Uberti conversion cylinder?

[secondshooter]

Hi, i have a black powder 44 cal uberti 1858 revolving carbine, its a great little rifle and loads of fun to shoot but cleaning is a bit of a chore compared to a cenrerfire smokeless gun.
im thinking about getting a conversion cylinder to fire the mild 45lc cowboy ammo through it, dose anybody have any experience with these , there are several manifactures, which one makes the best model? is there any thing i should aviod?if you have one how do you rate it?cheers tim

[d43p]

I have two cylinders, one for my 1858 Rem and one for a 1851Colt. Have lots of fun with them. The 1858 is much easier to use as the cylinder comes out quite easily. I use cowboy loads in them, find they group much better than loading round ball, don't have different cylinder dimensions. Got mine from an outfit in VA I believe, maybe R&D? They will fit the cylinder to the gun if you send it to them for no charge. My cylinder pin was a little oversize so needed fitting.

[secondshooter]

That sounds positive, i wasnt sure if they any good, one minor problem is im in new zealand so sending the rifle off to get the cylinder fitted is not an option, luckily i have a lathe so, making it fit wont be too hard, was there any indexing problems with your cylinder?

[d43p]

Had no indexing problems at all. I've been very happy with both cylinders. I think you will be surprised at how accurate the rifle will be, most of my cap guns vary in the cylinders. All throw one bullet off. You shouldn't have a problem with the Uberti, I think they are better quality wise than the Piettas.

Don

[Hardcast416taylor]

I seem to remember reading someplace that these cartridge conversion cylinders aren`t meant for use in the carbine applications. I would check around before doing this conversion.Robert

[d43p]

I thought they had the same size frame as the revolver, but that may not be the case. It sure would be nice if it did fit. Check the Uberti site and ask for info.,that would be the way to go.

Don

[ohland]

Folks, the memories are dimming, but the R&D conversion cylinders are built far stronger than the gun they are installed into. I have a Rem 58 with a conversion, and maybe I will pull it out and shoot it.

Warning: the weakness of the Rem 58 frame's design is the area below the front lower edge of the cylinder. You cannot reinforce it with any degree of assurance. So stick with load performance from the design era.

Warning, there are dimensional differences between the various makes, Armee San Marco, Uberti, Pietta (?) and a few others. Mostly it was in the length of the cylinder and back cap together. The cylinder lengths were identical, but the back cap thicknesses vary.

I never saw a revolving carbine cylinder while I was at R&D, but that was 96-98, so maybe Ken added that.

IIRC, the Ubertis are well machined, but cost more. ASM had OK manufacturing, but cost less than the Uberti

:brokenima

[lathesmith]

Hi Tim,
I have personally used and shot a gated Kirst Konverter in one of the Uberti Cattleman's carbines, and it works great. It's very accurate, and a "blast" to shoot! Based on my experience I wouldn't hesitate to recommend one of these for the Carbine setup, just make sure you get one that is sized for the Uberti. It is possible that you *may* have to re-work the hand slightly to insure proper indexing, but it's this way with any conversion, and many don't require any re-working at all. Enjoy!

lathesmith

[SMPARKINSON]

I also have the Uberti revolving carbine, and have it set up to use with Kirst products. First I set it up with a gated Kirst Konverter in .45 ACP. My caliber choice was based on the recomendation of Jay Strite from Kirst. He told me that they have done extensive testing with the Uberti carbines, and that the .45 ACP was the most accurate caliber choice. Additionally, the .45 ACP ammo is a lot less expensive than .45 Long Colt, although finding .45 ACP with lead bullets isn't always easy. But when you find them, stock up and they will cost you at least 1/3rd less than the Long Colt. Anyway, I cut a gate in the carbine recoil shield and installed a Richard Mason spring loaded ejector and ended up with a very neat little carbine. I than got one of the Kirst 1858 .22 Konverters and installed that in the carbine. By thinning out the ejector rod a little in the back (barrel side) I found it works perfectly to eject the .22 cases. So now I have a carbine that is convertable to 3 different calibers; original .44 cap & ball, .45 ACP cartridge, and .22 rimfire cartridge. I never use the .44 cap & ball set up, but it's there if I ever decide I want to. The .22 shoots great, even though the barrel is only a couple of inches long. I think the benefit of the rifle length sight radius makes more of a difference than the actual length of the barrel. But when Kirst makes a longer barrel available, I'll probably get it. The one thing I would really like to do with this setup is to install a Leatherwood Malcolm scope to it. I think the addition of a scope would really step up accuracy, and it would really look great. Oh yeah, one other thing. I antiqued the whole thing so it looks like it's the real deal vintage from 150 years ago. I love the way it looks, and it gets a lot of comments at the shooting range. It's funny, but now when I get an old gun I try to make it look newer, and when I get a new gun I try to make it look like vintage Old West. I guess that's how I make it mine. Now if only I could make myself look newer I'd really have something there!

[SMPARKINSON]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_168074e6522e601a3d.jpg ('http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=2040')

[SMPARKINSON]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_168074e6522e630447.jpg ('http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=2041')
Please excuse me if I haven't followed correct protocol regarding the posting of my pictures. This is kind of new to me, but I guess I'm supposed to include my pics along with the same frame as my quote or comment. I'll try to get it better next time. Anyway, here are a couple of pics of my Uberti conversion revolving carbine. It is shown with the .22 conversion installed, and the .45 ACP unit next to it.

[SMPARKINSON]

It shoots great with both the .22 and .45 units, and I must say that I am very happy with the Kirst products and customer service. I've called them with questions a few times, and each time Jay Strite, the gunsmith, has gotten on the phone with me and patiently answered all of my questions. Both units basically dropped into my Uberti guns and worked great. I have also owned an R&D conversion cylinder, and although there was nothing wrong with it, I much prefer the gated type conversion offered by Kirst. It's much closer to the actual conversion units made in the 1800's, and you can really make an authentic conversion revolver with them. If you like authenticity, the Kirst units are really the only way to go as far as I am concerned. A cap&ball converted with the Kirst unit really brings out my Cowboy heart.

[Multigunner]

I had a original Remington pocket .32 rimfire here for awhile. I think these came from the factory with cartridge cylinder though they retained the front loading lever.
These used a removable rear face of the cylinder to act as a breech plate ,with cuts out for the hammer nose to contact the rim.
A very neat little pistol.

To reload you pulled the cylinder as you would for cleaning, then removed the breech plate and punched out the empties.