What weapon metals were most used in the Old West?

[mildredwright]

Does any of you know what metals were most used for weapons in the Old West?

I want to customize my Cattleman Revolver and my Lancaster Repeater with the most common metals of the time. Currently, I use Tempered Steel for the Cattleman and Blackened Steel for the Lancaster. Previously I was using Iron for the Cattleman but I read Iron was not the best for revolvers.

I believe for the varnish Walnut was the most common, but what kind? I use Black Walnut.

Let me know if any of you knows or perhaps can point me in the right direction. I don't mind doing some reading as this subject is very interesting.

Thanks

geometry dash lite

[River City John]

AI, by Gawd!!

[Coffinmaker]

  Wadda GROAN!!

[Abilene]

I had to look it up. The Lancaster repeater is a gun from Red Dead Redemption 2.
    

[Major 2]

Yep ! AI used AI gaming to talk to.
Even the coinage of "Cattleman" for the revolver is Dead Red Redemption.

Uberti, has a case for a product infringement lawsuit.

[Hair Trigger Jim]

Uberti, has a case for a product infringement lawsuit.

Although to be honest the game may have sold more than a few Cattleman revolvers for Uberti, as 20-somethings try to buy the guns they enjoyed in the game.

[Arizona Trooper]

Back to metals, before the 1870s most gun metals (other than steel springs) were various types of wrought iron, ductile, malleable, etc. Quality varied widely depending on the ore, refining and finishing processes. There is an excellent book on the history of US iron manufacture, American Iron, 1607-1900 by Robert Gordon.

Colt advertised that cylinders for the '49 Pocket and '51 Navy were made from "Silver Steel". There was an operation in New England about that time that billed its product as "Silver Steel", but it was actually high quality wrought iron, not steel. Not sure if that is what Colt was using, or if it was just Colt being Colt.

Before Bessemer and open hearth (Siemens-Martin), steel was very difficult and expensive to make. The problem is that as the carbon comes out of pig iron, the temperature required to keep it molten goes up to the point where a charcoal or wood fire isn't hot enough. As English Bessemer steel came in (around the late 1850s) steel production went from skilled masters making 50 pounds in 5 days to general labor producing 8 tons in 8 hours.

Simeon North was making Hall rifle receivers with imported English steel by the 1850s. Colt, Remington, Burnside and others were making cast steel barrels during the Civil War, again with English steel. After the war Bessemer steel manufacture quickly came to the US. Springfield switched to steel barrels with the 1873 Trapdoors, using both imported and US steels.

Railroads were the other big users of steel. Steel rails last a lot longer than wrought iron.

Today there are no producers of historically correct wrought iron. The last one closed in the 1950s. "Wrought Iron" today is actually mild steel.