Brass frame revolvers

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There actually were several types of brass frame revolvers made back in the day.
The ones that most folks complain about are the 1851 Colts that were actually copied in brass back in the day, often reffered to as Rebs, or Confederates.
And brass frame Remington NMAs which really were not ever a thing I have heard of.
The reason for them today is that brass is cheaper to machine than steel
 
1. They are less expensive (Dixie GW: 1858 steel $450 / brass $295 currently) and so appeal to a wider audience! $$$
RH0489 Dixie Pietta Remington New Model Army Revolver (dixiegunworks.com)
RH0875 PIETTA M1858 REMINGTON TEXAS REV .44C (dixiegunworks.com)
2. Since some Confederate revolvers WERE made of metals other than steel, they can be marketed as "REB" variations even if not being a reproduction of a specific original model.
3. They go "BANG" and make lots of stinky smoke when you pull the trigger just like their more historically correct cousins.
 
1. They are less expensive (Dixie GW: 1858 steel $450 / brass $295 currently) and so appeal to a wider audience! $$$
RH0489 Dixie Pietta Remington New Model Army Revolver (dixiegunworks.com)
RH0875 PIETTA M1858 REMINGTON TEXAS REV .44C (dixiegunworks.com)
2. Since some Confederate revolvers WERE made of metals other than steel, they can be marketed as "REB" variations even if not being a reproduction of a specific original model.
3. They go "BANG" and make lots of stinky smoke when you pull the trigger just like their more historically correct cousins.
Oh ok so it's kinda like my traditions deer hunter. Only thing historically accurate is that fact that it shoots black powder with a cap
 
As others have indicated..
-Yes using brass for the frame DOES have a base in history. Griswold and Gunnison made copies of 1851 navies for the Confederacy. They used brass for the frame and twisted iron for the cylinders, with sources saying this was mostly due to a shortage of steel in the confederacy. That being said, brass can be cast quite easily. It makes sense that the confederacy used brass for the frames.
-Today´s makers use brass to keep costs down. Yes, brass is more expensive than steel... but read above where brass can be cast easily. In addition, machining and finishing soft brass castings is much easier than steel frames.
-The brass ¨bling¨ does appeal to some people, and some will chose a brass frame both for it´s lower expense along with it´s aesthetic appeal. I´m not going to lie, my first C&B revolver has a brass frame and I wanted it that way. Not just for price (though that did play into it).
-Finally, a brass framed C&B revolver is a serviceable weapon. You probably shouldn´t stuff the cylinders as full as they will go every shot, but the accuracy load in my 1851 ¨navy¨ in .44 (the absolute cheapest revolver Cabelas carried, and on sale it was under $150 at the time) is a pretty stout just under 35 grains of pyrodex. It launches a 140gn .454 ball to about 1050 FPS. I have hundreds and hundreds of these rounds through the gun, and it is still quite accurate. It shows no signs of excessive endshake, no dimples or defacing of the recoil shield, and no ¨frame stretching¨ that I have detected thus far. I know some will swear this isn´t possible, but I swear it is.
 
FWIW original Confederate revolvers were not made from brass nor were cannon barrels. They were made from a bronze alloy called gunmetal. 5whiskey what brand is it? I've got a .36 Remington that has imprinted the cylinder ratchet into the recoil shield from 25 grain loads and it didn't take a lot of them to do it either.
 
I just assessed a Pietta brasser for a co worker, it had signs of stretching, hammering from the cylinder, Bubba had tried to braze the arbor into the frame closing off the window for the hand with a big blob of brass. The arbor was loose, even after all the effort to try to fix it in place! Wish I had pictures, this was a classic!
 
1. They are less expensive (Dixie GW: 1858 steel $450 / brass $295 currently) and so appeal to a wider audience! $$$
Penny wise and pound foolish. My first BP revolvers were a pair of brass-framed 1851's, and for years I literally could not give them away. (I gave them to my sister's ex and eventually they came back to me.)

You won't regret buying a steel frame.
 
FWIW original Confederate revolvers were not made from brass nor were cannon barrels. They were made from a bronze alloy called gunmetal. 5whiskey what brand is it? I've got a .36 Remington that has imprinted the cylinder ratchet into the recoil shield from 25 grain loads and it didn't take a lot of them to do it either.

Hey, I was going to mention that, "gunmetal". Dagnabbit. I have wondered why the repros were never made with that alloy, rather than brass. A polished bronze alloy would really bling. Bronze has a really nice rich color to it.
 
While looking back through the lens of today most folks think of nearly all C&B revolvers as Colts & Remingtons, in the 1800s Colt and Remington did not dominate the market as they do in today's repros.
There were numerous other manufactures of C&B revolvers that today are considered to be obscure and many of them utilized brass or brass alloy frames.
 
Gunmetal is quite a bit harder with a higher tensile strength than brass. Like Hawg, I've seen modern brassers pounded to bits using standard loads. My son bought one cheap thinking we could fix the loose arbor...not. Ended up buying a NOS brass frame off eBay as the old one was non-repairable.
 
Hey, I was going to mention that, "gunmetal". Dagnabbit. I have wondered why the repros were never made with that alloy, rather than brass. A polished bronze alloy would really bling. Bronze has a really nice rich color to it.

At least one was!

The Witloe "Lee" model:

1858 REMINGTON .44 CAL "LEE" WITLOE PRECISION INC 624 - October Country

For those new to the The High Road, Doc. Jim Davis was known here as bprevolver.

Many of us were enriched by his expertise, may he rest in peace.

Witloe Precision Inc Remington Revolver - The Firing Line Forums
 
Engineering rambling...

