Why do some scare people away from Brass Frames?

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Stateline Sniper:

The area around B'Ham was and is full of ore, coal, and foundries prior to, during and after the CW. There were iron mines and foundries also in GA, TN, the Carolinas and VA. To this day, Iron ore is there. It is not mined as much, because it is more efficient and cheaper to recycle scrap. There is a small amount of ore also in MS, just not worth mining.

Yes these manufacturers were in the CS and made steel frame revolvers pre war and started back making steel frames post war however during the war due to the lack of surplus of steel Iron and ore they started forging the frames from brass because the Iron ore quaries and steel foundries who were supplying their "Iron and Steel" and ore from which mostly came from Connecticut stopped supplying the south when war broke out between N and S as well as any other goods that was transported by rail system because the Federal Army stopped all rail lines cold at the mason dixon
Click to expand...

Wrong on most counts. Most of the Confederate made revolvers were only made during the CW. There are copies of the contracts between the companies and the CSA government or states are in the archives if you wish to look them up. Here are the dates of MFG.

Iron Frame Confederate Revolvers:
Augusta Machine Works Revolver Made from 1861 to 1864.
Columbus Fire Arms Co. Revolver MAde 1862- 1864.
Dance & Brothers Revolver Made from 1862-1865.
Leech and Rigdon Revolver Made 1862-1864. ( fine revolver with case hardened frame)
Rigdon Ansley Revolver Only made from 1864-1865.
George Todd Revolver Made 1857 until 1862.

Many re-enactors have their own agenda and are "changing" history to suit their aim so listen to the campfire talk at re-enactments with a jaded ear. A great deal of what they say as fact is not (particularly when it comes to the weapons). Get a copy of Flayderman's Antique American firearms as a basic weapons bible. Do your own reasearch from proven resources and you will be able to hold your own in discussing things in history.

(BTW There was a brisk trade between N/S during the CW. Grant had a well documented tantrum about this in the Western Theater. Mainly small goods, medicine, and cotton. Grant tried to stop it and couldn't which lead to the anger. Higher ups were getting rich.)
 
I guess I have to put some jade in my ears ears.

:D
so apparently a lot of published text books concerning the CS is and what I have been taught to be fact is wrong?

I realize that there are a lot of smelting furnaces in GA, Tennessee but from what I understand these furnaces were for pot metal and cast iron and blacksmith work.

50 yrs old and still learning:)
 
so apparently a lot of published text books concerning the CS is and what I have been taught to be fact is wrong?
Click to expand...
There is so much misinformation and downright lies taught about the War of Northern Aggression it's sickening.
 
Even that map leaves out several important iron mines. The Cornwall ore mine and Codorus Furnace both SE PA made cannons for the rev war.

The area around Birmingham AL was a well known iron producing area.

I would agree that the South was not nearly as industrialized as the north. And the South was certainly behind the 8 ball. But not devoid of iron mines and foundries like many text book jerks so mistakenly preach.
 
St8line:

The South made quality iron, as good as any, just not as much, hence the brass frames and grip straps. Actually, if the South had enough brass, they would have made AMMO for henry, spencer and other cartridge guns they had captured. There were decisions made not to do this because of brass, copper, zinc, and other shortages.

Yes, several folks have written books that contain much inaccurate information. If the person writing a book uses primary sources, it is likely accurate. If he relies on secondary sources, he is likely to get it wrong fairly often. Most of the inaccurate info is verbally passed around.

The Southerners Justification for the loss lead to a great deal of misinformation on the CW. It was simply a game of numbers. The South had to win quickly or lose. The North had 2-5 times as much as in Men, Material, and industry and every other area needed for a modern war.

Too much interpretive and re-writen of history going on these days.:(
 
recall the term "Bessemer Converter" from American History?

first, quoted from a post above:

"The area around Birmingham AL was a well known iron producing area.

I would agree that the South was not nearly as industrialized as the north. And the South was certainly behind the 8 ball. But not devoid of iron mines and foundries like many text book jerks so mistakenly preach."

END QUOTE

Off to wikipedia next - but this from memory:

The Bessemer Converter was considered a revolutionary development in the process of smelting of iron ore.

Bessemer, Alabama is just SW of Birmingham . :neener:

edited for clarity: Bessemer Converter was developed in Sheffield, England during the Crimean War.. NOT in Alabama... but I'd guess the town was named for Mr. B.-
 
Actually according to the US congress "War Between the States"

But War of Northern Aggression works well here in the South.

My favorite bit of miss information was in a Brit book that told of full auto Spencer Carbine/ sub-machineguns being used to quell draft riots in a northern city.

No doubt those were also special brass framed Spencers!

I just like the look of some brass framed guns. As I do not use them to hunt with or with any choice self defense arms the idea of using reduced loads is no big deal for me. Although I did once loose a friendly plate shoot because a brass .44 "1851" lacked the umph to knock down plates not hit on the upper half. Still it was fun.

Also used brassers tend to be cheaper than steel guns, at least at gunshows and face to face in shops. If one likes to tinker messing up a brasser is cheaper than messing up a steel frame.

-kBob
 
Just to add to this list...

