Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Shot the 1849 Colt Pocket Revolver Replica Yesterday

Made by Uberti, chambered (like the originals) in .31 caliber, which means soft lead balls of around .323 caliber (or No. 0 buckshot), and has five chambers. I was charging it with 15 grains of FFFg real black powder, which barely allowed room for a ball to be fully seated.



This design was introduced by Colt right around the time the early Dragoons came out. In fact, the first iteration of it was dubbed the Baby Dragoon for this reason. Till its introduction, anyone wishing to carry a small handgun had a choice between a small single shot percussion pistol (some were double barrelled), a pepper box (requiring manually rotating the "barrels") which lacked sights, and were thus only bad breath range weapons, or they could lug around an extremely heavy Dragoon .44, which was pretty much untenable. So the 1849 was really revolutionary in giving folks the ability to carry on their person a small, lightweight, handgun, that was aimable well past card table ranges, and allowed for several repeat shots merely by cocking the hammer repeatedly.

It has been said that its introduction allowed for White civilization to spread into the Wild West, because it was an effective repeater you could easily carry on your person at all times for protection against Indians and outlaws alike. There weren't any repeating long arms, other than double barrel front loaders. And the 1849 appeared, by good fortune, precisely when gold was discovered in California, so it became wildly popular among the huge number of folks heading that way to make their fortunes as prospectors. It was, in fact, till the 1873 SAA came along, the number one selling handgun in the United States.

Uberti makes a nice and very accurate reproduction of it, even if the action will need some burr removal and polishing. I'm sure the originals came with slick actions from the Colt factory. If they came slick from the factory today, they'd likely cost a grand, rather than the $350.00 they go for today.

It shoots center, but quite high, as is the norm for these guns (and as they used to be, also, when Colt was making them). I had to put the front sight near the bottom of the target to get the group of three in the bullseye at ten yards. The high and low impacts were due to experimenting with point of aim. I finally found the sweet spot with the three in the bullseye.

The 1849 Colt pocket revolver was always one of my favorites. Many on todays standards consider is a pop gun. But with a conical bullet it was pretty effective. Many today forget that being gut shot back then was your death certificate to a pretty painful demise! Nice revolver hawkeye

Is that he pistol Josey Wales used to shoot those two men?

Yes, I think it was. Eastwood used it in Pale Rider, too, to finish off the corrupt town marshal.

Very interesting, thank you. What a lovely iron, and a well shot target. Did Colt mean for us to point at the belt buckle?

I had a Uberti sent [from Midwayusa] to my brother after I worked on my 32 pocket Colt made in 1849.

He said the Uberti takes Italian percussion caps and may jam if America caps are used.

I've had one of these for several years and enjoy it very much. It fits nicely in an army field jacket pocket and work well for finishing off a white tail.

Thanks for the post.

Morning TRH.

Thanks for sharing that bit of history with us.

Nice!

Thanks for posting!

I hear that a lot.

Did you grease your balls?

You bet. Always. You can see the ball grease over the loaded chambers.

Center of mass.

Like a Romanian SAR1 sight set on P (for people) inside of 300 meters.

In pale rider he used reproduction new model 1861 Remington. Navy Arms called it the 1858 Remington.

I could be mistaken, but the coup de grâce shot to the head appears to be with a Colt Model 1849.

Nice Hawk, I had one along time ago! Was fun to play with a buddy just had to have it, traded it to him and 500 bucks for his 1968 firebird. He had shot it when it was mine, I told him he HAD to clean it right after fireing it! He didn't, and when I asked about it ,he said it wouldn't work anymore, it was all rusted together. I bought one off the fire here about 5 years ago, I think for $175.00, he told me for 50 bucks more he send me a 32 short cyc. I took him up one it as he had only shot it with the 32, not the 31 black powder. Iv not shot it yet, some day! I do have a hand full of 32 shorts, and a box of 31 cal round balls for it!

Indeed😎

Hickok45 bought himself an original one.

I got an original made in 1852 - that's 7 years older than the state I live in.