Merwin&Hulbert

[goon]

The guys doing the MH repro should have simplified it down and made a solid frame look-alike that just operated more than less like a Colt.

Glad I've been following this thread though. Between this and Driftwood Johnson's link to the TFL discussion, I've learned quite a bit.

 

[Ash]

Jim, I never disagreed with you. My whole point was, and is, that it can be done, that the clearances required are certainly capable of being done, but that the market demand for such a revolver would have to justify the whole affair. But there is nothing in the MH design that requires utterly close clearances or absolute tolerances in the parts manufacture. A replica need not be exact (they never are) to work and these can be made to a price point. LeMat's cost $800. That can be done, more or less, with an MH but market demand would not sell enough of them to make the project worth it (and will FFL's involved, the price would rise from that point).

Let's face it, the Merwin Hulbert revolver was manufactured by Hopkins and Allen. While they had some good stuff, most of their revolvers were "Suicide Specials." Shall we really assert that Hopkins and Allen was capable of better manufacturing that can be done today? Take a close look at a Red Jacket, and XL, or heck even a Safety Police and decide. The MH was an "also ran" revolver rejected by the US government. It is neat, but a design that most folks haven't even heard of.

We might as well pine over the possibility that Springfield Armory will start manufacturing 1941 Johnson's.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Let's face it, the Merwin Hulbert revolver was manufactured by Hopkins and Allen. While they had some good stuff, most of their revolvers were "Suicide Specials." Shall we really assert that Hopkins and Allen was capable of better manufacturing that can be done today? Take a close look at a Red Jacket, and XL, or heck even a Safety Police and decide. The MH was an "also ran" revolver rejected by the US government. It is neat, but a design that most folks haven't even heard of.

One of the points Art Phelps' makes in his book The Story of Merwin Hulbert & Co Firearms is that because Merwin Hulberts were manufactured by Hopkins and Allen they were never able to overcome the H&A reputation for cheap firearms: "the author believes the outcome could have been different , if Merwin would have insisted and prevailed upon the Hopkins and Allen Co. partners to keep their cheap name off his most perfect guns ever made."

As I said before, Art Phelp's work on the Merwin Hulbert revolvers is monumental, he devoted 30 years of his life to their study. I disagree with his notion that the MH was perfect, simply because of the fact that a Top Break was simpler and quicker to load and unload. But his opinions on the complicated relationship between MH and HA, as well as the Evans rifle, and the complicated financial situation probably have a grain of truth to them. Yes, Hopkins and Allen had a reputation for cheap firearms. Yes, they were able to produce the Merwin Hulberts in large quantities. I have no actual data on numbers produced, but they were never able to approach the sales figures of S&W and Colt.

 

[Kleanbore]

Let's keep this constructive and civil, please.

 

[CraigC]

<deleted>
If you think the two points where the frame breaks can be run "as machined" then you probably don't know as much as you think you do. Unlike the solid framed Colt SAA or Remington models, anything with a frame that breaks must have the point of the break very finely fitted so that it does not shoot itself loose. It's enough of an issue when they are well fitted. An M&H chambered in a smokeless cartridge and put together with "as machined" pieces will be loose in a few hundred rounds. Not acceptable in today's market.

Like I said, if it were so easy to just come up with the dimensions, feed them into a CNC and slap the parts together, it would've been done.

 

[Ash]

Market, Craig, market. Nobody is knocking the doors down for one. So, nobody is trying to make one. And the two attachment points (on the later model, the early one had but one) can be machined to mate without excessive effort or time. You think the mating surfaces of any AR are somehow less important than the two mating surfaces of the MH? Yet it is an accepted fact that AR's can be made so consistently that folks just about never deal with headspacing when assembling them.

It can be done just fine. It worked back in the day because the MH was a black powder revolver.

 

[CraigC]

Are we talking about marketability or ease of manufacturing? Two distinctly different things, both in play here.

You think the mating surfaces of any AR are somehow less important than the two mating surfaces of the MH?

Don't expect to be taken seriously (with your anecdote about college days and calling folks ignorant) if that is your example. Show me anything in an AR that is anything like the M&H and I'll eat my hat. Two different firearms from two different eras. The AR was designed for modern manufacturing, unlike the M&H, Security Six and .44 carbine example earlier. The M&H was born and raised in an era of handwork and are an entirely different critter from those compatible with modern manufacturing. Modern manufacturing dictates looser tolerances and clearances are less critical. Look inside any modern Ruger revolver and you will see parts that see very little hand fitting. The firearm is designed so that as many parts as possible are made from castings, rather than machined from forgings. Their strength does not depend on fitment of those parts. You can't do that with those two points in an M&H. They can't be cast and they can't be utilized "as machined". They must be machined and then fitted by hand. Because the revolvers structural integrity and durability is directly dependent on the fitment of those two points.

