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Since I just took a Pietta 1858 Remington in trade I decided to have a go at making my first homespun cartridge-cocnversion. The plan is to turn down the back of the cylinder, bore the cylinders through and ream them to a uniform .451 diameter to chamber the original .44 Colt using heel-base bullets. Then make a breech-plate to mount behind it with a cartridge pass-through.
Unfortunately I snapped the drive-belt on my lathe so some of that will need to wait. In the meantime there are still things to do, starting with shortening the barrel to 3-1/2" and re crowning it. I cut off and modified the loading lever to match the short barrel and remounted the latch to hold the cylinder-axis pin in place. I also made and mounted a sight-rib/mount for interchangeable front-sight blades. I also put a 'pinky-groove' at the base of the handle. This makes the gun much more comfortable for me. Since I don't want to refinish the gun until the conversion is completed I've taken this about as far as I can. So here's the work to date-
I have started considering the idea of lining the cylinders for a different caliber- for some reason .41 Special and .32-20 are sticking in my mind- but so far the plan is to stick to .44 Colt.
Unfortunately I snapped the drive-belt on my lathe so some of that will need to wait. In the meantime there are still things to do, starting with shortening the barrel to 3-1/2" and re crowning it. I cut off and modified the loading lever to match the short barrel and remounted the latch to hold the cylinder-axis pin in place. I also made and mounted a sight-rib/mount for interchangeable front-sight blades. I also put a 'pinky-groove' at the base of the handle. This makes the gun much more comfortable for me. Since I don't want to refinish the gun until the conversion is completed I've taken this about as far as I can. So here's the work to date-
I have started considering the idea of lining the cylinders for a different caliber- for some reason .41 Special and .32-20 are sticking in my mind- but so far the plan is to stick to .44 Colt.