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Today's post is about my 1862 Colt pocket police revolver. This a reproduction of the original revolver model that was made in the 1860s. These revolvers were designed to be smaller than the standard 1860 and 1861 revolvers, and yet, to still have more power than the small pocket pistols of the day. These revolvers were built on the 31 caliber frame, but chambered for the 36 caliber ball. Because of the smaller size of the frame and cylinder, these were a 5 shot revolver. The original revolvers were offered by Colt in 3-1/2 inch to 6-1/2 inch barrel lengths. The combination of the smaller frame and the shorter barrel made them more concealable than the standard Colt revolvers while still having the power of a 36 caliber load.
My reproduction revolver was made by A. Uberti of Italy and imported into the U.S. by the E. M. F. company. I bought this revolver back in the 1980s, but they're still being imported into the U. S. by s couple of importers for the "cowboy" market and the civil war historical market.
This is what is known as a percussion, or a cap and ball revolver. These pistols don't use modern cartridges, they are loaded with loose black powder and a lead ball. The charge is fired by a percussion cap that the hammer strikes when the hammer is cocked back and the trigger is pulled. The basic procedure for loading is that you pour a pre-measured charge of 3F black powder into a chamber in the cylinder, then set a round ball of the proper size onto the mouth of that chamber, and push it into the chamber with the loading rammer that is attached to the revolver under the barrel. You do this for each chamber. When all the chambers are loaded, you hand press a number 11 percussion cap onto the "nipple" for each chamber, these are on the back of the cylinder. You do all of this while the hammer is at half cock so that the cylinder will turn freely. This loading method is certainly slow, but gave the soldiers in the civil war a definite fire power advantage over the single shots that the revolvers replaced.
Even after cartridge revolvers appeared in the late 1860s and early 1870s, these cap and ball revolvers continued to be used by a lot of civilians right through the 1890s because they became less expensive when the cartridge revolvers became more popular. In this picture, you can see the loading lever has been rotated about half way through it's range of movement. You can also see the loading plunger just above the front face of the cylinder in the cutout below the barrel.
These revolvers were taken apart for cleaning. This was necessary because of the corrosive nature of black powder fouling. Taking the revolver apart was the only way to get all the fouling out of some areas of the revolver. It was also much easier to clean the barrel and the cylinder that way. These "open top" revolvers had a large center pin that the cylinder revolved on, and that pin also held the barrel in place with the help of a wedge through a slot below the bore of the barrel and through the middle of the cylinder pin. The wedge was removed from the barrel, then the barrel assembly was pulled off the pin, and then the cylinder was removed from the pin. This was most of the disassembly procedure.
These revolvers can be further disassembled by removing the trigger guard and the grip frame, and then removing all of the internal parts, but that is a bit more complex. I do that when I shoot this revolver at the range because black powder gets inside the internal mechanism and will cause rust if not taken apart and cleaned.
These cap and ball revolvers can be fired with black powder or black powder substitutes such as Pyrodex, but should never be loaded with smokeless powder. That will generally result in the destruction of the revolver, and likely injury to the shooter and possibly close bystanders. Black powder has become harder to get these days, but the substitutes are widely available at the various sporting goods stores where black powder supplies are sold.
That's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
Thank you for reading my post!
I welcome any comments or questions that you might have.
If you would like to read my other posts about my revolvers, here are the links.
https://steemit.com/firearms/@preppin-for-real/the-webley-and-scott-mk-4-38-british-service-revolver
https://steemit.com/firearms/@preppin-for-real/the-h-and-r-the-american-revolver
https://steemit.com/firearms/@preppin-for-real/the-1871-richards-mason-revolver-reproduction