Just as the Ruger .44 carbine, which was not compatible with investment casting and had to be machined from a billet of steel, design and economical manufacturing are linked. The Colt SAA and S&W Hand Ejector designs have evolved from hand-built wonders into firearms that 'can' be assembled from precisely machined or injection molded parts. Fine for the lockwork of an M&H but not so for the whole design.

As far as marketability, apparently there was enough interest and pre-orders/deposits to encourage a company to try to produce them. As has been said countless times before and by folks privy to the company's inner workings, they concluded that they simply could not provide a high quality product at the price point they were shooting for. Just getting a subcontractor to produce barrels was a vast undertaking.

It can be done just fine. It worked back in the day because the MH was a black powder revolver.

No, it can't be done just fine, else they would've been brought to market.

The fact that it originally shot blackpowder is irrelevant. It's still a cartridge revolver and would still have to be proven with modern cartridges. Not to mention stand up to the rigors of constant use and cowboy action shooting. It would be a rare thing for a revolver of that era to see over a thousand rounds in its lifetime. The cowboy action shooter or sixgun fancier will put that many through them in a matter of months. We expect our guns, particularly those as expensive as an M&H would have to be, to last a long time. For this reason, any replica will have to be better than the originals.

 

[CraigC]

It can be done just fine.

The Colt SAA and replica market is a good example. These are solid frame guns that need little special fitting, although most could use more than they get. Uberti is able to churn them out quickly and make them affordable because they run their machinery wide open and don't replace cutters until they have to. They also use modern hot salt blue and fake case colors. Contrast that with USFA. They produced their parts slowly and as precisely as possible on fully modern CNC machinery. They replaced their cutters often and used fully authentic finishes. Their basic single action, comparable to a modern Colt or Uberti replica, had a street price around $950 towards the end. They really should've been at least 25% more. That level of precision and decrease in hand fitting cost them two to three times that of a Uberti replica to basically make the same gun, only better. The Pre-war model was around $1200 but really should've been at least $1500. This is to make a design in almost constant production since 1873 with plans bought from Uberti.

Now add to that the expense of researching and tooling up for a design that has not been built in 100yrs. With no drawings in existence, only century old guns that may or may not have had a hard life. <deleted>

 

[Sam1911]

Hey, this is a very neat conversation about a fascinating aspect of old and new guns. I'd really, really like to see it carry on.

<But the next guy who calls someone else a name or is even a HINT rude to his fellow member gets a week off to play in some other sandbox.

Don't know what it is about electrons and keyboards that makes folks forget that the other guy is worthy of friendship and respect, and loves dearly the same things we do, but if I ever find that thing, I'm going to kill it with fire!>

Now, how 'bout those revolvers? Pretty cool, eh? Carry on...

 

[Ash]

Let's just leave it that I understand neither marketing or manufacturing.

It's a shame that these revolvers are not able to be manufactured today. Perhaps some larger company with deeper pockets will devise a way to make one and make it appeal to the larger gun-buying market. If not, well, there are still the originals. Collectors might still enjoy those.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

Well, the old ones are out there. I examined this one a few weeks ago and it was in beautiful condition. A real gem. I was prepared to bid on it, but the price quickly jumped up to more than I was willing to part with. Besides, I had already dropped enough $$ on a couple of other items.


http://www.amoskeagauction.com/99/649.html

 

[Jim K]

The Colt and Remington percussion revolver repros were successful because of the continuing interest in the U.S. Civil War. But other guns of that era either have not been reproduced or failed to gain much interest (e.g., the Starr trigger cocker). And the Colt and Remington are the least demanding of guns as far as precision manufacturing goes, or perhaps another way of saying it would be that they are the most forgiving of manufacturing deficiencies.

As to comments on Hopkins and Allen, they did make inexpensive guns, but they were also capable of high quality production when necessary. The Model 1889 rifles they made for Belgium were equal in quality to those made by FN and Mauser.

Jim

 

[silicosys4]

A picture is worth a thousand words. Lets compare the tolerances of the top frame joint on the MH on the left, to the sideplate on the very cookie cutter, newer, mass produced S&W 10-8 on the right.




That doesn't fit my definition of "closely fitted". The picture linked to in post #36 shows the same exact gun as mine, in nearly pristine shape, with the same generous amount of gap that shows that mine is not "shot loose".
It is a neat design but I have the feeling that many have overrated the complexity and fitment of these guns for whatever reason.

Nothing in that picture leads me to believe that if a capable company that didn't have to scrabble for funding wanted to make a MH revolver, it wouldn't happen quickly and without much fuss. Using the past failures of past attempts as evidence that the production of these revolvers would be somehow harder than other firearm designs of the period or even of today's designs is misleading, as the failed company couldn't even get a working prototype figured out for lack of funding.
It just happened that the only company that has tried was in over its head from the getgo, and people use evidence of its failures as evidence against the gun itself, when all it shows is the company was ill equipped financially for the endeavor from the start.

