Hell everyone. I am toying around with buying a bp revolver pistol but curious is there is anything i should stay away from or look for?  I was looking at buying a .36 uberti 1861 colt navy a 1858 reminginton would be good but they only seem to be in .44. What are your thoughts on .36 vs .44? Is it worth paying for stainless steel construction ibstead of the case hardend looking steel?

Ruger Old Army

Either would work well. Clean it well after shooting!! Otherwise.. for all intents, think of a .36 cal as a .38 special.. and the .44 as a .44 special. BP loads aren't supposed to be magnums, but they are respectable if you stay within the limits. Its a nice piece however.. and fun!

If you're only shooting paper or cans then caliber doesn't matter.  As said, dissemble and clean well after each session.  Note:  Most Colt style ones will hit very high.

Windex is your friend

Lol, just made a thread stating that I cleaned my old BP pistol for the last time. Just too much BS for the limited fun I had shooting it.

Pistol for felons and illegals

I thought ruger old armys were discontinued ? Are all the substitutes all corrsive like that as well ? I am just looking for something diffrent at this point.

They are and they command a premium price. Get a Pietta or Uberti they really are all pretty much the same. I am either hanging mine on the wall or selling it. Too much hassle after you shoot it.

Get a Uberti reproduction of the Colt Dragoon if you want to kill living things with it. They’re powerful enough to be useful on deer-sized animals, but much better balanced than the Walker Colt reproduction.

Also, get some slix-shot nipples for it and an extra cylinder. The improved nipples greatly mitigate the issue of cap jams and make the shooting experience much more pleasant.

They aren’t as bad to clean as people let on. Just soap, water and WD-40 is all I use.

Cap and ball revolvers are a ton of fun to shoot; lots of smoke and fire, and accuracy is on par with most modern handguns if you are consistent with the load procedure. Doesn’t hurt to have a practice tool that utilizes something other than center fire pistol ammo these days either. Good luck!!

I just slosh mine down with 75/25 water and Ballistol then wipe it off. and punch the bore. Done. Sometimes I slosh it around in a bucket of cold water and then squirt it with the Ballistol mix. Can't stand WD-40 for much of anything.

I just wipe the thing down with it as a rust inhibitor after it’s clean. Do that on all my guns.

The cva 1860 army I built 30 years ago is dead nuts at 25 yards..

I was very surprised the first 6 rounds I fired out of it...  and it will kill

Yes i agree they are pain to clean but better than a single shot pistol...

You cannot go wrong with a newer made 1858 Remington Peitta 44.
I have standardized on 44.
I have 3.
Also have a Clot 1860 and I think an 1851?

They are a lot of fun to shoot. I dont think they are very hard to clean either. I just slosh my bp  revolver in a buck of hot dish water, punch the bore and cylindars, re rinse in hot soapy water, dry, oil put way. I dont think there is much of a difference between Pietta and Uberti.  I own both and they shoot equally well. My favorites are my pietta 1851 in .36, Pietta 1858 in .44, and my Uberti 2nd Dragoon.

They require a lot more cleaning, tinkering, and messing around with them to make them reliable. They are dirty and slow to load. Usually they aren’t very reliable right out of the box, and you have to be handy to address problems with them and you have to have patience.

Frankly they are about as far away from a convenient or user friendly gun as I can think of.

Tons of people buy them and don’t enjoy the experience and it’s associated baggage and the gun ends up a wall hanger or sold.

But there are some who learn their quirks and with some perseverance and technique you can make them reliable shooters and if you know the tricks they aren’t all that hard to clean at all.

Just think all this over before you buy one. They can be a LOT of fun and can be used in practical applications buy they simply are NOT for everyone. And that’s perfectly okay. I recommend you find someone with one and test it out before committing.

This is one I just recently bought. I did an action job and other modifications on it. Keep in mind most replicas are made in Italy and to a price point. Think of them as pre-assembled kits. They almost all will need or at least heavily benefit from some action work. Of 160 rounds I’ve fired so far, I’ve had ZERO issues. It’s a Pietta made 1851 Navy:



The actual experience of shooting these guns is a blast. The smell of the smoke, the huge cloud of sparks they throw off at night, the low BOOM report, SUPER near. I personally love it. Also the pace of loading and shooting is relaxing and almost therapeutic for me and I can just hang out in the desert for hours and not spend a ton of money on ammo. These are economical guns to shoot, especially now more than ever.

Hope this helps!

I really like stainless, but I also do not discriminate.



Ballistol takes a lot of the hassle out of cleaning these.  I use a water/ballistol 50/50 mix to clean and then a wipe down with 100% and no rust ever.

Ballistol completely emulsifies in water and when mixed, looks like milk.

I used to use dish soap, water, complete tear down, oven dry, but that is a huge hassle.  Ballistol makes it super easy.

OP says "only .44" and also mentions .36.  They all take a round ball, just pick the correct one for your gun.  If you can't decide, get one of each, two in my photo are large bores, the center one .36.  

Post a photo of yours, if you already got out, Poncho.

I've got 4 of them, all Colt copies and never had a single reliability issue. The oldest is 25 years old and the newest in from this year. Nice cartridge box and London model.

The Rugers were discontinued and command a premium price these days.

I have several by both Pietta and Uberti. Neither company is perfect nor is neither inherently flawed.

It's not the black powder which is corrosive, it is the salts from the percussion caps mixing with the powder to draw moisture, which can cause problems of rusting and pitting if left unclean. You can leave a black powder cylinder loaded with powder and a ball virtually forever, but once you fire it, it needs to be cleaned.

None of them are that difficult to clean then oil up. Most come apart relatively easy. I have been shooting them since 2012 and no signs of corrosion on any of the dozen revolvers I own so far.