The Lefaucheux PinFire Revolver "stovepipe"

[Uncle45Auto]

As time permits, I have been making various forms of pinfire ammo. Experimenting to see what might be the least time consuming form of construction, reliability and so forth. In the old days there were several reloadable pinfire cartridge variations. There were even some percussion cap adaptor cartridges made which were called "stovepipes." With a set of these adaptors in the chambers of a pinfire revolver it could be converted to a cap and ball revolver. This seemed like an interesting idea so I made one to experiment with. The adaptor is of all steel construction:

[jugulater]

i messed around loading pinfire shells for my little 7mm pinfire revolver once. i used chopped down 5.7x28 cases. they went off, but the buckshot pellets i used never seemed to hit consistently in one spot.

ill be sure to put the idea of a conversation cartridge to memory for when i get one of the 12mm pinfires.

[missionary5155]

Good evening
This is an interesting solution.
How much BP are you able to tuck into the case?
Mike in Peru

[Uncle45Auto]

Jugulator: The 7mm pinfire cartridges usualy had hollow base bullets. At some point I'd like to make some 7mm ammo but for now I'm working on 12mm rounds.

Mike: The steel case will hold about 17 gr. of FFF under a .445 ball. The ball is then dipped in bullet lube.

[mtnman31]

Awesome project. I've got a 9mm pinfire that I'd like to load for someday. I've got a few plans drafted up inside my head. I need to find some time and start putting my plans into action.

[Argentino]

Uncle,

Quite interesting sir. I´ve always been intrigued by those revolvers but due to the lack of ammo I´ve never thought seriously about buying one. Now this could be a great idea in order to experiment with one of these old sixguns. They also tend to be cheap so it might be an interesting and not too expensive experience. I´ll keep an eye open for one of these revolvers now.

Could you please add some detail about how the nipple is connected to the steel case? Is it threaded in?

Did you do any acuraccy tests so far? I´m thinking that perhaps a heeled base boolit could also worth a try.

Thanks for sharing,

Argie.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That is an extremely nice Lefaucheux, and I can see no difference from the French 1858 naval revolver. (The civilian Lefaucheux were usually joined together at the lower front of the frame.) If so it should have two single-letter round cartouches on the left side of the barrel, an anchor on the buttcap, and in the same place, if it reached a warship, its rack number on the ship. It wouldn't, in this case, be cheap in its country of origin, where they are keenly collected, and quite a bit rarer than the 1873 centrefire. Even if it is a private-purchase or Belgian one, it is about as good as pinfire revolvers get.

Fortunately the pin slot is big enough to admit a good-sized stovepipe. In a smaller revolver it might not be. The sight of those percussion caps sticking out, if you make more of them, should remind us that any pinfire revolver needs handling with care. If you have a habit of laying a pistol down sharply on the table, you soon won't have. I don't believe any pinfire had a stepped chamber, so if you want to use an elongated bullet, a heel it must have. NEI (www.neihandtools.com)list a .450-222-heel mould which might suit if the heel diameter is right.

This is a picture I took of the cartridge, certified by the owners, in the Musée de la Marine in Paris. As you will see, it is quite a bit shorter than your adapter. On the continent of Europe the revolver was looked on as a close-range emergency measure.

[jugulater]

the 7mm pinfire may be too small to be relaoded for this way. my experience was that it was hard to find a pin that was small enough to fit the slots in the cylinder.

i also learned that the small pop caused by the tiny amount of FFFg that i stuffed into the case may or may not cause you to laugh so hard you can't breathe....

[Uncle45Auto]

Thank you for your responses:

jugulater: I greatly appreciate the warning. I had not thought about the hazards of laughing so hard I could not breathe because of the poor performance of 7mm pinfire. For safety reasons, I'll read sections the tax code before I go shooting. Wish me luck.

Ballistics in Scotland: The revolver I used for testing is a high quality copy of the French Lefaucheux made in Spain. I also have a French M1854 made in Paris but unfortunately it's not one of those made for the French Navy. From the serial number range, it's more likely I have one sold to for use in the American Civil War of 1861-65.

