I have the Anvil Enterprises plans for converting a .36 caliber 1851 Navy Colt cap and ball revolver to cartridges with design techniques that were used in the post-CW era, available at
http://www.anvilenterprises.com/index.htm I like this approach because it makes a more-historical conversion than using an R&D or Kirst converter, although I like/want them too. Anyway, some questions for the experienced metal fabricators:
1. If I were to use brass instead of steel for the conversion plate, would or could this create safety and/or reliability problems? It seems to me the biggest area of concern would be that the hammer might peen the heck out of the brass around the firing pin. Is there enough structural rigidity to withstand the hammer impact, especially if I lighten the mainspring until it just ignites the primer?
Answers to Anticipated Questions/Comments:
The firing pin will still be drill rod steel, not brass, and its bushing will be steel also.
The color won't be a problem, I know a way to make brass look just like black-oxided steel.
Of course only black powder will be used in the cartridges.
2. What are my options for cartridge caliber, cylinder diameter and bore size?
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I know that I'd have to use hollow-based .357 inch bullets so the skirts will flare out to engage the rifling in the .375 inch bore, unless I can get heeled bullets that fit the bore. I may be able to get the barrel relined to .357 bore so I can use regular .38 Special bullets, but of course that makes the cylinders more complicated because the .38 Special requires a shoulder in the cylinder.
3. If this could actually be made to work, how about a .44 caliber, scaling up the dimensions as needed? .44-40 would of course require reaming the cylinders with a tapered shoulder and relining the barrel to a .429 bore. Scaling down to .31 caliber isn't anticipated, I'd get a commercial conversion cylinder for that.
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Yes, I'm crazy, but don't worry, I'm not stupid. Okay, I'm not
dangerously stupid. I think.
The reason I think this could work is that I showed the plans to my brother the machinist this evening. I had thought of it before and dismissed it as being too full of unknowns, but then
he wondered if this could be done in brass instead of steel, and he knows a lot more about metals than I ever will. We talked about it and decided it might be worth trying (remote testing with a string on the trigger sounds like a good idea). I left him for a while to raid his pantry and when I got back, he was making a CAD/CAM drawing of the conversion plate on his laptop. Cool, eh?