One you'd never expect to find on this side of the ocean

One of my heroes, Iactually "discovered" him as a child while watching Little Big Man .

 

Sorry to reopen this old topic, but I had to chime in. For a LOOOOOONG time I loved and read everything I could get my hands on regarding weapons of the Civil War. I wanted to just chime in here real quick re: confederate copies of the Colt Navy vs Army pistols. He is absolutely right, the Confederates copied the .36 Navy AND the .44 Army but the Navy was more preferable for this simple reason: the relatively more plentiful brass was softer than the steel found on the proper Colts. The heavy.44 caliber Army's recoil under repeated firing would play havoc on the fit of the brass frame to the cylinder and cylinder to the barrel. Hell, even the brass framed .36 caliber, if fired enough over a long period of time tended to lose what little gas seal there was between the cylinder and the barrel, the .44 was just too much. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to spend precious capital and even more precious resources making a pistol that would only last you a few score rounds. I have a "repro" brass framed Confederate 1860 .44 "Colt" after approx 80 rounds, the wedge had to be let out a little just to get the cylinder to turn, after 150 rounds, it ain't fit for nothing but a holster mold... and no, these weren't hot loads. Standard 30 grain proper black powder pushing a lead conical or ball.

On a somewhat similar topic, the PROPER .36 Navy had been around for some time before the outbreak of hostilities, making it easy to obtain from captured Federal arsenals, thus easy to make copies of, where as the .44 Army had only been around a few short months before states started seceding and thus made it harder to acquire, and thus not as plentiful in the Southern states... at least at first, I am sure by 1864 with both armies tramping all over Northern Va and up and down the Mississippi River, those 1860s could be a little easier to come by.

Hey Skipper, Nice box, if you ever decide to give er up, I have a true M1860 Army steel frame made in 1862 that would look great with that box as a display