Pietta extra cylinders

[Tommy tornado]

For my stubby Remington, I am thinking about buying 2 or 3 extra cylinders and doing a Pale Rider.  Do the extra Pietta '58 Remington cylinders just drop in without any timing issues?  Is it a good idea to have a gunsmith make sure they work alright with the pistol?

[Buffalow Red]

i have one pietta 44 thats 15 years old & one thats 2 & the clys swap around no problem
thats my experence

[Wolfgang]

I have 3 Pietta Remingtons and several extra cylinders that came from Cablelas.  All cylinders swap beck and forth, in and out of all three pistols with no problems.  Good shootin', . . . .

[hellgate]

If you try to swap cylinders on the clock during a match you will not be allowed to do it with a capped cylinder. If you were to drop the capped cylinder or ding it on the gun frame you have a potential for  an accidental discharge. For a "reload" you are allowed to stash a charged revolver at the location of the reload and merely cap it and start shooting. The C&Bs are considered unloaded until capped. My opinion is to forgo the extra cylinders and get an additional gun(s) for the reload(s). If you do the Pale Rider thing you will still have to cap the swapped-in charged cylinder and find a place for a greasy, black, fouled cylinder that has just made your hands all smudged and everything you touch.

[Deadeye Don]

I just thought that people who shoot black powder just assume they will be getting their hands really dirty.   

[Wolfgang]

re what Hellgate said, . . . . True, . . ya can't do "Pale Rider" reloads in a match setting, . . but ya can have fun doing it when you are out shooting tin cans in the desert !  FUN.  Shooting a repid fire string of 18 rounds is a hoot !   And it is very  handy to have extra cylinders.   Having extra guns is handy too.  I've got 3 Piettas with a bunch of extra cylinders and an Armi San Marco with one extra cylider for it as well.  The best fix for a broken gun is to have another gun.  Then the broken gun isn't a crisis, . . just something to fix when ya have the time for it.  I recall hearing that down in Australia you can do a "Pale Rider" reload in a match situation.  A dropped cylinder is penalized  the same as a dropped loaded pistol.  I'd do one pistol and cylinder swap reload if it were aloud.  Way cool !  I LOVE "New Model Army Remingtons"  !   

[Tommy tornado]

I wasn't going to do it in a match.  My local clubs would kick me out very fast.  SAFETY being #1.  I just wanted the extra cylinders to have loaded up for a match and do it occasionally out in the woods for fun.  Of course I would not have them capped as I switched out cylinders.  I like all my body parts where they are. 

[Wolfgang]

Capped cylinders are not as dangerous as many seem to think.  A year or so ago some experiments were done with setting off charges in cylinders that were not in battery with the barrel. Combustion isn't complete and the balls were rated as going just a bit harder than you can throw them by hand.  Pretty extensive testing was done by Roudy Yates and Forty Rod, both SASS members.  Information was posted on the SASS forum and in the SASS Chronicle.  Very interesting study which was primarily focused on chain fires,  but the results appliy to a capped chamber firing on a loose cylinder as well. 

Good shootin', . . . . Pale Rider reloadin' is FUN.  Do it the way you feel is safe for you.

[hellgate]

Wolfgang,
You can find that study on the brimstonepistoleros.com website. Actually if you had less than a full charge in the chamber you might get a faster moving ball from a chain fire as there would be more "barrel" with a deeper seated ball like a derringer. I would bet that a 20gr charge in a 44 would send a ball out the cylinder faster than a 30gr charge that has the ball right up to the mouth. Just a guess. I still wouldn't want to be hit by one. I think they estimated a couple hundered feet per second velocity.

[Wolfgang]

Hellgate, . . thanks. I've got the article about it saved.