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Old May 18, 2009, 01:13 PM   #6
CaptainCrossman
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Join Date: April 2, 2009
Posts: 381
CraigC
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Join Date: 2001-11-28
Location: West Tennessee
Posts: 3,017

The 1872 Open Top is not a cartridge conversion, it was Colt's first big bore cartridge pistol and designed that way from the start. It's clear that that model is on clearance due to poor sales, probably because of the Navy grip as all the Navy grip Open Tops are on sale. Not because of the manufacturing method, of which you have no evidence.

No, IMHO it never paid to buy a percussion gun and a conversion cylinder.




Like Einstein said, it's all relative. It pays if you do the conversion yourself, it doesn't pay if buy the drop-in store bought cylinder. To elaborate:

My 1851 Navy 38 Spl. conversion, has an open top cylinder it in. It started off as a brass frame 1851 Navy 36 cal. Armi San Paolo/Euroarms. In this case, it did pay to get a conversion cylinder- $90 for the cylinder, and another $15 for the 2-finger hand, $10 for shipping, and machined it myself for free. For $115 I converted my CB to 38 Spl. cartridge. To convert back to CB, just change cylinder and hand- the firing pin will fire the CB caps in the CB cylinder.

They say the Open Top was a cartridge gun, not a conversion. It becomes a game of what came first, the chicken or the egg.

The Open Top was basically an 1860 Army frame, with a longer cylinder- no conversion ring- and a barrel without a loading recess in it. There were long cylinder conversions done before the Open Top, by gunsmiths outside of Colt Mfg.- 60 examples have been found, all from 1800's era. They were done on 1860 Army CB guns.

The Open Top was merely Colt's "official" version.

The Richards-Mason Type 3 1860 Army conversion, used the same barrel and ejector housing, as the 1871-72 Open Top. All the critical dimensions are the same as the 1860 Army, same blueprint specs. Only the cylinder is different, and no conversion ring.

That's why the Uberti cylinder from 2009, fit my 1851 Navy made in 1980's by ASP/Euroarms. Again, it all boils down to Colt's original idea- interchangeability of parts.

It also "paid" to convert back in the day 1800's- Colt conversion guns sold for $5, while a new Peacemaker was $12. That's why they sold so many, until all C/B inventory was used up and sold by the early 1880's. It took nearly 15 years to deplete the inventory.

It "should" be cheaper to convert. The problem is, the importers and Italian mfrs. got a little greedy. $300 for a conversion cylinder is stupid money to pay, for a cylinder.

$100 is more like it.

There's another short-barrel conversion going to even less, only $380 new.

Last edited by CaptainCrossman; May 18, 2009 at 01:20 PM.
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