Hello all, when roughly did most cap and ball pistols become replaced with metallic cartridge guns? It seems that while the 1873 Colt came out that year, there would be no way possible that suddenly every gunslinger, outlaw, and lawman had one. I get cartridge conversions of Colt open tops and Remington's were available but the quantity also seems lacking.
It is hard to find outlaws/gunfighters that used cap and ball pistols exclusively, not the Peacemaker, even if they were killed in the 1860s or before that gun was introduced. Mass production is great but if every single other commodity took years to travel westward, guns, even though critical tools, should have as well. I have the feeling dime novels and Hollywood had a lot to do with it. Somehow metallic cartridges for pistols and lever actions are outrageously romantic. What say you?
in the European continent, cap and ball revolvers were quickly replaced in the 1860´s, by the Lefaucheux system revolvers, and later, by conversion and rimfire revolvers, so around the end of the 1860´s cap an balls were out of fashion in Europe and regarded as obsolete in most armies.
the British were making very efective metal cartridge center fire revolvers since the 1867´s, from timid beginnings with rimfire revolvers. They had already adopted a centerfire metallic cartridge for their service rifle in 1866, and soon later in that country Tranter and Adams patented in 1868 both centerfire revolvers, as well as Webley one year before with his Bulldog which became very popular outside the USA, specially, the later.
Many of these revolvers, specially cheaper copies of Belgium and british origin reached the USA market, and it is supposed to have become very popular in the East cities, and among inmigrants heading to the west, who, in many cases, were poor people who could only afford Army surplus firearms and the mentioned belgium revolvers.
it the Post Civil War years, the USA was a devastated nation, with a pletora of surplus firearms, and probably there was not much room for new guns and technology in the market until the 1870´s , for lack of internal demand after such horrible conflict, when the country could afford new weaponry for the US army, later involved in the indian wars, and for a growing market in the West, once the routes for migration were opened and the Iron horse made distances shorter.
so it is obvious that not all guns in the West were COLTS or Smiths, who didnt developed efective metallic cartridge revolvers until very late, when that technology was already popular in other countries by main manufacturers.
in my opinion, the change towards a metallic cartridge in the West took place quickly, as soon as the US economy recovered from the Civil War and the huge demand for new guns started with the expansion to the West. Probably in the middle 1870's.
After all, outside the USA, the metallic centerfire cartridge was already firmly stablished since 1866.
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