The Confederate Colt

[sourdough]

Gotta Love cap'n'ball revolvers, my first one was an old,old Navy Arms .44 "Griswold", and have had many sense. Thankfully we have folks like Pietta, and Uberti to make repops for us, because the originals are so rare and expensive, my only criticisms being the Pietta "Dance Revolver" doesn't resemble the original at all, (I used to know an old man who traded a '73 Winchester for one, with the original holster, their closer to the Colt Dragoon in .44), and Uberti color case-hardens the Leech and Rigdon's, whereas the original's frames were blued with no case-hardening.

Oh, and Sourdough, love what you did there.

Yeah, I like it also. The cylinder cost me a whole $20 plus $5 shipping courtesy of a guy on one of these forums. The machining of the cylinder cost $50, so it was a cheap conversion, and the R&A was a cheap diversion for me.

Glad you like!

I probably won't have that chance again.

Jim

 

[USS ALASKA]

Journal Article
The Story of The Confederate Colt: —To the Memory of E. Berkley Bowie
Richard D. Steuart
Army Ordnance, Vol. 15, No. 86 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1934), pp. 83-92
National Defense Industrial Association

At the outbreak of the war there was not a revolver-making plant in the South, except the Shawk & McLanahan shop and whatever machinery for that purpose Rigdon had in the same city. The capture of the United States arsenals in the South by the State authorities brought the Confederacy only a lot of flint and percussion holster pistols, more useful as clubs than as firearms. Throughout the South were many gunsmiths and arms dealers. Among them were such well-known firms as Hyde & Goodrich of New Orleans, T. W. Ratcliffe, of Columbia, S. C.; Courtney & Tennant, of Charleston, S. C.; and Samuel Sutherland of Richmond. Their business was chiefly to retail and repair arms. They brought fowling pieces, rifles, revolvers, pepperboxes and deringers from the North and shotguns, rifles and revolvers from England. In many instances the manufacturer stamped the dealer's name on these pieces. English arms exporters also did this, and that is why we find English Tranter revolvers, and pepperboxes, deringers and revolvers made in the North bearing the names of Southern firms. Some of these arms dealers, of course, were experienced gunsmiths, like Sutherland of Richmond, but their arms-making activities were confined to turning out a few fine rifles and dueling
pistols for the landed gentry.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/45374377

Full article at above link on JSTOR with Google sign-in (In the upper right-hand corner of the linked page, there is a 'Log in' button. If you have a Gmail account, you have a Google sign-in and this will allow for free reading of 100 articles a month).

Cheers,
USS ALASKA