Uberti ???

[DuncanSA]

I have been offered, at a reasonable price , a C&B pistol which is described as:
1. Made by Uberti.
2. A brass frame .44 Colt Navy.
As far as I know, and which is borne out by the Uberti web page and Colt history, Colt never produced any brass frame pistols, and did not make the "Navy" in .44 cal but only in .36. Uberti also only made .36 steel frame Navy replicas. Pietta and others however produced many so-called replicas that had no historical precedent.
The pistol unfortunately is at the far side of our rather large country and I cannot view it, all contact has been by phone. A local Colt collector told me that back in the 1960's Uberti did produce replicas of the Confederate Griswold & Gunnison copy of the Navy Colt with brass frames, but he can't remember if any were in .44 cal.

Comments and advice please.

 

[mykeal]

Uberti did make brass framed 1851 Navies for sale in the US as Confederate Army Griswold & Gunnison reproductions. However, they were all .36 cal, as were the originals.

It's either not a Uberti or it's not .44 cal.

 

[DuncanSA]

Correction

I find that I was wrong in saying that Colt never made the Navy in cal .44.
An article "Civil War Revolvers of the North and South" by Robert Niepert states "The Colt 1861 Navy pistol produced in both .36 and .44 caliber ... was the most popular of the percussion pistols at that time"
It is a most interesting article and can be found at http://www.floridareenactorsonline.com/revolvers.htm.

 

[Tommygunn]

Duncan, I would do more research before I believed that particular article. I have found a lot of errors in writing like that -- meant to give a general overview of data rather than a lot of substantial knowledge.
I'm not claiming the article is wrong, but I will say to my best knowledge, "Navy" caliber was .36, while "Army" caliber was .44. To say a Colt 1861 "Navy" was made in .44 seems a bit contradictory to me; that would essentially be a Colt 1860 Army, perhaps with a shorter barrel.

 

[mykeal]

Actually the question was the 1851, not 1861 Navy. There is no evidence of the 1861 Navy ever being produced by anyone in a .44 cal version, including the modern reproductions.

As for the 1851 Colt Navy design, it is certain there were Confederate armories involved in making copies in both .36 and .44 cal, many with brass frames, and they have been reproduced by the modern manufacturers. That brings us to the original question - did Uberti ever make a brass framed 1851 Colt reproduction in a brass frame? So far, the evidence is no.

 

[Tommygunn]

Yeah, Dance Brothers made what was essentially a 1851 copy in .44 ( and also in .36 IIRC) I have a Pietta repro of it. It is interesting in that it has no recoild shield, just a flat reciever. Mine has a squareback trigger guard, and I question the authenticity of that, since the only photos of originals I've seen have round triggerguards.
As for whether Uberti ever made a brass frame 1851 copy, I have a couple of old Uberti brochures that go back to the early 1990's and they do not show any brass frame 1851s.
That doesn't mean they couldn't have made one in 1985 and discontinued it or something like that ... but I see no evidence of a brass frame gun.

 

[DuncanSA]

Time to gamble!

I guess I will simply have to buy the pistol and find out what it actually is!

 

[mykeal]

By Tommygunn:
As for whether Uberti ever made a brass frame 1851 copy, I have a couple of old Uberti brochures that go back to the early 1990's and they do not show any brass frame 1851s.
That doesn't mean they couldn't have made one in 1985 and discontinued it or something like that ... but I see no evidence of a brass frame gun.

Uberti made repros of the Griswold and Gunnison revolver for sale in the US by High Standard in the late 70's and early 80's. It was a brass framed copy of the 1851 Colt Navy built for CSA by Griswold and Gunnison of Griswoldville, GA from 1862 to 1864. Both the original and the Uberti repro were .36 cal.

Since Uberti's repro was not sold by them directly it probably never appeared in their catalog.

 

[Jim K]

Neither the 1851 nor the 1861 was ever made in .44 by Colt (the cylinders are too small). A couple of 1851's were made by Colt in .40, though, as an experiment. Too bad the idea was dropped, it should have been interesting.

Many recent guns are "reproductions" of guns that never existed so if a reasonably accurate copy is wanted, it is a good idea to research the originals first.

Jim