By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
Here are some things I should have told you about my short-barreled .36 Navy revolver, made by Uberti, before telling you about how it was updated.
Perhaps this story will help show why the gun and its front sight was improved.
The “wants” to have a short-barreled version of the 1851 Colt Navy Model had wormed its way into my head several years ago. Many things got in my way as far as appeasing that desire, and I will admit that authenticity was one of them. In other words, I wasn’t really eager to get a replica of a gun that Colt had never made. Some study was made and in James Serven’s detailed book on COLT FIREARMS FROM 1836, he mentions the Colt Navy Models (which Serven refers to as the Navy Belt Pistols with octagon barrels), commonly referred to as the Model of 1851, with barrel lengths other than the standard 7 ½ inches. A few of those guns were made with 12-inch barrels and at least one of those is shown in a photo in his book. He also said that few of the Colt Navy Models were made with shorter barrels, perhaps 5 ½ inches, and that satisfied my personal quirk of maintaining authenticity for my guns.
That knowledge or understanding, however, didn’t really spur me into shopping for such a gun. It took another reminder of how good a short-barreled Colt Navy could look. That “reminder” came in the movie Quigley Down Under where Marsten’s foreman, a “Mr. Dobkin,” carried a Navy Model with a short barrel (and his had a fluted, rebated cylinder so it was a .44 caliber). While that gun was never actually highlighted in the film, a few good glimpses of it are available. And that “reminder” didn’t send me on a shopping trip either, although it had to have sharpened my eye to keep on the look-out.
Just being on the look-out apparently paid off because what I found was an older Uberti replica of the 1851 Navy Model with a 5-inch barrel. This gun has one feature that I do enjoy and I’ve not seen this feature on other short-barreled versions of the 1851 Navy, it has a square-back trigger guard. Compared to the other short-barreled .36 Navy revolvers that I have seen, that makes this gun, which I bought, rather unique.
Now, I’m rather sure that Uberti made others like the one I have, I’m not trying to say that I have a one-of-a-kind. I’m only saying that I haven’t seen another one…
While I say this is an older Uberti revolver, that is just a guess on my part. There is no importer’s name on the gun and the top flat of the barrel is only marked with “A. Uberti & C. Gardone V.T. Italy.” That makes me wonder if this gun was made as a sample to be shown to prospective importers. Perhaps I’ll never really know.
A more complete description of this revolver might not be necessary because it is simply a typical Model 1851 Navy, with the color casehardened steel frame and hammer, as well as the loading lever, plus the brass trigger guard and back strap, and the nicely blued barrel. The front sight was the brass cone near the gun’s muzzle, rather common on the Navy Models, and the rear sight is a narrow “V” cut into the top of the hammer, which can be seen or used only when the revolver is cocked.
Many of my thoughts about the .36 Colt Navy revolver were started many years ago. When I was young, I’d read as much as I could about the Colt .36. The version I favored then, and still do, is the Model of 1851 with the octagon barrel. That gun was not specifically used or selected by our Navy, as I understand things, but the name “Navy Model” came from the naval battle scene between ships of the Texas Navy and Mexican forces in 1843 which was engraved on the gun’s cylinder. Regardless of how the gun was named, the Colt .36 Navy easily earned its place in history.
One of the first people to come to mind when the .36 Navy Colt is considered was James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok. He apparently used the .36 Navy for several years and there is no evidence that I’m aware of that he ever used a Single Action Army. We can easily guess that Hickok must have had the opportunity to try a Colt Peacemaker and we can also realize that Hickok was no longer an active peace officer after 1871 which easily could have influenced his gun selection.
Hickok had been introduced to cartridge guns, certainly, and when he died in Deadwood, he was carrying a Smith & Wesson #2 revolver in .32 rimfire caliber.
But, getting back to Hickok’s choice of the .36 Navy, I’ve always wondered if he didn’t make that selection for the superior accuracy of the .36. Accuracy is one of the legendary things about Hickok’s shooting. The accuracy point is somewhat supported by at least one of the .36 Navy revolvers which reportedly belonged to him. On that revolver, the standard bead front sight had been replaced with a narrow, dovetailed sight, fitted to the barrel at the same location where the bead had been. More about that in a bit.
Lately I’ve been doing more shooting with the .36 revolvers. When I can, I team up with Jerry Johnson who also likes shooting the .36. He shoots .375” round balls over 20 grains of powder and I think the powder he uses is Swiss 1 ½ Fg. We talked about that and he told me that he uses 20 grains because that is the size of the spout on the flask he has. With that much powder, with most other brands or granulations of powder, his gun will shoot high. He kept trying various powders until finding the 1 ½ Fg that allowed his gun to hit where it was aimed.
