Richards Mason Conversion replicas

[Hawg]

The original RM's were all round barrels.

No foolin'? Hmmm? I need more education on these lil guys. So are the 1851 considered "fantasy" of sorts Hawg?

Richards converted 51's but the RM's with octagonal barrels made today never existed. The .38 RM's back in the day were based on 61 navies.

[45 Dragoon]

No Zulch, the date code on the pair is 2021. Lol!!

Mike

[Zulch]

No Zulch, the date code on the pair is 2021. Lol!!

Mike

  Okay Mike. Sheesh. I sure do need help.

[Zulch]

The original RM's were all round barrels.

No foolin'? Hmmm? I need more education on these lil guys. So are the 1851 considered "fantasy" of sorts Hawg?

Richards converted 51's but the RM's with octagonal barrels made today never existed. The .38 RM's back in the day were based on 61 navies.

Wow, thanks Hawg, that was/is very nice to know. I sure like the round barrels. Thanks again.

[ShotgunDave]

The original RM's were all round barrels.

No foolin'? Hmmm? I need more education on these lil guys. So are the 1851 considered "fantasy" of sorts Hawg?

Richards converted 51's but the RM's with octagonal barrels made today never existed. The .38 RM's back in the day were based on 61 navies.

Actually, that's not so. There were 51 Navy RM conversions as well. They also made Pocket Models.






The gun on the far left is a 51. The two on the right are 61's.




But none of the current 72 Open Top guns are correct. The originals were all in .44 Henry Rimfire caliber.

[Zulch]

Thanks Dave, cool pictures. How did you find those? Nice. This is the one I've got my sites set on.
1860 Richards Transition Model®, Type II .38 Special, 8" Barrel  Not sure what the "Type II" means???
So, .38 Special existed back in the day?

[G Dog]

Those are some handsome irons.

The .38 S&W Special is usually dated from 1898.

[Zulch]

How about this. I enjoyed reading this article. Maybe most of you have already read. It's a good short read. Pictures snagged from the article. I really appreciate everyone's input on this thread to date an would like to hear more. I'm sure this is "old hat" to most of you but I do thank you all for helping me out. This is all very new to me so I am really having a ball getting educated on these.
https://gunsmagazine.com/guns/handguns/colts-cartridge-conversions/

[Miguel Loco]

I have heard that Colt offered a "conversion service" for most of their BP revolvers. It cost probably less than a third of the price of a new '73. So I would imagine there could be a lot of different combinations out there. If I remember correctly, the price for a new '73 was around $7.50. The cost of having the conversion done was about $1.25.

[Zulch]

Wow!! Great information Mick thank you. If I understand you correctly that means if I were living in those times and had an 1860 for instance, I could take it to a gunsmith and upgrade it to accept cartridges. I wonder how much that would correlate into today’s money.

[Miguel Loco]

Well actually, you'd send it back to Colt. I believe they were the only "authorized" way to get it done. It was just a service Colt did.

William Mason and Charles Richards hit a real winner when the copied the Remington top strap configuration for the 73 and finally got rid of the less than practical barrel pin set up.

[Zulch]

Ahhhhh👍👍 I see. Thanks Mick

[Hawg]

There were quite a few gunsmiths doing conversions. If you were too cheap to send one back to Colt.

[Miguel Loco]

There were quite a few gunsmiths doing conversions. If you were too cheap to send one back to Colt.

Lol.... hey postage was extra!

[Zulch]

There were quite a few gunsmiths doing conversions. If you were too cheap to send one back to Colt.

Lol.... hey postage was extra!

I’m sure it was🤣 maybe 5 cents?