Wild Bill and his '60 Armies???

[FriscoCounty]

Frisco, I have a pair of the bastardized Pietta Navy pistols in .44 and consider them to be at least equal to the feel of the standard Navy model.  The Colt Navy grip from Pietta is probably my favorite grip and the Navy or Army grip frame hang/balance from it equally well.  I have no later repro Colt versions to compare to but do feel the Pietta grip feels slightly better to me than does the Uberti, perhaps in my head?

As has been remarked in this website before, the Uberti and Pieta grips have slightly different profiles. This would account for the different feel. 

The only difference between a Colt 51 and 60 frame is the cutout for the stepped cylinder.  Somewhere, on a different thread, I seem to remember Mako posting CAD drawings that illustrate this.

[Mako]

As St. George noted. Dragoons ( and Walkers ) weren't pistols you carried on your person on a regular basis.  Whenever I have read an account of WB using a Dragoon, it would note that he had borrowed it from someone.  This says to me that he didn't own one.

As for whether he generally carried 51s or 60s, that would more likely be a matter of preference.  I prefer the feel of a 51's grip and find I am more accurate with them as a result.  The 60 is a slightly larger pistol, but mainly as a result of the larger grip and slightly fatter cylinder.  The frame is basically the same.

Frisco,
I agree with a lot of what you say, especially about Wild Bill carrying whatever he felt the most comfortable with.  I'm a big fan of the 1860 because it fits me well, I also like the U.S. model 1848 for filling my hand.

St. George was correct in the vernacular of the 20th and 21st century writer and Colt's collector calling the 1848 models "Horse Pistols."  In the 19th century they were called "Holster Pistols" by the factory and the military, so we presume the public would follow suit. The first is a hand bill from 1860 advertising the pistols in question.  Notice that the U.S. Model 1848 is called a "Holster Pistol."



The second one is a portion of an advertisement about the U.S. Model 1848.  If you blow up the text you will see it reads, "Copy of the engraving on the cylinder of Colt's U.S. Dragoons Arms."  They didn't call it a "Dragoon," they said it was the arm used by the U.S. Dragoons.  It was this association that has led modern collectors to call the 1848 models, "Dragoons."



I think calling them "Horse Pistols" is a bit prejudicial in the description.  The image is created of a pistol that can only be carried by a horse because it is so HUGE!  There are several people on this forum that carry and shoot not just one, but two 1847 or 1848 revolvers in CAS matches.  What about the Ruger Old Army?  It's not a svelte and petite little pistol.  A lot of 1848s were carried up until and after the war.

I do question whether the reports of WB borrowing a pistol from someone else were accurate..  By many accounts that man emptied his revolvers nightly and reloaded them to assure that he would have a reliable load.  Can you imagine him borrowing a pistol someone else had loaded to stake his life on if he was that meticulous?

In addition to that if he borrowed a pistol from someone else I don't think they went home to get one out of their gunsafe. If they had one it was on their person.  The depictions in the movies of horses being "parked" outside a saloon with all of your gear and rifle on it for anyone to take is a Hollywood creation.  Firearms were expensive in the 19th century, following the war men used what they had.  A pistol was a hugely expensive comparing the wages of the day to what we make now.  As Steel Horse Bailey pointed out the 1873 SAA wasn't nearly as ubiquitous as Hollywood would lead you to believe.  The Cap Guns led long lives all through the last half of the 19th century as well.

I have read reports WB used Army models as well, I really don't know what to believe.  Unless there is a police report I'm hesitant to trust a reporter's sensationalized account of any gunfight especially one where the conditions matched the WB/Tutt fight.  I have had firsthand knowledge of accounts read in today's papers and I know how they get almost everything wrong sometimes.  Personally I don't believe the reporters of 1865 were much more firearms savvy than those who write today.

It would be nice to know the particulars, I'm not sure we ever will unless a police report is found.  Much of what we believe about the preferred sidearms of WB is based on presentation pistols in museums.  I think all of us know what has been given as a gift is not always something we would habitually carry or choose ourselves.

Regards,
Mako

[Mako]

As has been remarked in this website before, the Uberti and Pieta grips have slightly different profiles. This would account for the different feel. 

The only difference between a Colt 51 and 60 frame is the cutout for the stepped cylinder.  Somewhere, on a different thread, I seem to remember Mako posting CAD drawings that illustrate this.

Frisco,
You are correct sir about the frames...The illustrations you were referring to are on the STORM forum.  This is what you're talking about:





I have both Uberti and Pietta Navy and Army models.  The Navy models are noticeably different, Pettifogger actually shows in a series of instructions how to fix the Pietta frame to make it more like the original Colt's. 

http://www.theopenrange.net/articles/Tuning_the_Pietta_Part_Two.pdf

Look at page 17 through 19 of that set of instructions.

The Uberti is much closer in shape.  The Pietta Army grip doesn't have as weird a hump or flare like the Pietta Navy does so it's shootable if you are used to the correct profile.

Regards,
Mako