While shooting next to Jerry, I had to notice that his gun sounded much quieter than mine and mine was loaded with 13 ½ grains of GOEX 3Fg under the round ball, which I used for my first loads. Burning rate of the powder certainly has an effect on the flight of the bullet, in both speed and the angle of the barrel due to the .36’s slight recoil when the bullet leaves the muzzle. Those factors have an effect on where, or how high the bullets will go.
Those first shots with that gun were quite revealing. Because most of these revolvers seem to hit high, I aimed my very first shot at 6 o’clock on a bullseye target. That shot hit right where it was aimed, at 6 o’clock. The next shot was aimed at the target’s center but it went slightly high, out in the 9-ring. Then the next four shots, which emptied the cylinder, all printed very nicely near the target’s center. That told me this short-barreled copy of the Colt Navy was a real keeper and I’d be doing a lot more with it.
Those first shots also told me something else. This new gun’s trigger pull was, in my opinion, simply outrageous! I’m “too little” to shoot with a trigger pull that hard. So, back in the shop, the gun was taken apart for a good trigger job. Internally, the 1851 revolvers are nearly identical to the Colt Single Action Army and I’ve done several trigger jobs on those. That involves correcting the angle of the sear notch on the bottom of the hammer for a better release. The gun was re-assembled just to check on progress, then taken apart again to finish the job. When the gun was then re-assembled again, the trigger pull is much more to my liking.
Back to the range we went, this new .36 and me.
This is a good time to recommend some tips on how to load a percussion revolver. First, and this is especially true for new and unfired revolvers, be sure to snap at least one cap on each nipple. Consider that a necessity and the reason it is to be done is to blow out any oils that might otherwise plug the nipples. Without snapping the caps before loading, the gun might not fire.
And before that, it is certainly the best to remove the cylinder and put a good coat of grease on the base pin. It’s that grease which will keep the gun operating because once you start shooting one of these old-style revolvers, you’ll want to keep doing it. Without that grease, the fouling will make the gun hard to cock, which turns the cylinder while the hammer is being pulled back. It can, rather easily, bring your shooting to a halt.
On the Colt style percussions, when the cylinder is removed from the base pin, a series of threads around the base pin are easily seen. Those threads are there for holding grease, not for attaching anything. And while shooting the Colt Single Action Army with black powder loads, it’s always best to smear some grease on the base pin as well as on the base pin bushing to keep the revolver in shooting order.
The grease I’m using now is October Country’s “Bumblin’ Bear Grease” but almost any grease is certainly better than no grease at all.
Then, with the base pin greased and the nipples clear, pour a charge of powder into one chamber. I prefer to load one chamber at a time with powder and ball rather than to charge all of the chambers with powder before seating a ball. My reason for that is, perhaps because I’m clumsy, if I dropped the gun, all of those chambers would spill their powder. And it simply keeps things in order, put in the powder, then seat the ball, on each chamber in turn. That also reduces the chance of seating a ball in an empty chamber.
After the balls, .375” round lead balls in this case, are seated, add grease around the bullets. This lubricates the bullet going down the bore, of course, but it also helps to prevent chain fires where more than one chamber is ignited. Also, before shooting, be sure to put a cap on every nipple because having an open nipple on a loaded gun also invites chain fires.
The load I used for my second trip to the range featured 22 grains of Schuetzen 3Fg powder under the .375” cast 80-grain round balls. And those shots were checked for speed over one of the very new Garmin’s XERO C1 PRO chronographs. That is certainly the most convenient instrument I’ve ever used. It works on radar so no screens are needed. It records each shot, gives you the high and low for the shot string as well as an average, plus information on standard deviation. That’s more information that I’ll include here but I will say that those six shots had an average velocity of 710 feet per second out of the Navy’s 5-inch barrel.
If you would like to see more information about the XERO C1 PRO chronograph, the best way to get that information is to check out the Garmin web site at www.garmin.com/en-us/p771164. It is quite the little instrument.
Those six shots were not the only shots fired, for sure, but they were the most revealing. Those shots displayed a very nice group. Some would say that group mainly displays my shooting but I couldn’t have done that without the revolver doing its part very well. And those shots displayed some of the ballistics of the load. While those things are all very positive, I’m not through telling you about this gun. New nipples have been added to it and a small dovetail front sight now sits on the muzzle-end of the barrel. I’ll have to tell you about those new additions in another conversation, which, I promise, won’t be too long in coming.
