Would this be called a Navy?

[Hawg]

dont have a clue where i got this but i remember from some place that the 36's were navy's and the 44's were army's. somebody smarter then me will have to chime in to either confirm that or set me/us straight.

the downer of getting old i guess ... think i heard this some darn place also ...     

True. The 'Navy' caliber was .36 and carried as a sidearm by naval officers, while the .44 was the 'Army' caliiber carried by Army officers where the added firepower would be needed.

But there never was a .44 caliber 51.

[bigted]

i agree with the no 44 cal '51's. till lately and then only if you are a traditions 1851 witch is a 44 cal. wonder how this came to be?

[Captainkirk]

To clarify; NO, there was never a .44 cal '51. If you wanted a Colt revolver in .44 you went with a Dragoon or Walker or chose Brand X....unless I'm missing one. The Patersons were .36 cal as well. In fact, the majority of sidearms produced for the Confederate forces were primarily .36 cal with the notable exceptions being the LeMat, and the Tucker & Sherrard Walker knock-off (and probably a handful of others I don't recall at the moment)

[StrawHat]

The 1851 was a big seller in 36 caliber.  Colt recognized the need for a light weight 44 caliber revolver and tried his best to produce one.  Until the advent of better steel, the best he could come up with was a 40 caliber revolver on the 1851 frame.  I believe they were tool shop models and about half a dozen were made.  Concurrent with that development came the 1860.  Once the problems of the 44 cylinder were overcome, there was no need to produce a 40 caliber 1851.

I am suprised the Italians have not flooded the market with 1851s in 40.  They seem to make thousands of other models that were only produced in limited numbers.

[Hawg]

Uberti made some brass 51's in 44 in the early days but now try to stay pretty much historically correct except for the short barrel models. IIRC they do/did make a 66 Winchester in a steel frame. I haven't done any research on that but don't think Winchester ever did. Pietta on the other hand makes a butt load of inaccurate pieces.

[Pat/Rick]

Straw hat, absolutely! I found an example of a .40 caliber, on a '51 frame. The Date on the example in my book is 1858 and serial number 3. In an attempt to make a pistol of enlarged caliber and reduce overall weight, the .40 was marginal at best, it competed with the Dragoon in .44 and the Navy's in.36, thereby never really filling any niche at all. The onlr real method that Colt's found to reduce weight was by fluting the cylinder. My book does not give a number for total amount produced. Though it was experimental, I doubt it was many.

[StrawHat]

Pat/Rick, 

Fluting was done to several of the Colt revolvers, the Dragoon, the Model 1860 and the Model 1861 were all made with full fluted cylinders to help reduce the weight of the revovlers.  The 1860s had a slight problem, they tended to explode so Colt replaced them with unfluted cylinders when the were returned to the factory.  I have 1860 and 1861 full fluted replicas.  The replica Dragoon was made with full fluted cylinders but I do not own one.  Maybe Fingers has one.

[Fingers McGee]

Pat/Rick, 

Fluting was done to several of the Colt revolvers, the Dragoon, the Model 1860 and the Model 1861 were all made with full fluted cylinders to help reduce the weight of the revovlers.  The 1860s had a slight problem, they tended to explode so Colt replaced them with unfluted cylinders when the were returned to the factory.  I have 1860 and 1861 full fluted replicas.  The replica Dragoon was made with full fluted cylinders but I do not own one.  Maybe Fingers has one.

Sig series made a full fluted 3rd model dragoon.  I don't collect Sig series, so I do not have one.  I don't think ASM made one; but not 100% sure of that.

[Pat/Rick]

 I know about the fluting, I was just paraphrasing  one of my books in that enlarging the caliber (in the case of the .40 that you mentioned) also reduced the weight without changing the size of the 1851, by virtue of more mat'l removed. I hope I said that better this time ???  Sometimes I don't express things well and was trying to contribute a bit to your post.

Before the spring steel came about, Colt was trying to explore all possibilities in manufacturing a larger caliber, lighter weight revolver on the '51 platform, as you stated, .40 was as large and as lightweight as he could get with the '51 frame, restricted at the time by metalurgy. Retaining the .36 caliber chambering was the best he could get with that platform.

[Drayton Calhoun]

I made a brass wedge driver for just such a situation.

[jaxenro]

Thats why I like the 62 pocket for the combination of small size and decent caliber and it comes fluted

[Hawg]

I made a brass wedge driver for just such a situation.

WOW Drayton, you missed a whole page of discussion.

[Captainkirk]

I was thinkin' WE missed something.