But gunmetal is arguable nearly as much a Brass as it is a Bronze. The line between Brass (an alloy primarily of Copper and Zinc) and Bronze (an alloy primarily of Copper and Tin) is really fuzzy and the further into the past the fuzzier that seems to get. By most accounts gunmetal is an alloy of Copper, Tin and Zinc, so is it Brass or Bronze? Due to having slightly more Tin than Zinc it is, in the modern sense, gunmetal is more frequently considered Bronze but in the heyday of its use it was frequently called Red Brass. There are lots of Copper based alloys that could fall into either of these broad families of alloys. Brass and Bronze are far from rigidly defined without being more specific in their naming, ie Brass-260 is what we would call cartridge brass and is a 70/30 alloys of Copper and Zinc. Other brasses and bronzes can have many other alloying elements beyond tin and/or zinc, Bronze-863 has aluminum, iron, lead, magnesium, in addition to both tin and zinc, and it has more zinc than tin but is still considers a Bronze, go figure...

Brass vs Bronze, Copper and Zinc and other vs Copper and Tin and others and the "others" frequently contain Tin or Zinc blurring the line between them...
 
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FWIW original Confederate revolvers were not made from brass nor were cannon barrels. They were made from a bronze alloy called gunmetal. 5whiskey what brand is it? I've got a .36 Remington that has imprinted the cylinder ratchet into the recoil shield from 25 grain loads and it didn't take a lot of them to do it either.

Hawg it's the cheap Pietta cabelas carries. Purchased around 2017 or 2018. I have noticed the recoil shield is significantly thicker in mine than I have seen in some others who have posted pictures showing the imprint in the recoil shield. I think the thicker recoil shield with more surface area helps reduce the problem at least some. I'm not a skeptic to brass framed revolvers having issues. I have seen the photos and I understand how it happens. I 'm just saying that I personally have one that has been quite durable. Go figure, I guess I got lucky. I will say every revolver I've bought since then, and most likely any other future purchases, are steel framed. Sounds like I won the brass frame lottery once, why test my luck?
 
Howdy

The first revolver of any type that I ever bought is this Uberti 44 caliber, brass framed 'Navy'. I bought it in 1968.

I of course did not know back then that the Colt Navy was never chambered for 44 caliber balls, only 36.

Why did I buy it? Because it was cheap! As an 18 year old kid I did not have much money.

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I grew up in New Jersey. In those days it was legal for an 18 year old to own a Cap & Ball revolver in NJ, so I borrowed my Dad's car and drove down to the old Navy Arms showroom in Ridgefield. I don't rightly recall exactly how much it cost back then, but it was less expensive than a similar revolver with a steel frame.

Yes, even though brass is more expensive, it is less expensive to machine brass than steel. The miller can run at higher speeds, which means there is less time on the miller. Time has always been money. Plus, cutting brass will not dull steel end mills as fast as cutting steel will.

Technical note: back then, nobody was warning us about shooting light loads in a brass framed revolver. I was shooting 30 grain loads. Eventually the frame stretched, and now it is a wall hanger, it does not get fired any more. I keep it around because it was the first revolver I ever bought.
 
Engineering rambling...

But gunmetal is arguable nearly as much a Brass as it is a Bronze. The line between Brass (an alloy primarily of Copper and Zinc) and Bronze (an alloy primarily of Copper and Tin) is really fuzzy and the further into the past the fuzzier that seems to get. By most accounts gunmetal is an alloy of Copper, Tin and Zinc, so is it Brass or Bronze? Due to having slightly more Tin than Zinc it is, in the modern sense, gunmetal is more frequently considered Bronze but in the heyday of its use it was frequently called Red Brass. There are lots of Copper based alloys that could fall into either of these broad families of alloys. Brass and Bronze are far from rigidly defined without being more specific in their naming, ie Brass-260 is what we would call cartridge brass and is a 70/30 alloys of Copper and Zinc. Other brasses and bronzes can have many other alloying elements beyond tin and/or zinc, Bronze-863 has aluminum, iron, lead, magnesium, in addition to both tin and zinc, and it has more zinc than tin but is still considers a Bronze, go figure...

Brass vs Bronze, Copper and Zinc and other vs Copper and Tin and others and the "others" frequently contain Tin or Zinc blurring the line between them...

One of my favorite books about metals is Fighting Iron, A Metals Handbook for Arms Collectors, by Art Gogan.

Gogan calls Gunmetal a bronze alloy because it had more tin in it than zinc. He states the chemical composition of Gunmetal is 80-88% Copper, 10-15% Tin, and 2-5% Zinc. Small amounts of lead may be added to improve fluidity for casting. The most famous use of Gunmetal is probably the 'brass framed' 1860 Henry rifle. The Winchester Model 1866 also had a 'brass' frame. When analyzed, a Model 1866 frame from 1868 was found to contain 80% Copper, 14.5% Tin, 2% Zinc and .5% Lead.

Interestingly enough, a few years ago I worked for a company that had access to equipment that could analyze the content of metals, I had a brass loading gate from an Uberti 1866 replica rifle analyzed. The result came back 56% Copper and 44% Zinc. No Tin at all.
 
Similar to some here, I grew up on the cheap Italian made, brass frame repros. As a teen I bought one in the mid-70's in .36 cal. It was a '51 Navy copy, imported by FIE. A LGS was selling them for $50 at the time, as close as I can remember. I believe they tended to last a little longer in .36 cal due to less stress on the frame when firing, but they still exhibited the tendency to fail early through ordinary use, i.e., arbors loosened over time, the wedges would take on a bow shape from the stresses of pressing a ball in the chambers, and bolt springs would frequently break. Today as is the case with others here, unless I was getting a repro that is "period correct" in its brass frame version, I would steer clear of them as a rule, due to their fragility.
 
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