Thanks to recommendations by folks here, I decided on an 1858 as my first cap & ball revolver.
It arrived today (very fast delivery from Cabelas) and I'm extremely pleased with it
It's a Pietta. I've read some bad things about Pietta quality in the past, and when I lived in the UK I had a couple of 1851's that were Pietta made that were a little lacking.
My 1851's were blank firing replicas, and I always assumed that maybe they didn't bother so much with quality control with those as they did with the working models.
Whatever the explanation, I have to say that my 1858 is a different animal altogether.
Fit and finish are superb. If anything, this gun may be too tight as I have found it quite difficult to get the cylinder back in after removing it. If I was Clint Eastwood in 'Pale Rider', I'd have been shot while I was fumbling with it.
The trigger is quite heavy, but it's very smooth. I might give the contact surfaces the once over with an 8000 grit stone when I have the time.
The finish is flawless. I've never really liked the finish on these repros because it seems too 'modern' to me.
I know opinion is divided on this, but I like 'old' guns to look old. The way I see it is that in an ideal world, I'd buy an original pistol and shoot it.
Obviously, if I had spent that kind of money on an antique I would feel uncomfortable shooting it, so a modern repro that looks like it's an antique is the next best thing.
My plan was to strip the bluing and refinish the gun with cold blue.
I've never had much luck with cold blue.
I've used it to touch up my deactivated guns in the past, and it seems that no matter how well you oil it, it always goes brown eventually.
I thought this might be good for the finish that I want on my Remington. It would start off blue as it was originally intended, but would rapidly age to brown like the bluing does on old guns.
The thing is, it happens differently on different steels, and when I tried it on one of my 1851's it went black and stayed black, even though I deliberately didn't oil it.
A lot of people use plum brown to get this effect, but from what I've seen it's a bit too 'plum' and not enough 'brown' for my liking, plus I live in an apartment and I hear that browning is best done outside.
I've also seen a technique where you use cold blue and then dip the metal straight into household bleach. It apparently turns brown instantly, but I've only seen it used on knife blades:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=632510
This seems to be the kind of thing I'm after, but I'm not sure how the steel on the 1858 will react. Has anyone tried this?
Also, I was going to use naval jelly to strip the blue, but I have read that it imparts a slight phosphate finish to the steel which stops cold blue from working properly. Any truth in that?
It arrived today (very fast delivery from Cabelas) and I'm extremely pleased with it
It's a Pietta. I've read some bad things about Pietta quality in the past, and when I lived in the UK I had a couple of 1851's that were Pietta made that were a little lacking.
My 1851's were blank firing replicas, and I always assumed that maybe they didn't bother so much with quality control with those as they did with the working models.
Whatever the explanation, I have to say that my 1858 is a different animal altogether.
Fit and finish are superb. If anything, this gun may be too tight as I have found it quite difficult to get the cylinder back in after removing it. If I was Clint Eastwood in 'Pale Rider', I'd have been shot while I was fumbling with it.
The trigger is quite heavy, but it's very smooth. I might give the contact surfaces the once over with an 8000 grit stone when I have the time.
The finish is flawless. I've never really liked the finish on these repros because it seems too 'modern' to me.
I know opinion is divided on this, but I like 'old' guns to look old. The way I see it is that in an ideal world, I'd buy an original pistol and shoot it.
Obviously, if I had spent that kind of money on an antique I would feel uncomfortable shooting it, so a modern repro that looks like it's an antique is the next best thing.
My plan was to strip the bluing and refinish the gun with cold blue.
I've never had much luck with cold blue.
I've used it to touch up my deactivated guns in the past, and it seems that no matter how well you oil it, it always goes brown eventually.
I thought this might be good for the finish that I want on my Remington. It would start off blue as it was originally intended, but would rapidly age to brown like the bluing does on old guns.
The thing is, it happens differently on different steels, and when I tried it on one of my 1851's it went black and stayed black, even though I deliberately didn't oil it.
A lot of people use plum brown to get this effect, but from what I've seen it's a bit too 'plum' and not enough 'brown' for my liking, plus I live in an apartment and I hear that browning is best done outside.
I've also seen a technique where you use cold blue and then dip the metal straight into household bleach. It apparently turns brown instantly, but I've only seen it used on knife blades:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=632510
This seems to be the kind of thing I'm after, but I'm not sure how the steel on the 1858 will react. Has anyone tried this?
Also, I was going to use naval jelly to strip the blue, but I have read that it imparts a slight phosphate finish to the steel which stops cold blue from working properly. Any truth in that?