A pic of the Non-Rebated Cylinder R&M '60 "Platypus" Pistol

[Fox Creek Kid]

Here's the difference:

'72 Open Top barrel:  7.5" long, longer breech cone area (this is NOT the forcing cone, but rather the outside of breech end of the barrel that has been machined). It also has an integral rear sight.

'60 Army RM:  8" barrel, NO rear sight on said barrel & short breech cone as on '60 Army percussion models.

NO original Colt conversions had a gas ring. Original '72 Open Tops did. Uberti has designed a gas ring into their '60 Army RM & Type II conversions and disguised it wonderfully.

Both the '72 Open Top & '60 Army RM have S curved barrel lugs.

[Flint]

Uberti has done things for several reasons, stronger, parts sharing, and because they can.  I'm sure the straight cylinder "Army" is made for all those reasons.  Purists they ain't.

[Flint]

For want of a better term, I usually refer to the rear cone as a barrel extension, don't know if anyone has ever codified the feature for proper identification.  I know the forcing cone id "within" that feature.  I temporarily forgot the rear sight, which would obviously put a different part number on the barrels.

[Flint]

Right, the Richards has the 1860 lugged barrel and the R-M has the S-curve lug.

[Flint]

The Uberti 1860 (called 1871 and 1872 R-M) R-M conversion has the stepped cylinder, but it is larger in diameter than the cap & ball, which apparently allows the smaller breech end to still carry 6 45 (?) sized cartridges, where the "Navy" diameter breech end of the cap & ball sized cylinder will only allow 5 cartridges of 45 size.

They list  the 1871 as 44 Colt and 44 Russian, but list the 1872 up to 45 Schofield.  Without a photo of that 45 caliber cylinder, I don't know whether it is stepped or not, but the 38 and 44 caliber is stepped.

So the gun Mako shows is different from anything we've seen or Colt ever made.

[Fox Creek Kid]

I managed to ferret out the thread by Abilene from several years ago explaining what these hybrids are:


http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,9711.0.html

[Flint]

Relevant to my last comment, and not having a picture of it, the 45 caliber 1860 may not have a stepped cylinder, as a look at my Opentop 45 Schofield cylinder shows some pretty darn thin walls.  .040 wall with a .030 inch deep locking notch, leaves only .010 wall there in part of the chamber.  A step as in the smaller caliber 1860 cylinders would not permit much, if any, wall or bolt lock notch from my view.

[Pettifogger]

BTW - I'm so happy that Uberti is making any of the conversions that I'm willing to overlook a few details - like the length of the "forcing cone", the addition of the "gas ring", the oversized dimensions, etc..

Thanks Uberti.

+1

[Abilene]

Okay, let's see.  (some of this is going to be repetition).

All of the .44 and .45 cal 1860 Richards-Masons have the rebated cylinder (and stepped frame, of course.)  Cimarron calls them 1860 R-M's because the 1860 is how they would have started life originally.  They (these Ubertis) originally came in .44 Colt and .45 S&W, but they also are made in .45LC now.  Even though they make the '72 OT in both .44 Spcl and .44 Colt, the .44 R-M only comes in .44 Colt.  I don't know why.   But the cylinder chambers can be easily be reamed to .44 Spcl.  Then at some point they made an "1860 Richards-Mason" in .38 Spcl, which has the non-rebated cylinder.  The Army grip and round barrel are the same as the larger caliber R-M's.  Those cylinders and frames are actually the very same parts as the 1851 Richards-Mason, which only comes with Navy grips, octagonal barrel, and .38 only.  What I believe happened is that Uberti accidently bored some round 1860 R-M barrels in .38, so they made those guns to use the .38 barrels.  Well, people bought them, so they made more.    And when the Type II came out, they decided to do the same thing (using the '51 R-M frames and cylinders for the .38 models).  Why?  I've no idea.  Seems like they could have just bored the stepped cylinder for .38.  But Uberti does a lot of things "just because".

The 1851 R-M's in .38 only with the octagonal barrel and navy grips are pretty authentic except for some details with the conversion ring and of course the gas ring on the cylinder.  BTW, the gas ring on the conversion and OT cylinders, while not authentic, was a feature that Cimarron wanted.  Another BTW, current production '51 R-M's (and the Man W/ No Name guns) have a much taller brass cone front sight than previously.

Since Cimarron got Uberti to make the R-M's and OT's, and provided the originals and some of the tooling, they had an exclusive on them for 5 years, but after that time Taylors started getting them as well.  I think that Taylors now calls the 1860 Richards-Masons "1871 C. Mason Revolvers" because of Cimarron having a trademark on the other name or something like that.  Not sure of those details.

Regarding earlier reports (when the Type II was still in pre-production) that it would have a beefed up frame/cylinder compared to the R-M in order to be made in .45LC, that turned out not to be the case.  Before the Type II started shipping, the R-M started being made in 45LC.  The .44 and .45 Type II has the ssame frame and cylinder as the Richards-Mason.  Only the barrel is different (and ejector housing, with the Type II ejector having a more difficult to manufacture bracket that fits into the rammer slot).  Current production Type II's all come with the longer ejector rod as well.

That's all I can think of right now 

[Fox Creek Kid]

Well, other than that, how'd you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln? 

[Hoof Hearted]

I got to looking in the vault at some of my Italian conversions and I have an ASM that is basically a conglomeration also. I guess I'd call it a "5 1/2" 1860 Navy" (or a Richards conversion on an 1851 frame). It has a Navy grip, non-rebated cylinder and it's chambered in 44 Colt. Low 3 digit serial number. It is marked CFA Fredricksburg Texas, ASM Italy under the barrel.

I would say that Uberti wasn't the first to do odd, miss-matched conversions . Maybe Harvey likes to "pioneer"