The stovepipe length is closer to the length of some French made ammo in my collection. There was also a 12mm short like the example in your picture which was popular.

The safety issue with the caps sticking out is noted. Another concern is flashover from one cap to the next, though this may be less of a problem as long as I have caps which are a good fit. As I experiment with shorter caps I'd like to bring down the length of the nipple if possible. This would also help make the adaptor function in other12mm revolvers because the clearances are different from gun to gun.

Thank you for the link to Nei Handtools. That bullet might do the trick for the stovepipe. I don't want to turn the shell too thin at the opening and so this might be the bullet of choice. Otherwise, I'll have to make a swager or order a special mold if I want to use something other than balls.

Argie: The nipple is threaded into the steel shell. This seems to work well. I have fired it many times and it shows no sign of trouble. I have used the stovepipe loaded with balls in two different revolvers. I have not been shooting for accuracy, but I have noticed that it shoots low but consistantly in the same place at about 15 feet. I tried a cylinder full of more conventional pinfire ammo with internal caps within brass cases. I loaded these with cast hollow base bullets from an Ideal mold No. 445599. These bullets were hard to load but I used a die to guide them in under pressure. At about 15 feet these rounds hit close to point of aim in one tight group which you could place a half dollar over. From these few examples, I have concluded that the pinfire has potential for accuracy if you start out with a good revolver with a good bore.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I made one mistake. That sectioned round wasn't in the Musée de la Marine, but in the Musée de l'Armée.

Yes, the power of the small pinfires (and they sometimes went smaller than 7mm) was pretty pathetic, but no worse than a black powder .22 Short Smith and Wesson, of which Mark Twain said that his fired a bullet like a small homeopathic pill, of which it took the full six to make a dose for an adult. Both were quite a deterrent in a pre-antibiotic age, and nobody really fancies bullet removal in a hospital the day after an unsuccessful robbery.

The French bought some cap and ball Remingtons as an emergency measure in the Franco-Prussian War, and were most impressed by their power and accuracy. But they wouldn't remain damp-proof forever, and the pinfire, with a little wax or lacquer, would. French observers in the Civil War thought US and CS cavalry amateurish for stopping twenty or thirty yards apart and exchanging revolver fire, rather than charging home with sword or lance. It was debatable then, but not in 1870, when all infantrymen had breech-loaders.

[Uncle45Auto]

Twain's firearm observations in Roughing It are a hoot. His comments about the Allen pepperbox are also extremely funny. On the other hand, having fired several S&W No.1 .22 tipup revolvers I found them to be slightly more accurate than the unfortunate cow described by Mr. Clemens. But accuracy is not everything. A young woman at the local range, who had been shooting 9mm pistols with great accuracy as I set set out my antique pistols for shooting, she asked to try out my vintage 1867 S&W tipup. The recoil was so slight withe the c.b. cartridges it was loaded with, that I had to assure her that she had in fact fired the revolver after it went off the first time. She began to giggle and fired off the rest of the cylinder as she made comments about how little and cute the antique .22 was. I had to laugh along with her and we had a good time shooting with the old and the new.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I expect you know, but it is worth saying for others, you could hardly imagine a modern .22 Short doing damage to anything, but with the Smith and Wesson tipups, it can break topstraps.

I have a Smith and Wesson Model 3 in .44 Russian, and it works well after all these years, but the lockwork looks delicate, and it is pestilentially difficult to reassemble. I am extremely fond of the French Ordnance Revolver of 1873,with which the picture below shows what can be exposed without separate tools, and nothing can be shaken loose unless you want it removed. I think if the heirs of Col. Colt had turned up at the Commission on Revolvers and proposed single action and undoing eight screws which mostly need to be very tight, they would have kept a straight face untl they got out of the room.

There are a couple of interesting connections with American revolvers. The French 1873 lockwork was fossilized in Iver Johnson revolvers for as long as they lasted, with the hammer chinpiece prolonged to form a transfer bar, and it was the Lefaucheux patent that stopped Smith and Wesson obtaining another Rollin White patent to tie up the European market in breechloaders.

