to set one up and do all the tweaks to make them more reliable. If they worked back in the day,they will work just fine now.
The round ball "works" far better than its paper ballistics suggest.

I liked the post on how the C&B Handguns killed so many during the Civil War. The facts are these handguns were not popular weapons during the war. A very long study of handgun wounds and death was done a few years back. The average victim of a BP handgun wound lived 10 days after being shot.

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The unanswered question then is- were the wounds incapacitating?

The average soldier probably didn't want to be weighted down with one more thing to carry. Groups like Quantrill's Raiders seemed to like them.

The unanswered question then is- were the wounds incapacitating?

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If I'm remembering correctly, I believe that Wyatt Earp said that if you wanted to put a man down in a hurry then shoot him in the gut...

It's my understanding, and i'm no historian, that cap and ball revolvers were the horse soldier's weapon, primarily. Would make sense to the horse soldier to arm up with multiple revolvers in holsters on his saddle.

DurangoKid said:

I like my BP handguns. That said, There is an old quote about not bringing a knife to a gun fight. There could also be one about bringing a Cap & Ball pistol to a modern shoot out. You are most likely going to meet some guy in a "Hoody" firing a pistol that does not lay a cloud of smoke and fires 14 reliable rounds of expanding bullets. The slow often binding cap dropping C&B with a light lead ball that takes 3 days to kill with lead poison is no match for a modern semiauto.

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Oh, I don't know. A LeMatt has I believe 9 shots in the cylinder and a shotgun barrel underneath. With that, you pretty match the kid from the hood's plastic fantastic, and the smoke acts as a screen allowing you to manuver and out flank your enemy.