Quote:
|
That one can be made to work. Awhile back I learned that the original Colt Richards-Mason cartridge conversions weren't chambered in .45 Colt, they were chambered in .44 Colt. Back then, the .44 Colt cartridge used brass sized about like our .44 Special, but it used a heeled bullet with a diameter of .451x inches. Starline makes the .44 Colt brass (properly headstamped .44 Colt). There are molds available for the heeled .44 Colt (original) bullets, and a company called Alpha Bravo Manufacturing sells the bullets by special order.....But the commercial ammo being sold today as .44 Colt doesn't use a .451" bullet, it uses a .44 caliber, .427" bullet. So the question would be, for the .44 Colt conversion cylinder, does Kenny Howells use a .451" throat, or a .427" throat? If the latter, it would have to be reamed out for use with the proper .44 Colt (Original) cartridge.
|
Don't bother.
I have an original Colt 1860 Richards Conversion.
It is chambered for the original 44 Colt Cartridge that used a heeled bullet.
There is no 'chamber throat' in the chambers, the chambers are bored straight through, all one diameter. This is because the 44 Colt cartridge was designed to be shot out of the old Colt 44 Cap & Ball cylinders. The brass had the same outside diameter as a '44' caliber ball (about .451). We can get into a discussion of why they are called 44 caliber another time.
Left to right in this photo, the cartridges are 44-40. 44 Henry Rimfire, 44 S&W American, 44 Russian, 44 Colt, 44 Special, and 45 Colt.
You can see the 44 Colt round uses a heeled bullet.
I bought a mold for 210 grain heeled bullets from Old West Bullet Moulds. I also bought a special crimping die from them for crimping heeled bullets.
The Howell cylinder for 44 Colt is for the modern version of 44 Colt, using a 44 Special sized bullet. It has a chamber throat. The only way to use this cylinder in a modern 1858 Remington is to use hollow based bullets so the base of the bullet expands to fill the rifling. Otherwise the bullet will not engage the rifling at all.
Just buy the standard five shot cylinder for 45 Colt from Howell, or buy the six shot 45 Colt cylinder from Taylors. As I said before, I chose the Taylors version, before Ken Howell set up his new company, because it used a six shot cylinder. Still the only six shot 45 Colt conversion cylinder for the 1858 Remington on the market today.
https://www.taylorsfirearms.com/hand...cylinders.html