Uberti 1849 Open Top 31/32

[seancass]

Here's a purchase I'd been wanting for a long time.

This is an Uberti 1849 Pocket, 31 Caliber, five shot, black powder revolver. I ordered it with a Howell Old West conversion cylinder to shoot 32 S&W(short). Although it looks just like it's bigger brothers, it's quite small. Still fits in the hand well.

Finally took it out to the range today and it's hilarious fun to shoot. Initially, I couldn't see where I was shooting, so i leaned my head to the side and watched the bullet fly to the target. This thing actually has less recoil than a 22! The load was 1.2gr of Unique with a 78gr bullet. I may play with that some because there appeared to be a lot of unburnt powder. Probably just the nature of this extremely low pressure round. I'm really curious to see if this round will penetrate wood or cardboard. I'm pretty sure it did make it thru one sheet of paper.

Anywho, here's some pics! Sorry, cell phone pics and I don't have a photo-editor on this phone to trim the pics better.
Edited to delete photobucket pictures.






Single Six cylinder for scale!

9mm for scale

[paulg]

That's cool! Glad to hear you enjoy it.

[CraigC]

Very cool! Wish I had gotten one of the gated conversion kits before Kirst stopped making them.

[JM]

That's a good looking li'l popper!

I shot a little .25 auto a long time ago (pre eye-glasses). The sun was to my back & I could watch those little bullets fly towards the target. Probably can't see that well any longer & I haven't seen a .25 auto in decades.

[bulasteve]

That looks like all kinds'a fun ! Neat little revolver.

[Rimfire69]

I agree, shooting the little .32 shorts would be about as good as it gets.

[cmh]

I didnt have the conversion for mine..... I bet thats a fun little revolver!!

[tinstarfirearms]

Was the conversion cylinder ordered from the factory?

[seancass]

That is a Howell Old West conversion, available on Midway.

[tinstarfirearms]

Thank you. I am a fan of all things .32 caliber.

Andrew

[magnumwheelman]

awesome!!!

as far as loading for the 32 S&W... 1.2 grains of Unique will likely smoke & be about as dirty as black... I've found if you use a very heavy crimp, you may get better more efficient burn, but at the risk of much shorter case life... as mild a recoil; as it has it really doesn't even need a crimp... Trailboss burns much cleaner in my 32 S&W Short, with lite taper crimps ( I collected brass before they became available from Starline... so all my cases are currently R-P )... I also use some 231, but that is on hotter loads, than I'd want to shoot in your open top...

A WORD OF WARNING AS FAR AS LOADING FOR 32 S&W... BE CAREFUL OF BLANK BRASS THAT IS OUT THERE, IF YOU'RE USING USED CASES... IT HAS A MUCH LARGER FLASH HOLE

[seancass]

MWM, thankfully I ordered brass from Midway when I got the cylinder. Of course, it went backordered by the time I checked out. So I immediately ordered some from Grafs. Then got notification that my brass from Midway had also shipped! I forgot to cancel the back order(only a couple hours had passed). So, I have plenty of brass!

[seancass]

What a pair!



I wondered what sort of penetration a 32 could muster. The answer is: Not much.



I saw a western movie where the bad guy finished off some unimportant character with this exact gun by shooting him in the chest. The man was dressed in period correct business dress, which means he was wearing 5+ layers on heavy cloth(jacket,vest buttoned up). Based on this picture, that bullet would have barely even broken skin...

[seancass]

Finally went back thru and replaced the photobucket pictures. I'm pretty sure there's a few fans of 32's and open-tops around here somewhere, so maybe they'll enjoy.