.44 Colt conversion cylinders

[Tubac]

I see Buffalo arms have R&D conversion cylinders in .44 Colt
Is this a good cartridge, or would you be better off with a .45 Colt conversion?
Thanks,
Tubac

[Marshal Will Wingam]

I think it's a matter of preference. I'd probably choose .45 lc because there are more guns available in that caliber and choices for other pistols or rifles would be better if you wanted to match it up.

[Tubac]

Good thinking Marshall, it would be best to have it compatable with other guns.
Thanks for your help,

Tubac

[Crooked River Bob]

I'd have to agree with the Marshal. 

Here's something to think about... The .44 Colt cartridges available today have an inside-lubed bullet and shoot in revolvers chambered for .44 Magnum and .44 Special, too.  The conversion cylinder mentioned in your post may be chambered for the more traditional .44 Colt cartridge, which had an outside-lubed bullet the same diameter as a .45 Colt.  If you aren't set up to load your own, the old-time .44 Colt cartridges may be hard to get.

I'll bet it's a fun round to shoot, though, and I did meet a fellow who had a conversion with the traditional .44 Colt chambering.  He liked it.

Crooked River Bob

[Be-A-triss Bandit]

From Buffalo Arms:
"The RD185844U converts your Uberti 1858 Remington Army revolver to fire the .44 Colt Heel bullet or hollow based bullet. To overcome the larger bore of the original barrel, it is recommended that you use hollow based or heeled type bullets."
There is only one case and chamber today.  The old one may be custom cut by someone, but is not mass produced.
This was covered last week:
http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,11923.0.html

[will52100]

44 colt is a good round, it's light recoil and hard hitting.  You won't get accused of having broke back loads, but it won't bruse knuckles like full house 45's will.  I'd probably load pure lead hollow base rounds and it would give decent accuracy.  Or you could just have the barrel linned.  Hollow base work great, but are slow to cast, I like casting 6 at a time, not one at a time.

[Halfway Creek Charlie]

44 Colt cases (brass) are easily available and I shoot 44 Rem. C.F. heeled, outside lubed, .451 Dia 228Grn bullets in them . I reload them.

44 Remington C.F is the original round for original Colt, Remington, and other 44 Cal BP Conversions as they all had .451 Grooves and .439 Lands.  The 44 Colt bullets today are smaller as reported above.

BTW these are easy to reload.

[Fox Creek Kid]

44 Remington C.F is the original round for original Colt, Remington, and other 44 Cal BP Conversions as they all had .451 Grooves and .439 Lands.

The original Remington conversions were a 5 shot in .46 Rimfire. Yes, that's .46 & not a typo. As a side note, there was a difference between the .44 Colt Martin cartridge and .44 Colt civilian ammo. The Martin cases (for which the Colt 1st Model Richards were chambered) were a tad larger in circumference and would not chamber in some later Remington conversions for this round.

[Halfway Creek Charlie]

You are right the very  FIRST Conversion of Remingtons were 46.Cal. for the military, But they would also take the 44 Martin round. According to McDowell's book.

The SECOND conversions were 44 C.F. Remington produced the 44 Remington C.F. for Colt and Remington Conversion Pistols until 1895.

[Fox Creek Kid]

Charlie, McDowell's book is good, but a better source is the new book by Charles W. Pate on the S&W American Model which goes into great detail about early Remmy conversions with "new" info & period photos. I can't recommend this new book enough. It's better than McDowell's book IMHO.

[Goody]

In reference to what ya'll are saying about a 5 shot conversion. I saw an original Remington that I assumed someone had started to convert and never finished. It was a 5 shot and the guy behind the counter didn't know much about it. He said the person who had lost it in had pawned it frequently over the years, this time he never came back. He had told them it had belonged to his Grandfather, they knew nothing more. The counterman said he had tried to chamber a 45lc and it wouldn't go, but a 44sp dropped right in. The hammer did not look to be altered, which is the reason I assumed the job wasn't finished. But the cylinder looked to have been with the gun for a while. It was full length, in other ords there was no room for a conversion ring, and I do seem to recall that there were small cuts in the rim of each chamber to accomodate the hammer, as well as "half cock" notches between each chamber. Could this be an original conversion?

[Tuolumne Lawman]

Actually, that was probably an original Remington conversion for .46 French short rimfire.   Just after the Civil War, Remington payed a licensing fee to S&W to use the Rollin White patent to make some conversions for the Army. McDowel covers them in his "Colt and Other Conversion Revolvers" book. They look like unfinished efforts!  I have seen and handled several.  The first time I saw one, I too thought someone started to convert to .45 Colt and stopped.

[Tuolumne Lawman]

PS

If I remember right, the .46 French is a heeled bullet, and the cases are smaller diameter than a .45 Colt, but larger in diameter than a .44 Special.

[Be-A-triss Bandit]

After the Civil War the Government sold excess to France.  The French bought things like whole artillery batterys as a unit.  Guns, caissons, gear for the horses, everything.  One of the things I've seen listed is Remington and Colt pistols.  I don't have the reference but recall they converted or paid to convert to rimfire and issued them. Wasn't interested in the details at the time.  I'd have to go back 30 years to the library's at "big UM" and hope to find it.
BB

[Fox Creek Kid]

Schuyler, Hartley & Graham had some Rogers & Spencer revolvers converted to .44 Rimfire which were sold to the French but all other revolvers were percussion to the best of my knowledge.

[Be-A-triss Bandit]

Thanks kid.
BB