[Uncle45Auto]

I have often wondered how it was that Rollin White managed to obtain and then hang onto his U.S. patent in spite of Lefaucheux's bored through cylinder. The Frenchman was way ahead of his time in many ways.

I share you fondness for the French '73. Many of the European military revolvers of the later 1800's were also amazingly well designed, such as the M1898 Rast Gasser, French 73, 74, 92, the various Nagants, etc, etc. So rugged and easy to take apart. Great designs! So sad no one makes them like that any more. The only thing wrong with any of them was the low power ammo they were made for. In contrast, a .45 caliber Colt was far more likely to stop a charging enamy before he could cut your head off. A big selling point for those who survived close combat with fighters like the Moro of the Philippines. American officers and men who knew what they were getting into gave up their .38 Long Colts in favor of older but more effective .45's to deal with charging Moro.

Back to the Lefaucheuxs, for anyone interested I highly recommend:Systeme Lefaucheux: Continuing the Study of Pinfire Cartridge Arms Including Their Role in the American Civil War

by Chris Curtis. This is the second edition and a must read for those interested in antique arms history.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

International coordination on patents etc. was pretty poor in those days. Even as late as about 1910 liner passengers used to have American editions of British novels taken from them by Customs in Southampton, because the publishers couldn't collect royalties in the US. It was more or less accidental that Rollin White got a patent at all, for an invention that was so grossly unworkable. All he intended was to have the rear of the cylinder closed off with a cardboard disc, but it provided Smith and Wesson with a useful patent.

It worked the other way too. I think the Volcanic Arms Company's insolvency was organized by one of its shareholders, Oliver Winchester, who ended up buying the remains at a bargain price from Smith and Wesson. The latter were probably quite glad to raise some money, since they had realized that the Volcanic rifles and pistols, very well engineered but depending on powder contained in the hollow base of the bullet, could never be a practical firearm. I think they knew the revolver and an improvement on the French BB cap was he way to go. But that is how Winchester got the toggle-joint locking system, and even better, inherited a covenant allowing him to use any future Smith and Wesson developments. Not many people got the better of Smith and Wesson, but that is where the .44 rimfire Henry, and subsequent Winchesters, came from.

The French 1870 naval cartridge, used initially in a Lefaucheux solid frame centrefire and later in their Chamelot-Delvigne, was about as powerful as the .44 Smith and Wesson Russian, which is very respectable, but probably less accurate with the heel bullet. It is something of a mystery why the Army 1873 round was so miserably underpowered. It needn't have been, for it is an unstopped chamber, and the case could have been made longer. If some users got their hands on good private purchase ammunition, a man might have felt well armed compared with a 9mm. automatic, let alone the 7.65mm. the French were using late in its lifetime.

One of my favourite European revolvers is the Dutch 1873, which they sometimes call the Chamelot-Delvigne, but is actually very different. It solved the question of whether to have simultaneous or one-by-one ejection by having no ejection whatever. But mine, a rare lightweight version made by JFJ Bar for private purchase, has excellent firing-pin fit and protrusion (which the French centrefires don't) and about as good a single and double action trigger pull as anyone has ever put on a revolver. Apart from the odd bullet diameter (.386in.), it uses a first-class cartridge. But they adopted a different revolver for the Colonial army which looks very strong indeed, but has a double action pull only a gorilla could use.

Another, although archaic even for 1879, is the German Reichsrevolver. It is single action only, with no extractor, but in my Haenel example impeccably made, with sights which would suit a civilian target shooter nicely. I'm sure most officers ended up buying their own pistols before it was replaced by the 1908 Luger.

