Cap & Ball Six-Guns A Smoke -Filled Adventure

Firearms fans are finding old-timey black powder revolver replicas offer a "time travel"shooting experience.

- PHIL SPANGENBERGER

This EMF Co. replica of the Paterson Colt, with its unique folding trigger, and the stagecoach robbery scene roll engraved on the cylinder, is an accurate, working reproduction of the gun that revolutionized revolvers for all time. Despite a lack of sales of the original Paterson Colt to the general public, praise from the Texas Rangers and U.S. Army officers fighting in the swamps of Florida, proved that inventor Samuel Colt had the right idea.

– COURTESY EMF CO. –

Although the percussion ignition system, often called “cap and ball,” only reigned for about 45 years (roughly 1820-1865—the shortest lifespan of any firearms ignition system), this period has captured the imaginations of gun fans worldwide. In America alone it was the opening of our Western frontier, the era of the fur trappers, the California Gold Rush, The Mexican War, the struggle for Texas’s independence and the fight at the Alamo. Pre-Civil War conflicts in “Bloody Kansas,” and Missouri and the Civil War, all happened during the caplock’s heyday. The rest of the world, too, saw powerful European nations exploring and colonizing much of the globe with stirring events like India’s Sepoy Mutiny, The Crimean War, the exploration of Africa and many other of dramatic history-changing events.

Considered by many arms students as the ultimate in design and practicality in big-bore cap and ball Colt revolvers, the Model 1860 Army .44, as shown by this handsome Uberti USA, blued and color case hardened replica, remains a favorite with black powder hand gunners today.