Anvil Enterprises 1851 Navy Conversion Plans

[Alex Johnson]

Awhile back there were some posts where these plans were discussed and I said I would give a report on them when I received them. I had a chance to look them over this evening and they are decently done. At my current job I see plenty of design work and I won't say that these plans are on a professional level done with CAD, but they seem to deliver the goods none the less. My biggest gripe with them is on the first page where they advocate not using there plans to build a firing revolver. I figure this was done for liability reasons as the plans could certainly be used for this purpose even though they don't provide information or dimensions to a specific cartridge (.38 S&W is implied if not recommended, use of black powder is a necessity) There are no instructions given concerning heat treatment of parts though except for a few instances involving small springs I doubt this would be necessary. The cartridge conversion plate would be my only concern, but this probably could be left soft though I would wonder if the originals were not casehardened.

No information is provided concerning finishing the revolver and only general dimensions are provided due to considerable variations of available repro 1851's. No photos are provided of completed parts though the hand drawn plans are adequite in most respects.

All in all I think these plans provide a good basis for building a reproduction 51 Navy conversion. It would be a good winter project I think.

If interested you can contact them at:

Anvil Enterprises, Inc.
P.O. Box 628
Aguilar, CO 81020