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cartridge conversions

schutzenuts
I was looking around my local shop and absolutely fell head over heels for a Colt Navy 1851. I initially balked at having to load a black powder pistol but the guy at the store told me they sell cylinders for it that will allow it to shoot .38 special.

I have a few questions: where can I buy them, how reliable are they, and how accurate is the resulting gun?

Does anybody here have firsthand experience with these things?
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4 comments

Date Votes
  • schutzenuts
    What would be the feasibilty of converting a Remington Gamemaster (.25,.30 or .35) to shoot magnum pistol cartridges (.357, .41, .44 or .45)?
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  • Iconoclast
    I'm no firearms expert, but the ammo families are vastly different - the Remington rounds are all rimless while the handgun rounds you list (with the possible exception of the ".45" which comes in both styles) are all rimmed and all are much shorter. By the time you finished, you would have a new (or lined) barrel, new (or radically altered) action / extractor and a new magazine. In short, for the amount of work you'd have to put into it, for a fraction of the expense, you could have a brand new lever action made specifically to chamber one of the revolver rounds. I don't know it could even be done, no matter how much money you threw at it.
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  • Laredo Lefty
    You could do what I did.
    Go buy a Ruger Deerfield .44 Mag carbine or one of the many lever action .357's or .44's.

    I dont know of any lever action .45acp's, but Marlin makes a .45 semi-auto that, I believe, uses 1911 type mags. I have their Marlin 9mm camp carbine and it uses Smith model 59 mags, shoots great.

    Like Iconoclast said, for the cost of a conversion, if its possible, you could likely buy a whole new gun.



    "Never let school interfere with your education"
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  • bambihunter
    Both of the previous posts are great ideas... They pretty much said what I was going to.
    To add to what both of them said, you could probably take a Ruger .44 mag carbine and have it rebarrelled to a .41 and maybe even the .357 mag. The .45 colt would likely work as well, but probably not the .45 ACP.

    While it is neat to hunt with a large bore handgun round, ballistically they are not good hunting rounds. Even the 30-30 has better stats than the .44 mag. I have taken several deer with the .44 mag out to 60 yards, and I know they'll go at least to 75 yards and most likely 100 yards before they fall on thier face.

    Personally, I'm looking forward for someone to come out with a .500 S&W carbine...
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