1860 Colt Army: matching a Denix "stunt" to a firing "hero"

Next, I used some noxious Birchwood Casey stuff to strip the rest of the paint/bluing/black/whatever. Used it on the grips, too. Then some degreaser to remove THAT. Then water to remove the degreaser. Dried it off in the oven. Then dipped all metal parts in Aluminum Black, blotted dry, then worked in some 3-in-1 oil with a rag.

After oiling three of the parts:



Note how nasty the parts look before oiling.

Part of the grip frame and trigger guard are supposed to be brass. So I masked it off for painting:



After more oiling and the "brass" painting:




Above shows the hammer post-weathering with sandpaper, and the part in the middle was blotted with the remover stuff again to get rid of some of the finish.



Filled the screwholes in the grips with JB Weld...



sanded, and stained:



The filled holes are evident but I'm going to live with it.

Next: screws

You're going to love the Uberti. Their a lot of fun to shoot.

Yup, looking forward to it. I originally bought a Pietta, but discovered it has stamping all along the right side of the barrel. Wouldn't do for the film (although few people would even see it or know it wasn't supposed to be there). Returned it, found an auction for a used Uberti...and it was a Pietta. Returned THAT, and the third time was the charm.

I have powder and balls and cleaning supplies, etc...just need to get out and shoot.

Look into making paper cartridges before you go. It will speed up your loading time at the range.

The Denix lacks several screws in the grip frame. Three around the trigger, one on the bottom the grip fame...



...and two on the back under the hammer.

I found a good cosmetic match for the bottom one, but could not find anything in two hardware stores to match the others.

So I used nail heads. I turned them down:



...filed grooves across them, cut them off the nails, and blackened them.

Drilled shallow holes for them in the Denix:



And epoxied in the nail heads:




...as you can see, my eyeballing approach to symmetry left something to be desired.

See the square indentation at the bottom of the grip on the real one? It's for mounting a stock. I wasn't about to try to mill out a matching shape by hand, so I drew a square with a sharpie. Hard to see due to glare in the pic above.

The Denix hammer lacked a notch (which serves as a rear sight), and the knurling was different for the back part. I added a somewhat rough notch, and started to file additional lines into the knurling, when I realized I could never match the real one due to it not having horizontal lines like the Denix. So I just stopped after making two diagonal lines:



No biggie. This is a stunt prop, after all, not to be seen closeup.

I cleaned the charges out of six copper caps for use in firing the real one, and epoxied them to the nipples. The gun is supposed to look loaded. Later, I'm going to find some plastic marbles of the right size, paint them a dull grey and "load" them into the chambers. I will do the same for the real gun for any closeups it gets, rather than have it actually loaded (too dangerous). For shots in the film that show it firing (powder only!), I'm thinking about inserting photocopies of lead balls in there.

I gave everything a shiny clear coat, sanded that back down a little in places, and put it back together.







Comparison to hero:






It has engraving on the cylinder that I cannot duplicate. I've considered drawing a simplified version of it on with a sharpie, though.

My "brass" paint doesn't really look it, but it is what it is. Denix does make a version of this gun with a brass trigger guard and a color scheme closer to what I had to recreate here, so someone go back in time a few years and tell me to order THAT one. The brass on the real one will develop a patina, though, which will match better.

Watch for clips with these guns in them during the next Academy Awards.

This is supposed to appear to fire lead balls and not bullets correct? Is there a similar or same model pistol that uses bullets? I'd love to find something like that...

Jay, GREAT job on the pistol! Very nice!!!

One thing, I think you can avoid the Marbles, since I think they used to put Grease or wax over the chambers to keep the powder dry. You would never see the ball itself. But someone who knows period black powder better then I can confirm that.

As for a bullet firing version, the short answer is yes, there is. Many Civil War era Cap and ball pistols were converted to fire bullets. I believe the Colt Army was converted into a .38 Long Colt revolver with a change of the cylinder, a change the the cylinder back area to allow loading bullets and the replacing of the bullet press with a shell extractor, similar to the Colt Peacemaker.

AWESOME JOB!!!!!

A really interesting build thread - thanks for sharing. You have done a terrific job with the matching and I've no doubt you will be mightily and justifiably satisfied with the result…

The problem with the DENIX models in general is their 'soft' edges. For some reason they have been especially sloppy in the tooling and it shows around the sharp corners.

If I might make one or two suggestions??

Since you have already sprayed the brass paint onto the frame, it might be a good idea to get some 'rub and buff' and work over that area. Its not the most durable finish but it certainly will enhance the brass parts with a far more appealing finish. Since your paint will become the undercoat, if the Rub and Buff does rub off, its unlikely you will notice for a good while.

Another suggestion is the blued finish to the weapon. Surprisingly, the DENIX models take Blue Wonder very well and it will result in a really rich blued finish. Where you need to match the original its possible you might will be able to remove the blue down to the steel with some gentle sanding with a VERY fine paper. The blue is prone to scratching but in this case, I believe it will get your stunt stand-in looking really the part..

Regards

MARK

I used Aluminum Black because I had it on hand. I guess if I had to do it again I might spring for some Blue Wonder, but to do it now I'd have to start over from step 1. Not gonna! FWIW, the hero is more black and charcoal than blue anyway.

Might do the rub n' buff thing, thanks!

Ed, yeah, I was aware that people today do the grease thing, what I wasn't sure of is if that was something they did back then. If it is, so much the better. But I'd need to find a way to create the greased look without using actual grease that could be rather messy in a prop that never gets fired.