Colt Thuer Conversions

[Tuolumne Lawman]

Thuer Conversions have always been a mystery to me, and have been a little intriguing, too.  For those who do not know, the Thuer was a Colt effort to circumvent the Rollin White patent on bored through cylinders.  Instead of a paper cartridge, a tapered, self contained, metallic cartridge with integral primer was forced in from the front, and seated with the standard ram.  The smaller base of the cartridge butted up against the rear of the chamber, where the top 2/3s was exposed (bored through).  This exposed the primer to the rear.  

Behind the cylinder was a ring that contained a single firing pin, much like the Kirst breech ring.  It was more complex, though.  It rotated to the side 30 degrees to move the firing pin out of the way, so all six chambers could be loaded.  The ingenious thing about the ring is that it is spring loaded, so that when you put it on the safe position against spring pressure, you lower the hammer on it.  When you cock the hammer, the ring snaps off the safe position to fire, automatically disengaging!

This safety position also had a spring loaded plunger gizmo, that when the hammer was allowed to fall on the safety position with full force, was supposed to pop the empty cartridge case forward from it's wedged position so it could fall out of the front of the chamber.









Gary "Hoof Hearted" makes a faux-Thuer conversion for the 1860.  Externally, it looks identical to the original, but in reality, it only has firing pin, and rotating into safety position of the original.  it uses standard .45 Colt/Schofield rounds, so no ejector is needed. the cartridges are loaded by removing the cylinder as with all other non-gated conversions. As with the original, though, no modification of the percussion revolver is needed, and the percussion cylinder can still be used.  If one was going to use a Kirst without a loading gate, this may be a cooler alternative.

http://www.cartridgeconversion.com/Converters.php