I don’t suppose it’s any secret that I have a ‘thing’ for percussion revolvers converted to fire cartridges. I also have a thing for Big-bore snub-nosed revolvers. Then I found out the Kirst makes drop-in conversions for a number of reproduction percussion revolvers. I was pretty happy to discover this for obvious reasons.

This brings us to the Colt Walker- the first commercially successful Colt revolver. This was a massive Horse-pistol built with the mission to be able to drop a horse with a single shot.

Originally designed to fire a conical Pickett Bullet on top of a charge of 60 grains of black powder. These bullets were fussy; they had very little bearing surface and if carelessly loaded they could tilt in the bore and accuracy when this happened was terrible. People took to loading them with ball or more conventional bullets. With the long barrel and heavy powder charge these were arguably the most powerful handgun available until the introduction of the .357 Magnum.

Obviously this would be a ludicrous candidate to be turned into a snubby, but a shorter, handier version might be neat… especially with a Kirst conversion to .45 Colt.

But this is such a large gun that the cylinder is quite long for .45 Colt. Considering that significantly smaller and handier guns can be converted to this cartridge it seemed silly to convert a Walker to fire it.

The .45 Colt fired a conical bullet on top of a charge of 40 grains of Black powder… but the Walker fired a bullet on top of 60 grains of Black Powder… 50% more powerful. But given how long the cylinder is what if one bored the cylinder out for a longer cartridge- a .45-60 as it were?

The Walker revolver could take a 60-grain charge of black powder and it’s cylinder was iron. Modern reproductions are made of steel and are significantly tougher. It ought to work…

It does, and someone beat me to it. It’s called the .45 BPM (Black Powder Magnum.)

With various loads this cartridge develops 500-600 ft.lbs. of energy at the muzzle. It’s is loaded into .460 S&W Magnum brass. The Kirst cylinder has to be reamed out for the extra length and the rim recesses have to be enlarged to accommodate the larger-diameter rims of the .460.  I immediately cringed at the thought of some idiot sticking a .460 Magnum shell in the gun… which would explode when fired. But factory .460 ammunition would actually stick out of the front of the cylinder and prevent the gun from functioning.

My dream of a Walker Cartridge Conversion in a worthy cartridge seemed much more realistic. But not without issues… this cartridge was designed to be fired from a 9″ barrel, and with some loads there isn’t much point in going beyond 50-52 Grains of black powder. There’s a point of diminishing returns where adding more powder just means more smoke and fire, and that point would be at an even lower threshold with a 5 to 5-1/2″ barrel. Essentially the power of the .45 BPM would be wasted in the shorter gun.

OK, but there should till be room for improvement over .45 Colt. Suppose one shortened the .460 brass to a length between .460 and .454 Casull? Turned down the rim to the same diameter as .45 Colt instead on enlarging the rim recesses? .460 would not longer chamber at all. Stoke this with 50 grains of black powder behind a 250 grain bullet with proper compression of the powder and while it wouldn’t be as powerful as the .45 BPM it would see significant gains over .45 Colt. This could also be loaded with Red Dot smokeless powder (in a much, much smaller quantity) as this powder mimics the chamber and down-bore pressure curves of Black Powder. Certainly the local indoor ranges would be happier with me if I did this…

So all I have to do is buy the gun, buy the Kirst converter, modify it and invent a new cartridge. Uh, sure. Of course I could just go buy a .45 Colt Ruger Super Blackhawk and load it up to loads just as powerful. But that wouldn’t be nearly as cool, would it?

No. No it would not. Stay tuned- this could happen…

Tinker Pearce, 03 April 2017

With a fresh batch of 100 .38 S&W reloads Mrs.Tinker and I went off to the range this morning. Having adjusted the height of the front sight on her gun I was eager to see if it was hitting closer to point-of-aim. The stars of today’s show-

Our ‘Steampunk Snubbies,’ both S&W .38 Safety Hammerless 4th Model, with shortened barrels and improved ergonomics. Linda’s is the nickel gun with the Mother of Pearl grips.

The load we were using in these is a Hornady 148gr. HBWC over 2.5 grains of Unique with CCI small pistol primers.

I fired Linda’s gun first and determined that the lowered front sight provided a decent 6 o’clock hold. We ran a full-torso target out to 7 yards and it was Linda’s turn. “Aim center-mass,” I told her. She nodded and fired. Bam bam bam bam bam. Reload. Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam.

“Um, you’re hitting him in the face…”

“Isn’t that better?” she asked brightly.

I had to allow that it was, but she needed to adjust her grip because she was pulling left. I showed her how and she was ready to go. I told her this time I really wanted her to aim center mass.

More Bams. Good, now she was placing them center-mass. Even more bams.

“So now you are shooting him in the throat?” I asked.

“It’s a compromise,” she said.

OK then. I tried some 7 yard rapid-fire with my gun.

A couple of fliers but I am not really dismayed with the result. Given the tiny, hard-to-see sights and 2-1/4″ sight radius of these DAO guns I pretty OK with our shooting today.

The S&W M1902 .38 Hand Ejector was also trotted out.

Linda had to adjust her grip a bit to get comfortable but was shortly producing decent groups at 7 yards. We were shooting Freedom Munitions 158gr CPHPs, and until she found her grip she found them a bit unpleasant; she is quite recoil-sensitive. Come to that she isn’t in love with the grip on her own .38, but she does love the Mother of Pearl so she’ll put up with it.

Speaking of grips I really like the new grips and grip adapter on the 1902. Very comfortable and secure, easy to index and point. Plus I like the overall vintage appearance.

I’m finding something odd with the M1902. My 7 yard groups are only OK when shooting Double Action, but double the range and the DA group remains the same size. Run it out to 25 yards and the DA group is only about 50% larger. I guess I need more practice. Uh, darn?

Overall a very nice morning at the range, and Linda was very pleased with her shooting. She’s established that she really does like revolvers best and finds them easiest to shoot. Myself I am liking my little top-break more and more.

It was also a real treat to have Linda accompany me; she’s missed the last several outings. Today she rediscovered her love of shooting, so I expect her presence at the range will be less rare in the future.

Tinker Pearce, 02 April 2017