I have a Brass-framed Pietta 1851 Navy in .44 with a cracked frame. I was just using the gun to shoot paper, so I always loaded with 15-20 grains of FFF. On disassembly after the third or fourth outing shooting I disassembled the gun and noticed a crack on the inside of the frame. It may have been there since assembly, or cracked during shooting. I was never able to re-assemble the gun fully though, because the crack was right on the hole... as soon as the screw was out, it wouldn't screw back in. The gun isn't even a decent wall-hanger... because it can't be fully put back together.

Bottom line, brass-frames are like wadding your money up and throwing it away. Generally for $50-100 more you can get a steel frame that won't have these problems. My Pietta 1851 Navy with a steel frame I got as a replacement has not had a single problem and I've taken it out a dozen or so times.

This is just MY experience... obviously others may have had different, but this is why I will never buy another brass-frame.
 
'51 Navy wall-hanger..

pls message me if you have an idea what you'd want for the remnants.. IF you'd consider that...:D

thx,
oc
 
hawkeye74 said:
Stateline Sniper:

The area around B'Ham was and is full of ore, coal, and foundries prior to, during and after the CW. There were iron mines and foundries also in GA, TN, the Carolinas and VA. To this day, Iron ore is there. It is not mined as much, because it is more efficient and cheaper to recycle scrap. There is a small amount of ore also in MS, just not worth mining.



Wrong on most counts. Most of the Confederate made revolvers were only made during the CW. There are copies of the contracts between the companies and the CSA government or states are in the archives if you wish to look them up. Here are the dates of MFG.

Iron Frame Confederate Revolvers:
Augusta Machine Works Revolver Made from 1861 to 1864.
Columbus Fire Arms Co. Revolver MAde 1862- 1864.
Dance & Brothers Revolver Made from 1862-1865.
Leech and Rigdon Revolver Made 1862-1864. ( fine revolver with case hardened frame)
Rigdon Ansley Revolver Only made from 1864-1865.
George Todd Revolver Made 1857 until 1862.

Many re-enactors have their own agenda and are "changing" history to suit their aim so listen to the campfire talk at re-enactments with a jaded ear. A great deal of what they say as fact is not (particularly when it comes to the weapons). Get a copy of Flayderman's Antique American firearms as a basic weapons bible. Do your own reasearch from proven resources and you will be able to hold your own in discussing things in history.

(BTW There was a brisk trade between N/S during the CW. Grant had a well documented tantrum about this in the Western Theater. Mainly small goods, medicine, and cotton. Grant tried to stop it and couldn't which lead to the anger. Higher ups were getting rich.)
Click to expand...

I am bumping this back up because I have been doing some research on the companys that madethe iron and steel framed revolvers
i think it is inportant to mention although the CS was manufacturing high quality steel and iron frame frvolvers they were also produced in very low quantitys in compairison to the number of brass frame revolvers produced by spiller and Burr and griswold and Gunnison
spiller and Burr made a total of 1,500 brass frame revolvers
Griswold and Gunnison produced 3,700 brass frame 36 caliber navy copys

Agusta Machine works Aproximately 100 produced
Columbus Firearms estimated between 100 and 500 for the confederacy
Dance and Brothers Estimated 350 produced for the confederacy
Leech and Rigdon more than 1,500 produced for the CS
Rigdon and ashley estimated 1,000 produced for the CS


quite a significant diffrence in quantities in compairison to the amount of iron/steel frame revolvers made by a collective of manufacturers still did not meet the amount of brass framed revolvers produced by Griswold and Gunnison and Spiller and Burr.
I think that information is well worth mentioning.
this excludes any southern manufacturers who may have been producing copies of the 1858 Remington army models for the CS which I am sure was much smaller quantitiesthan any of the colt navy models produced due to the manufacturing process being more complex and time consuming.
which I have come to grips brass frame remingtons produced for the CS is a figment of the italian manufacturers imagination/\.
 
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hawkeye74 said:
St8line:

The South made quality iron, as good as any, just not as much, hence the brass frames and grip straps. Actually, if the South had enough brass, they would have made AMMO for henry, spencer and other cartridge guns they had captured. There were decisions made not to do this because of brass, copper, zinc, and other shortages.

Yes, several folks have written books that contain much inaccurate information. If the person writing a book uses primary sources, it is likely accurate. If he relies on secondary sources, he is likely to get it wrong fairly often. Most of the inaccurate info is verbally passed around.

The Southerners Justification for the loss lead to a great deal of misinformation on the CW. It was simply a game of numbers. The South had to win quickly or lose. The North had 2-5 times as much as in Men, Material, and industry and every other area needed for a modern war.

Too much interpretive and re-writen of history going on these days.:(
Click to expand...
another point I think needs to be brought up concerning making brass cartridges is at the time the south simply did not have the kind of tooling to effectively produce brass cartridges in the quantities that would be required in order for these rifles to be effective not to mention the low numbers of weapons siezed by the south wouldnot have been a very practical thing to make ammo for such a short supply of captured fire arms.

so in reality how inaccurate is this information.
my research has caused me to rethink what I have been told here.
I think a lot of the facts have been left out and replaced with speculation.
 
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