Range Report 09302023: .45 Colt Shootoff

Today's range practice was entirely devoted to the .45 Colt (not "long Colt," Plese!) cartridge.  I shot my Pietta 1860 revolver, which had been converted to fire .45 Colt with a Kirst Konversion system, against my Pietta Remington New Model Army with a Howell conversion cylinder to compare and contrast the weapons.

My Colt Conversion Revolver and ammunition.

My conversion revolver started as a normal Pietta Colt 1860 Army.  I purchased a Kirst Conversion for it because I thought it would be interesting to have a cap-and-ball revolver that was actually converted to shoot metallic cartridge ammunition rather than buying one of the ready-made Richards-Mason conversion reproductions on the market.  This was a huge mistake.  The Kirst system, I am sorry to say, is not optimized for the current batch of reproduction revolvers (I understand that they used to be better), and as the Italian companies have tweaked their designs slightly over time Kirst has failed to keep up with them, and, in addition, have implemented cost-saving measures in their own production process which made them even worse.  I sent the kit and my revolver to Gary Barnes (see the link HERE) to have the revolver converted because Mr. Barnes had done spectacular work on other cap and ball revolvers I own (including the Remington I shot today), but, unfortunately because of the above-mentioned problems, the revolver had to go back twice to make it function correctly.  I finally have the revolver in good working condition (but see below), so today was supposed to be the acid test.

Howell conversion cylinder.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the conversion revolver against a standard cap and ball revolver using the Howell drop-in conversion cylinder, so today that's what I did.  Both revolvers have been extensively reworked by Mr. Barnes for accuracy and reliability, with trigger/action jobs, forcing cone adjustments, muzzle corrections, etc., although the Howell cylinder is stock.

.45 Colt ammunition in a period-correct Frankford Arsenal cartridge package.

My ammunition is as close as I can make it to the M1873 military cartridge (except for the Benet primer), with 35 grains of 3F Swiss powder (a few rounds had Schuetzen today, but I didn't track which ones they were) under a 250-grain lead bullet.  For information about how I load .45 Colt ammunition, see the article I wrote HERE.

For the purpose of comparing accuracy I used the String Test, a method dating to before the Civil War which takes group size and the distance from the center of the group to the point of aim in a single measurement.  All historical shooters should be using this process to gauge their accuracy--please, no more "group size" numbers!  To learn more about the String Test and how to use it, along with a video link, see HERE.  Note that I should really have used the Figure of Merit calculation for the purpose of this test since it measures the precision of the piece rather than the accuracy of the man and his weapon--more on this below.

Shooting Conditions:  Lytle Creek Range.  52 degrees, heavy clouds, wind from 10:00 at 10 mph (but highly variable), humidity 89%, barometer 29.83 inHg.  All shooting was done at 15 yards from an offhand position.

Tables One and Two (Two isn't marked, but it's the lower dot).

Table One:  Colt Conversion
Rounds: 10
String measurement: 44.25 in.
String Test: 4.4 in./rd.

Table Two: New Model Army
Rounds: 10
String measurement: 28.0 in.
String Test: 2.8 in./rd.

Table Three.

Table Three: Colt Conversion
Rounds: 5 (There was a cease-fire at the range, so I couldn't finish the table fo fire.)
String measurement: 24.0 in.
String Test: 4.8 in./rd.

Tables Four and Five.

Table Four: Colt Conversion
Rounds: 10
String Measurement: 28.0 in.
String Test: 2.8 in./rd.

Table Five: New Model Army
Rounds: 9
String Measurement: 21.25 in.
String Test: 2.1 in./rd.

Table Six.

Table Six: Colt Conversion
Rounds: 10
String Measurement: 27.25 in.
String Test: 2.7 in./rd.

I had several problems come up during this shoot.  As you can see, I only shot two tables of fire with the Remington, and the latter one only had nine rounds.  This is because the catch holding the loading lever broke off during fire after the nineteenth round, so I stopped using it.  The Colt also had a problem wherein the plug holding the ejector assembly to the barrel worked its way out during fire.  The simple fact is that these Italian replicas are not well made (at least in comparison with the originals), and 35 grains of Swiss with a 250-grain bullet is a very stout load.  This is what caused both problems.

Broken latch on Remington.

Colt plug working out; note how this made the ejector assembly sit crookedly.

Conclusions
Both revolvers shot well, it cannot be denied, but the Remington shot much better; this is not a surprise, Remington are simply better designed revolvers (and I don't want any comments about how Remingtons foul faster, in period you would never fire more than a single cylinder or two of ammunition in any engagement, so the fouling issue that arises in modern fantasy shooting sports is irrelevant).  The fixed rear sight on the Remington, together with its higher visibility, makes for better, clearer sight pictures that are faster and easier to achieve and to hold.  In addition, my Colt shoots high, as most of them do, and while you can aim off to adjust for this (note the better scores I achieved as the day progressed, especially the superb group in Table 6), this takes longer to do since you have to take the time to estimate where your sight picture should be.  Aiming off is hard to do consistently, too, unless you have a modern target with rings that you can use for acquiring the sight picture--that's why I prefer the dots I use on my targets as a test of practical marksmanship.  Since the Remington shoots to point of aim, shooting is not only faster, the estimation factor is removed, making for more consistency.  Note that if all of the shots for each piece are combined, the overall String Test results are 3.5 in./rd. for the Colt and 2.6 in./rd. for the Remington.  Finally, note that when using the Remington with paper cartridges I consistently getting String Tests under 2 in./rd., so clearly the heavy .45 Colt charges I'm using here are not optimized for accuracy, they are intended to replicate the military ammunition of the day.

In this comparison I shot offhand and used the String Test.  In fact, although this is the best way to gauge how any given man shoots his weapon, it was the wrong approach here as it is a gauge of accuracy, not of precision.  Precision refers to how well the specific piece shoots with any given load, regardless of who is shooting it.  Precision should be judged by firing from a rest (to take the man out of the equation as much as possible) and should be judged using the Figure of Merit system, which determines the mean radial deviation of each round from the others in a group.  To learn more about the Figure of Merit, including a video demonstrating how to do it), read my article HERE.  The simple fact is that this system is somewhat laborious, and I was just being lazy; besides, the String Test really does compare apples to apples as long as it's being performed by the same shooter using the same process.

Although I should not have used the String Test today, these results played up one of the reasons the String Test is such a useful method for gauging accuracy.  If you look at the groups on the targets in the pictures above, the Colt's groups were not all that much worse than those of the Remington, but the Colt groups were farther from the point I was trying to hit--The Intended Mean Point of Impact--than were those of the Remington.  In combat, being able to hit what you're aiming at matters, so if you have a tiny, tight little group but it's 10 inches away from the spot you're trying to hit (e.g., a head), then that's not nearly as useful as a sloppier group that's mostly hitting the spot for which you're aiming.  This demonstrates why the String Test is so valuable and important, and why we should hear no more about group size.