Now the bad news.......I thought three guns would be enough for me but I just started looking into Confederate pistols and I’m now going to need three more. Then I will be done. I promise
Yeah, riiiiiiight! Just take the BP Revolvers Anonymous Oath!
I am very interested in repro Confederate revolvers and have a few Piettas. CNC-machined (post ~2000) Pietta 1851 Navy .36 "type" revolvers are like the Legos of the BP revolver world and, with very few parts exceptions, parts interchange with (usually) no fitting. I have taken the liberty of creating what Pietta refuses to market. (FG is factory gun, NFG is non-factory gun.) Barrels and cylinders I obtained from VTI and Taylor's.
Mine:
Augusta Machine Works (GA): 1851 Navy with a 12-stop-slot smooth cylinder. NFG. I had my machinist next-door-neighbor mill 6 extra stop slots/approaches on 2 plain cylinders with no rear safety pins (historically correct) that I got a few years ago from a guy on a BP forum for $25 each; my neighbor charged me $100 to do both cylinders.
Leech & Rigdon (GA): 1851 Navy with a smooth cylinder and part round/part octagon barrel. NFG. I procured some nice wood for it from a friend, which is much better than the Pietta factory quarter-sawn straight grained original.
Rigdon & Ansley (GA): NFG. The other plain 12-stop-slot cylinder with a part round/part octagon barrel.
Griswold & Gunnison: FG. This one is a CN/2015 model that is not found lately on a regular basis.
In my quest for a Dance .36 I was almost ready to use my Leech & Rigdon revolver as a donor (milling off the recoil shields) until I came upon this one.
After Dr. Jim L. Davis died in September 2019, most (if not all) of his RPRCA collection was sold to October Country (Idaho), who then put them up for sale at very low (almost absurdly low) prices, most likely because OC did not know what they had procured. Many folks took notice and a lot of the collection was sold very quickly in December 2019/January 2020.
My prize: Pietta 1862 Dance Firearms Company - Angleton Texas. FG. This was part of a Pietta special run commissioned by Tony Gajewsky in 1995. It is SN C00013 out of a total of 35 so-marked Angleton revolvers. Quite rare as I have only found 2 other revolvers from this run.
If you wish to investigate further, I put together a thread on another forum several months ago based upon Dr. Jim L. Davis' postings over 10 years ago. He was the founder of RPRCA (Replica Percussion Revolver Collector Association). It concerns Pietta Dance (1996) and Uberti Dance (1985) revolvers. Both were one-year runs. Both featured squareback trigger guards so as not to have them mistaken for originals.
https://blackpowdersmoke.com/revolvers/index.php/topic,560.0.html
My avatar: Dance .36 and Rigdon & Ansley .36. I do not apologize for the Confederate Battle Flag as it was part of that era.
Also, pay close attention to anything arcticap and Fingers post. I consider them to be the historians on this forum. Many years of experience and knowledge. They have probably forgotten more than I know.
Regards,
Jim