IF I remember right, they didn't even get to the point of "hand fitting". They didn't get past the point of CAD to make a prototype.
They were going to make the older style revolvers without the top strap, which would have eliminated the top swiveling frame joint. If hand fitting those joints were an issue, they were eliminating a good portion of that hand fitting and still couldn't get it done.
Remember, the later pocket revolvers with the top strap and top strap/frame joint were produced at the LAST stages of MH's life, when they were focusing on trying to pull themselves out of bankruptcy. Why would MH significantly increase the work involved in fitting that second joint during that part of the company's life if there was such work involved with fitting those parts?

If they couldn't make a working prototype of a 100+ year old design that was mass produced, Its not because of the design itself. They underestimated the capitol involved with replicating a historical firearm in general. It could have been a number of different designs, Unless it was something simple like a brass cannon, they would have still failed for lack of capitol during the development stage. They just didn't have the capitol to develop an accurate replica from scratch.
It was a startup company, plenty of those fail for no other reasons than poor management or lack of funds. It wasn't necessarily too hard to make them, but it wasn't easy enough for a company barely afloat, where any little setback was a major deal.
Lack of funding = lack of progress
Who knows how easily they would have been made once they were tooled up. But production is different that development, and a gun that's hard to develop isn't necessarily hard to produce. No doubt its hard to develop a gun for production using nothing but worn historical examples. That doesn't mean that making 10,000 more after the first few wouldn't be if not easy, then feasible.....if the demand is there.
There just isn't the demand to tool up.

Colt did it with the Python. All hand fitted... They sure didn't quit making Pythons because they were too hard to make, after almost 50 years of making them. Labor became too expensive or too hard to find, the market didn't support them, etc....but not because they were too hard to make.

 

[Jim K]

As long as we are into design features of the M-H, it is interesting to note that the locking system in the M-H is less subject to wear than the usual top break. The reason is that in a top break, the curve of the moving top strap must be taken into consideration in designing the latch. That almost always means that there had to be play in the latch and when there is that play, the tendency of the latch to batter on firing gets a running start. The M-H joints lock in such a way that less initial play is needed so they should last longer.

Of course, no jointed frame can be as strong as a solid frame, and even if a repro M-H had been made and sold, it would have been, at best, a novelty and not a serious gun.

Jim

 

[goon]

... even if a repro M-H had been made and sold, it would have been, at best, a novelty and not a serious gun.

Probably true.
I'd spend $400 - $500 on a Colt Conversion or Open Top repro just for cool points. I'd probably even carry it a little bit while I goof off in the great outdoors... but it would never be a "serious" gun.

For two or three times the cost, the MH would lose the market of people like me.

I wonder how much shooting it took to loosen one of the originals up.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

It would be a rare thing for a revolver of that era to see over a thousand rounds in its lifetime. The cowboy action shooter or sixgun fancier will put that many through them in a matter of months. We expect our guns, particularly those as expensive as an M&H would have to be, to last a long time. For this reason, any replica will have to be better than the originals.

Howdy Again

The S&W New Model Number Three was the premier target pistol of the late 19th Century. Unlike your typical 19th Century cowboy gun, these guns were regularly fired in competition and probably saw many thousands of rounds in their service lives.

As long as we are into design features of the M-H, it is interesting to note that the locking system in the M-H is less subject to wear than the usual top break. The reason is that in a top break, the curve of the moving top strap must be taken into consideration in designing the latch. That almost always means that there had to be play in the latch and when there is that play, the tendency of the latch to batter on firing gets a running start. The M-H joints lock in such a way that less initial play is needed so they should last longer.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with that statement, Jim. There must be some small amount of clearance in any system of moving parts or the parts will bind. Just examined my two MH revolvers. Granted, these two have been heavily reworked by a very talented smith. One exhibits no play at all between the frame and barrel assembly. In fact, there is a slight bind. If I work that gun enough, the bind will eventually disappear as the parts work themselves in. The other one has a slight bit of front to back play between the frame and the barrel assembly. Probably only a couple of thousandths. Then I grabbed my original Schofield, Russian, and New Model #3. The Schofield and the New Model #3 have been reworked at the factory sometime in the not too distant past. The Russian is untouched, has 139 years of wear on it. All three are tight as a drum, not a bit of play.

Now, mechanically, the Merwin Hulbert design had more bearing surface at the joints between the frame and barrel assembly than a S&W Top Break did at the latch. So it is a fair statement that the amount of wear at the bearing surfaces would be less with the MH than with the Smith for any given amount of times the gun was opened. I have examined lots of old Smiths as well as several old MHs. I have found pristine examples of both, with no play at all, and I have found worn guns that were loose.

