Open tops?

[Mad Reloader]

The Cimarron crew realized--quite correctly--that running off M-1872 Open Tops, or M-1860/70 Richards-Mason Army Conversions in the original .44 Colt...wasn't going to make them any serious sales.

(That was the big problem Armi San Marco/Palmetto had with theirs, which is why it departed from the scene. Details to follow)

A little while back, the Cimarron boys figured out how to cut the chanbers such that BOTH .44 S&W Russian, and .44 Colt--as loaded by Black Hills-- would chamber & fire.

Here's the details --> The practically extinct .44 Colt cartridge (also known as .44 Remington, BTW!) has almost the same case diameter as .44 S&W Russian, Special, & Magnum. The rim is slightly narrower in diameter--but the MAJOR difference was that early loadings used a HEELED bullet of 0.449" o.d., the later loads using a hollowbase projo so as to catch in the 0.450" bore of the ORIGINAL Remmy & Colt cartridge conversions.

ASM used a regular 0.429" bore barrel, but for authenticity's sake used the original chambering. Sales were...not what they hoped. Their 1860/70 Richards-Mason is out of production circa 9/11/01.

Their arch-rivals, Cimarron, rapidly puzzled out that by cutting their chambers just so, the more easily obtained .44 S&W Russian would chamber and fire in the 0.429 bored modern open tops.

Not TOO big a leap to reconfigure the whole assembly from there to take .44 Special, but IMHO that's about the LONGEST cartridge one could do up in an 1860 type frame with normal type gateloader backplate. R&D gun shop has figured out how to do a 5-shot open-top in .45 Colt, but sadly you have to drive out the barrel wedge in order to load/unload the cylinder...

The designer at Cimarron who came up with the .44 Special open top deserves a promotion AND a raise! JMHO, folks.

What THE MAD ONE is impatiently awaiting is a drop-in "Kirst Kartridge Konverter" for the Walker repros. While they're at it, a custom grip-frame of birdshead/broomhandle style would be cool to boot.

{Anyone BESIDES me ever heard of the M-1870 Gasser revolvers in 11.15mm Werndl Carbine, or 11.75mm Montenegrin? These were HUGE open-tops popular in old Imperial Austria and the Balkans, dispensing the equivalents of .44 Extra Long Ballard (.44-50) and an apparent ancestral blackpowder version of .475 Linebaugh, respectively! Here's a pic of a fancy engraved 1870)