1851 44

[Lethemgo]

Since I posted some information on my new pietta 1851 navy 44cal I've been through gun and cleaning and smoothing it up. Thinking about getting a reamer and doing the cylinders to .452 like they should be. The one dig on italian gun are the cylinder throats are smaller then the bore size. Will it matter I'm not sure but it's cheap enough to give it a shot and i have a few revolvers. Thinking about selling some uberti revolvers i have and buying a couple more piettas. Has anyone else done this. I did see a guy doing it on a Remington new army on fixing up one of those. Just curious as to if anyone has tried it.

[DougGuy]

I ream those and then hone them. Not nearly as easy as it sounds, you have to modify piloted reamers to get a short nose and short pilot and still stay tight all the way down. There really isn't any gain to reaming all the way down, you need to be .452" far enough down to seat the ball or boolit. Some cylinders are too thin between bores to put the chamfer in there like the ROA has.

If you are planning on using a solid nose reamer to cut costs, be aware that the nose on those is about .447" which is all but useless, you might as well just get a drill bit and chuck it in a DeWalt drill. You have no way to keep it centered, it will cut wherever it wants to cut..

[Jniedbalski]

Doug guy. How much of a improvement will you see in reaming the black powder cylinders? I have noticed on all Italian companies that make bp pistolsts that they all come with the cilinders to small. The only ones that I have seen the cylinders the same size as the bore are the expensive 800$ target pistols. Wonder why don’t they just bore them the correct size in the first place. I have seen cylinders .003 to .008 smaller than bore size. Where the original colts and Remington’s like this. I was always told that using bp always bumped up the round ball to bore size any way so reaming the cylinders wasent needed. What do you all thank

[DougGuy]

Those are meant to shoot dead soft lead, and they do bump up to fill the bore. I have honed a number of these Italian percussion cylinders but have yet to hear any range reports. In fact I haven't heard a word out of the last couple of these I did, and you know if you did something despicable you would already hear about it so no news must be good news...

[Jniedbalski]

That’s kind of what I have thaught. I have heard of people doing it but never a before and after test. I thank the expensive target models are .001 smaller than bore or at bore size. I would think if it helped a lot people would be braging more about it.

[DougGuy]

Well, the guy I did two Uberti cylinders for called, he was head over heels at the difference! He just shoots for fun, and said they were both a lot more fun to shoot now because they shoot much better.