A new toy

[marlinman93]

Last Sunday at our monthly collector gun show at OAC a friend stopped to tell me about two Rolling Block .50 caliber pistols he saw at a local gun shop for sale. He said the seller wouldn't break the pair up, and wanted someone to buy both. He wanted one, but not two, so I told him I'd be happy to help him out with his dilemma and take one depending on condition, price, etc.
He told me both guns were very tight, mechanically perfect, and had perfect bores! The price for the pair was crazy low I thought, so told him I'd trust his judgement. He called me yesterday and said he'd offered them $200 less for the pair and they accepted his offer! So I jumped in my car and headed to his house!
Turned out to be 1867 conversion pistols, which were built from reworked 1865 Remingtons that were .50RF and changed to .50 Navy CF! There were 6500 rimfires purchased by the Navy, and a year later they wanted them changed to CF. So it took 6 years for the Navy to round up just over 6350 of the pistols, and get them converted.
Remington swapped breech blocks, but also installed a new lower tang and trigger so these guns had a trigger guard the 1865 didn't have. The two he picked up for us have what looks like unfired bores, as they're both perfect! The one I got is in the 3300 serial range and has Edward Barrett's "EB" stamp on the barrel, along with the Navy anchor. Barrett only inspected 8% of these guns, so his stamp is rare to find among the 4 inspectors who marked them. It also has the FCW and P stamps all had, which are Frank C Warren (Rem. inspector) and P for proof tested.
They shoot the Navy straight wall cases, where the Army versions fired a slightly bottlenecked case with larger base diameter. These miniature .50's for the Navy can be built from .50-70 cases, or .56 Spencer cases. I built one dummy case using a beat up .50-140 case I had. But too much work and cost to build many.









Case is .86" long and uses a 290-300 gr. bullet, with 25 grs. of 2f.

[Ray]

This is most interesting !

[Grizz]

Oh Man that's a treat. I would be so happy to find one of those! What a great deer gun! Thanks for the fotos . . .

[gamekeeper]

I've been interested in those rolling block pistols since seeing Donald Pleasence use a similar pistol in the movie Will Penny....great score

[Nath]

Wow, thanks for sharing

[Bill in Oregon]

Vall, your magic spell continues!

[JimT]

Very cool. I saw some home-made single-shot pistols from Rolling Blocks when I was a kid. Rough workmanship but they did work.

[marlinman93]

Very cool. I saw some home-made single-shot pistols from Rolling Blocks when I was a kid. Rough workmanship but they did work.

I once owned one made into a pistol and fitted with a .32-20 barrel. It was well done and looked good, but I was uneasy about rifle actions made into pistols, and how to prove it was done long before there were laws against that. So I ended up removing the barrel and kept the action. I still have it, and the barrel, but never wanted to ask ATF about it as I'd rather not get on the radar.

I have collected Rolling Blocks for many decades, and always looked for one of their pistols, but no luck. I didn't have to think at all when he said he wished he knew someone who wanted one of these too!
I tore it down to it's basic parts today, and looks like it hasn't seen oil in many decades! Or been apart for decades either! Once I pulled screws out, it stayed together like it was glued. I used my small rubber mallet to coax the lower tang into separating from the wood grip, and was worried the wood might pull pieces too, but it finally came off cleanly.
I didn't see any sign of built up crud, just some dried ancient oil. Oiled all the parts up, and reassembled it. It is marginally smoother with some oil on pins and friction points. My friend who got the other one is a retired tool and die maker, and I'm going to buy an inexpensive Lee 450 gr. dual cavity mold and he will mill down the top, and drill a new hole for the sprue plate to remount. Then we'll have a 300 grain mold with a couple lube grooves milled off, and I can cast us bullets.
Need to buy some .56-50 Spencer brass that Starline makes, and they're almost perfect, needing just a small haircut to make them .86" long.

On another note. My friend is 80 years old, and he drug out a beautiful engraved Hepburn long range rifle he said he restored 30 years ago to show me. He said he plans to sell it in the near future, and I asked if I could have first shot at it? It's got an extremely heavy full octagon barrel in .45 2 1/10, or .45-70 cartridge. He said he'd put a tag on it in case anything happened before he decided to sell it to me. I sure don't want to lose my friend, but I told him I was eager to own it if he decides to sell sometime!