[Doc Hoy]

Hawg,

You said, That's true but there's no way to know how much a particular pistol has been used or abused". You seem to agree, which is probably not to your credit since I am horribly under-informed as I have said.

My family were hunters and shooters as long as I can remember. I have been around weapons all my life. When I reported to the Navy at 19 and saw the poor condition of the .45s I was appalled. I simpy could not believe that something so important as a firearm, could be mistreated so recklessly.

I am allowing my imagination to run wild here but consider this:

1862 and Private Murphy, age 18, reports for duty attached to an infantry company. Among other things he is issued a revolver.

1862 and Private Murphy is killed in the first moments of battle before he ever gets a chance to fire a shot.

Private Murphy's body is buried in a military cemetary near the battlefield. His personal effects including the pistol are sent home to his mother. She puts his uniform with the hole in the jacket and his belt and hat in a trunk along with the revolver. Ms. Murphy is 46 years old. She dies in 1901 in a bed in the same house that Private Murphy was born in.

Her great nephew inherits the house and belongings including the trunk. He opens it to find the uniform, the belt, the hat and the pistol. The pistol may still be loaded with the first rounds that were ever seated. He is not a "gun person" so to him the pistol is nothing more than a relic. So he stores it away for most of is life.

At what point in the tenure of this pistol does it come into the hands of someone who knows anything about civil war weapons? Knows how to handle it, get the nipples off or to somehow unload the chambers? How badly is it rusted or pitted?

Probably the pistol is still shootable.

I am no historian, but I would be willing to bet that this scenario was repeated quite often. This or other scenarios which resulted in a weapon surviving the war which was not really used that much.