Howdy all. Haven't been on in a good while. Hope all are well, and having a great Christmas.
There will eventually be a much longer story about some of the details I'm about to put forward, but I have a firearms question from some research I'm doing.
In 1884, a man was abducted from a home outside of San Antonio and killed. The lady of the house where he was taken described one of the guns used by the abductors as a "square-barreled pistol". Other phrases she used were "Tolerably long", "blue or black finish" and the "handle" looked like walnut. She said she could not remember "what size cartridges it shot."
A few months after the event, one of the abductors was killed trying to pull off a "jail break" on a train. Literally. Anyway, the testimony does not refer to the barrel of his pistol, but the parts of the description that are given seem to match. They do, however, refer to it as a "38 calibre", and there was a pouch or some such of "38 calibre" cartridges found in his pocket.
I had thought when reading "square-barreled" that she was referring to the octagon barrel on a Navy pistol. The 38 reference suggests it may have been a conversion. My question is, were there any cartridge revolvers--other than conversions--turned out with octagon barrel, or would the guy's pistol have unquestionably been either a cap-and-ball or a Colt conversion?
Typing this, I just remembered Remington also converted their New Army model as well. Were any of those converted to .38?
Thanks to any that can help,
Hugh