1867 Navy Rolling Block .50 Pistol Chamber

[toot]

so sad, what a loss! he was the go to guy for odd ball brass! he told me that he made brass & sold it to the OLD WESTERN SCROUNGER, and other odd ball brass sellers. I wonder what became of his business? maybe some other brass MFGR. bought it up?

[BP Dave]

Perhaps you mean Bob Hayley--I understand that much of his reloading equipment got sold on a popular auction site and is probably scattered among a multitude of reloaders. Not to promote any auctions, but if you search for "Bob Hayley's Estate" among the completed auctions you can get a sense of some of the oddball stuff he reloaded.

[M1871]

ndnchf ---
Hello seems like this thread has gotten hijacked and off topic.
So I won't further add to that fact. I did want to follow through with you on
what I mentioned about acquiring a Spencer carbine.

As it turns out I wont be seeing you on the CAScity's Spencer forum.
At least not on the Spencer I had mentioned. I ended up returning it to the seller.
I received the carbine and it was not a Burnside but actually a 1868 "New Model"
Spencer. Not a "Deal Killer" especially since it had a center fire breech block. Most likely
an original since it did not show signs of being modified.

The carbine had several acceptable condition issues that I was willing to correct. As I dug
deeper into this carbine more and more things came to light. The critical and most concerning
was the condition of the outer mag tube. On the threaded end for the receiver the threads were
missing. Not stripped but actually broken off. Ok I thought and considered either making a
replacement or if luck would have it, find an original. Well I did get lucky and located a
replacement tube. Wasn't cheap but it was available and would not require setting up and
fabricating a new one. My streak of good luck was short lived. At one point I removed the
castle nut from the back end of the original tube an attempted to thread that end into the receiver.
Hmmm.... won't thread in. Why??? The threads look to be the same. Did not take long to see
the reason. At one time in the history of the carbine the tube's threads must have loosened and
the fix was to take a big hammer and a large diameter punch and peen the side if the receiver
socket. Doing so forced the threaded socket considerably out of round. No easy fix (if any) for that
problem. Without a good solid connection between the stock and the receiver each firing would
continue to stress the stock in a area where there is not much wood to absorb the recoil. Stress
cracks were already evident. Sure wish I would have noticed the problem with the threaded portion of the reciver before I purchased the replacement tube.

So, once again I'm on the hunt for another Spencer.

Currently I'm waiting for my CH4 .50 Rem dies to come so that I can actually load more rounds for
the RB pistol. The improvised method I'm using now to load leaves a lot to be desired.
.

[ndnchf]

M1871 - sorry to hear this. A very aggravating situation. Fortunately, there are lot of Spencers out there. Hopefully one will come along that is right for you. Good luck!

[BP Dave]

Didn't mean to participate in a hijacking--sorry.

In response to the OP, in his book on rolling block pistols Jerry Landskron reproduces a 1906 Sears ad for "The Remington Bull Dog Single Shot Pistol" (at a whopping $2.90). The ad states that "we have had these pistols chambered so they will take the 50-70-caliber primed shells, which can be loaded with about 40 grains of black powder, a cardboard wad and half an ounce of shot, which will make a good pistol for home defense . . .[or] to shoot small game, if you wish to do so." Landskron shows a closeup photo of the breechblock and hammer of a "Bull Dog," which shows that they were partially ground away to allow use of the longer shell. The ad states that one could also use the original pistol cartridges, and 20 were included with each pistol.

I don't know it that will help with your calculations, but at least it explains what Sears had in mind when they made their modification, which sounds similar to what you have.

--DJ

[toot]

BP DAVE, thank you for the reply.

[M1871]

BPDave == Thanks
That is very interesting information regarding how Sears & Robucks modified these pistols
I suspect hat the OP's pistol might have been one of those. Just does not make sense why
Remington would chamber a pistol to for a full length rifle cartridge. Like I mentioned in a
previous post I can not even begin to insert an empty 50-70 case into my 1871 Army model.
Just goes to show that back then there were no liability concerns on what was being offered f
or sale.

Regarding the OP on this thread.... He has not been heard from since he originally started this
thread back in January. It's a shame the OP is no longer here. I'd like to see a photo of how
the breech block and hammer was modified so that a longer cartridge could be chambered.
.