My son's .44 Remington Conversion-Finished

[44caliberkid]

A top notch, beautiful, conversion Bill, congratulations.  Thanks for the pics of your gun Joss, and details on what you did.  These are the kind of things people need to do articles on for the Shootist, making our modern repro more like the originals.  It is tough to get someone to let you handle their original to get measurements, etc. 

[Ottawa Creek Bill]

Joss,
Thanks for the suggestion about the article, to be honest, I do these as a hobby and the pleasure I get from it. I don't think I would want to be doing this to make a living, it takes way to much of your time. And, after doing about a dozen conversions, I can see why Kenny Howell charges so much for his. But, as far as the article, I think that would a good idea just to show the process of making one.

One thing I do when I make a conversion is I make the fixtures and the jigs for that particular firearm, so the next one will be easier. I have a pretty mechanical mind, and being an artist (?), I have the advantage of being able to sit down and draw these out prior to making the part for the gun.....

I really appreciate your info on the grip, I am going to buy a pair of the fake ivory grips that River Junction sells for this pistol. These grips are poly resin made with real ivory dust and look very close to the real thing, they can even be aged like real ivory. Plus, I have a sheet of heavy Nickel Silver (8" x 3 feet) that I use to make conchos & trim for my saddles so I am going to make the escutchions for the grip from them. I like what you did making the Remington Clone look like the Beals...way cool!!

My son William has never really been intersted in history (the research end of it), as a kid growing up he did the pow-wo circut with our family (still does), and is into 18th century living history with the same enthusiasm (the participation not the reading) as I have for it. But as far as firearms, he has always had an interest in military weaponry and during his high school and college years, we shot Hi-power competition with all the bells and whistles that go with it.
We still have all those frearms, shooting mats, spotting scopes..etc; I will say this about my son, he did sit down with me and we worked on his impression/persona together for the Originals category...it turned out to be about 30 pages long and is in the format of the Old West dime novels, you may want to check it out at the Originals table...pretty neat stuff...

He has seen me over the years do these conversions but never showed an interest in learning how to do them. This gun really peaked his interest, and he was with me as we went through the process of converting it, he learned how to make a cylinder from scratch, firing pins, detents, springs, heat treating and how to use the rotary table on my milling machine and set up a lathe. He was also very enthused about the Rogers & Spencers we did for Bob Chenault (French Jack), especially after we drove down to his farm in Kentucky and shot them, Man those pistols are extremely accurate....those hollow based .44 bullets are the only way to go...No religning of the bore is needed.

The 1860 Richards second model I am going to have with me at the convention is religned, it started out as a .38/357 barrel ASM, and I religned it to .44, using part of a 44/40 rifle liner from Brownell's, shoots like a dream....But this will be the only gun I'll relign, no need with all the 1860 barrels floating around, and cheap, especially if you can make it to Friendship in the spring. I've removed the bluing on the 1860 Richards and in the process of polishing all the parts, I am going to try my hand at nickel plating with the process that Midway sells, relatively inexpensive and a simple dipping process....the whole kit is $80.00 and you can do about eight or ten pistols.....Wew, I think thats enough. Talk about hi-jacking my thread....don't worry about it.., I just did it, and anything about these old revolvers I find facinating...Joss, Any chance you could bring one of them to the convention? I'd like to take measurements of the frame...May be a hassle with the airlines......

Bill