Palomino Valley - comments thread

[Willie Dixon]

Tweet

Oops 
just read the rules, something I do very rarely, and realized why I haven't had any comments at all about my short story.  Sorry everyone.  So here's where you can comment, criticize, etc my short story "Palomino Valley" 

Here's my reply to Long Johns Wolf who wrote

Willie's pistol: year 1866, Colt Army model conversion for .44 Henry RF...must have been a Colt Army Long Cylinder Conversion. Am I correct?
How does the story continue?
Long Johns Wolf

LJW,

basically I took some ideas from "Last Stand at Saber River" and combined them with the good ol' John Ford belief that "just make people assume that's how it was." 

Far as I'm concerned, mechanically, it would have been silver soldered cylinders with heeled henry 44 boolits I guess.  They would have had a channeled breech with no loading gate, loading levers left on and a removable fire pin so the boys could still fire the guns c&b if needed.

I'll look up the issues of GOWs too.  I know Mr. Adler had two articles on conversions that showed that a home-gunsmithy could have done it back then, much like Mr. Strite and Mr. Kirst are doing it now.

*edit* Found them:
GOW #61 - "Kirt/Strite 1861 Navy .38lc"
GOW #62 - "When the Big Guns Roared"
GOW #67 - "Evolution of Metallic Cartridge Conversions"
    - all of which were written by Mr. Dennis Adler, and I further found more research online, at the West Texas Plains Museum, Taos, and Durango myself in my personal research.

The "transistional period" from the end of the Civil War to the Union's Centennial is my favorite time period for CAS.  Although my research, thesis, and my hobby is basically from when Mr. Jefferson bought some land from the French all the way to 1900.  Needless to say my mentor professors and I have been having a blast, both literally and figuratively with my research. 

in the story, it was their father who was the artisan gunsmith.  He gave them to the boys before he left for Palomino Valley and they went off to war.


-again, sorry for the mishap.  I guess it would help if I read instructions every once in a while

[Long Johns Wolf]

Howdy Willie,
Wolf here from Germany. I first stumbled over these LCCs in one of Dennis Adler's books on conversions. Then I was happy to acquire Bruce McDowell's "bible" on conversions and the trouble started...I had 2 gunsmiths make a couple of "Hartford" Colt Army and the 2 "Mexican" Colt Army conversions for me from Belgian Centaures. They are pictured at www,1960nma.org, check the pages on Conversions. Klaus Mumme in Germany converted 2 of my Centaure Marshal pistols into LCCs in .44 Colt cal. This pair is going to be my main match pistols.
Based on the evidence I believe they were originally made in Mexico, probably as early as right after the Civil War and even before the Thuer hit the shelves.
Please, share the rest of your story with us.
Long Johns Wolf

[Willie Dixon]

   

wow, you have more than two original Colt armies?!?  The one pictured is absolutely beautiful.  It's almost a dead spot-on look of the bobbed one that I pictured for Willie Dixon.  Mike Belliveau's Black Powder article in GOW #66 was a great inspiration for me as the choice of Willie's guns being old Open Top Armies, especially the one he dubs as the "1860 Thunderbolt."  

what is the book by Bruce McDowell?  I'm creating a "wishlist" on Amazon as we speak.

My plans are to purchase a pair of Pietta Armies and bob the grip on one and give her a 5 1/2" barrel next time I head to my folks in SoCal.  They only live twenty minutes away from EMF.    I guess this story and everyone's comments, both here and on another forum have helped me pick my new main match pistols myself.

and thank you so much for giving me that link, I'll be reading that for the next day or so!

Love your colt

[Long Johns Wolf]

The name of the MvDowell book is COLT CONVERSIONS AND OTHER OTHER PERCUSSION REVOLVERS. Great source for information on factory and gunsmith conversions but unfortunately out of print. Might be available as preowned but sought after.
My conversion pistols are not made from base gund manufactured in Hartford but from their Belgium cousins of Centaure fame.
Attached is a pic from the breechside of the cylinder: no loading gate.
Long Johns Wolf

[Willie Dixon]

I finally am back! Sorry about this, the actual story has been written for almost a year. 

Real life and my laptop crashing kind of took care of these past six months.  I hope everyone is going to keep checking back, I'll post up a new section every week until completion