It has to be remembered that the primary market for the recent Merwin Hulbert enterprise was the Cowboy Action Shooting community. We have a broad range of shooters in CAS. Some are very aggressive and practice all the time, not only with live ammunition but dry firing to work on transitions and other elements of the game. Some of these guys will wear out an Uberti reproduction in a few years, in fact some of these guys consider their guns to be only tools and accept the fact that they will wear them out. There is one well known young shooter who would regularly wear out an Uberti replica Winchester 1873 rifle in a year or two, he did so much dry firing every night. These are the guys who mostly shoot Ruger New Vaqueros because they are so heavily built that it is unusual to wear one out. These guys would probably never be the slightest bit interested in a Merwin Hulbert reproduction, just as they are not the slightest bit interested in an Uberti replica Schofield or Russian. They would beat them to death in a year or two.

Then there are other guys like me, who really like shooting cool old guns in competition, but we are not pushing the guns to the limit. I never shoot my revolvers two handed, rapid two handed hammer cocking puts more stress on the lockwork than cocking them one handed does. I enjoy shooting antiques like my Merwins and Top Break Smiths because it is just so cool to dress up like a cowboy and blast away with guns that are over 100 years old. I do not bring antiques to every match, but I do shoot them several times a year. I never dry fire them, never shoot them two handed, and practice is a waste of ammuntion. I also only shoot my antiques with the Black Powder ammunition that they were designed for.

I wonder how much shooting it took to loosen one of the originals up.

That's why I mentioned Black Powder a moment ago. These guns were designed for Black Powder. Whenever I see one that has been pounded to death and shot loose, it is usually because they were subjected to too many modern Smokeless rounds. You will read all the time on shooting boards that cartridges such as 45 Colt, 44-40, and others are purposely loaded down by manufacturers so as to be safe to shoot in old guns. I do not find that to be true. The recoil impulse of Smokeless Powder is sharper and more intense than Black Powder. Black Powder recoil is often characterized as more of a shove than a smack. The old steel (actually my Schofield has an iron frame as did the early Colts) simply was not up to the sharp smack of Smokeless, and that is what tended to stretch frames and loosen up some of the old guns. Colt did not factory warranty the Single Action Army for Smokeless powder until 1900. Shot with the Black Powder rounds that they were designed for, these guns could be shot many thousands of times without loosening up.

That brings me to my last point. If the modern effort to manufacture a Merwin Humbert had been successful, I have no doubt they would have been excellent Black Powder shooters, unlike the modern replicas of the S&W Top Breaks, because of certain design changes that Uberti made. The original MH design was beautifully suited to shooting Black Powder because of the huge bushing on the front of the cylinder that keeps powder fouling away from the cylinder pin. Using modern alloys, I suspect a modern MH could have stood up to Smokeless pressures and recoil just fine, as long as the loads were kept to SAAMI standards. Whether the lockwork would have stood up to the aggressive two handed cocking technique of CAS hotshots is another matter. One reason Rugers hold up so well is the cross section of the internal parts is larger than the cross section of analogous parts in a SAA or replica. The other reason is of course the use of coil springs. But I have reservations if the lockwork of a MH, which is essentially the same as a Top Break Smith, would have stood up to the torture some CAS shooters subject their revolvers to.

Clearly, a new Merwin Hulbert would have been a niche gun. Not for everybody.

 

[DPris]

Besides the lack of experience of the top people involved & lack of adequate financing, the MH was doomed from the start in its market.

It would have been very much a niche gun.
Modern shooters would not have bought it in droves.

It would not be competitive in CAS, and would have sold in small numbers only to the wealthier shooters looking for nostalgia & novelty. The gamers would not have bothered.
At $1200-$1500 per, with two required, the biggest majority would not have spent the money.

Outside CAS, again, the gun would have appealed only to those interested in the history & nostalgia behind it.

High price, low volume, it would not have been sustainable for the maker.
Denis

 

[Jim K]

Excellent post, as usual, Driftwood. On the black vs smokeless discussion, I often take issue with the folks who say that firing any BP gun with any SP load will blow the gun up. That is nonsense, and I have fired many rounds of factory smokeless in the old guns. But you are correct that the old guns will loosen up, even with BP. The old H&R's and IJ's just were not made for extensive firing; they were made for defense guns, not target shooting.

Another aspect of the BP/SP discussion is that even when an SP load does not exceed BP pressures, progressive burning SP keeps the pressure on longer. That is why old shotguns let go at the point where the barrel gets thin (and where the shooter's off hand is located). With a BP load the pressure was nearly gone at that point, not so with SP.

Jim