I'm sure you are right about the superiority of the .45 Long Colt over any .38, as long as you are comparing like with like. But I have Col. La Garde's "Gunshot Injuries", which includes much detail on his work in the Chicago stockyard trials with Col. Thompson. He emphatically recommended a .45, but not the .45ACP the Geneva Conventions forced upon them. He wanted something much more thinly jacketed, or not at all, since a hard bullet tends to glance from bone rather than breaking it, and he considered the brain, spine or major leg bones to be the only way of instantly stopping someone with any pistol. The British reckoned the 200gr. lead bulleted .38S&W to be approximately as good as the .455 Webley it replaced, and I doubt if it would have been inferior to the .45 ACP. But then they succumbed to the Geneva Convention interpretation too (quite needlessly I think), and adopted a very thick jacket.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I have just seen, in the May catalogue of an Australian arms auction house a sort of single shot revolver with the name Rollin White. It may actually be one of the revolvers or parts which I believe were taken over and sold to the public by Smith and Wesson. Why not complete it with the modest ambition, in a revolver, of firing five or six shots? My guess is that the cylinder rotating device wasn't workable either.

It is noteworthy though that if it really does date from the origin of Smith and Wesson revolvers, it may have originated the general style of a very wide range of small solid frame American revolvers.

[Uncle45Auto]

The Dutch service revolvers are rather interesting. Have you loaded any ammo for them?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

A long, long time ago. Smokeless loads in any of the Dutch Home Army models should be very cautious. I don't think you would go far wrong by aiming for similar pressures to the hinged frame Smith and Wessons, which were adequate for velocity and trajectory. But the KNIL colonial revolver seems about as robust as most others at the end of the century. I think a lot of these have come back from Indonesia, and are well worn.

Such a wide variety of dimensions were used in nomenclature for the cartridge, and apparently followed in manufacture, that the desired dimensions should be taken from the revolver cylinder. But I think .41 Magnum would be the right starting point for all of them.

[Uncle45Auto]

I have a few Dutch arms chambered for the 9.4 but never looked into loading ammo for them. The KNIL looks like **** but the trigger pull is smooth and the bore looks good.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

My KNIL has a pretty normal single-action pull, but King Kong would have trouble firing it double action. Mine was made by Vickers in England, and has British proofmarks. I think theywere always matt black, in contrast to so many revolvers of the time.

My Dutch 1873, by contrast, is close to perfect in both kinds of trigger pull, but although I have never fired it, it dents a primer nicely. It was made by JFJ Bar of Delft, and is a relatively rare model, being small, but six-shot unlike the five-shot Small Model, and with the Old Model's full octagonal barrel. It also has a most ingenious axis pin unlocking button in the head of the rod.

Mind came with grips of probably US air force plexiglass backed with paper. It also had the grip modified to a flared shape, with the ghost of the original round grip just visible, but well done I couldn't tell whether it was hard soldered or welded. I know Webley and no doubt others used to fulfill special orders that way, so it is very likely original. I had to make a new hand. Someone in the Dutch War Museum of which I inquired said only about 1000 were made, and was eager to buy it, but I think I will keep it. It bears the mark WDW for Werkplaats draagbare wapens, which was also the government's manufacturer of the Old Model, but in this case only proved the privately made ones. The name means workplace for weapens you can bear to drag about with you.




The two at the bottom are very similar to what have become known as German constabulary revolvers, although these often had a safety catch. If it is like the safety on my Reichsrevolver, it prevents the hammer from rising above the half cock notch.

The following pictures are my Belgian Spirlet, with the trigger guard and hammer I carved from steel with my bare hands. It is probably a lot stronger than it looks, for although the tiny Smith and Wessons break topstraps with smokeless .22s, I never heard that they break the bottom catch. The Spirlet was never adopted by anybody, and Albert Spirlet never bothered to pay the fees to keep his British patent of 1869 in force. That about coincided with the time when anybody who wanted a hinged frame revolver could have a Smith and Wesson, a Webley-Pryse, or the latter's Belgian copies. But the Spirlet lockwork and manual simultaneous extraction seem far more robust than the Smith and Wesson of the time.

[Uncle45Auto]

The lower two revolvers are Belgian made and have Dutch police property markings. The one with the big lever on the side is a prison issued revolver and the other is regular police revolver.

Regarding the Spirlet: I like the way you used two sections of steel to make the hammer. A nice way to get around all of the milling necessary to make a hammer with a wide spur and narrow sides.