The Richards Conversion is a factory-modified version of the Colt Model 1860 Army revolver. Originally a .44 caliber percussion revolver, the 1860 Army was one of the most common sidearms used by Union and Confederate forces in the Civil War, however after the war, firearms that fired metallic cartridges started to become an ever inceasing market, and Colt quickly wanted to adapt its huge stockpile of percussion revolvers to fire them, however, due to the Rollin White patent (owned by Smith & Wesson), Colt couldn’t legally sell bored-through cylinders until about 1869, when the patent expired.
So, when the patent expired, Colt engineer Charles Brinckerhoff Richards developed a system to convert percussion revolvers to fire modern cartridges.
The Richards Conversion (first introduced in 1871) allowed Colt to quickly modernize its stockpile and compete in the cartridge market.
This gun included most of the features of the later Richards-Mason convertion, and the Colt SAA, such as a conversion ring with a firing pin, a loading gate, an ejector rod assembly, and a barrel modified to accept .44 Colt, all while reusing original most of the original parts of the gun, not only making it cheaper than a brand new cartridge gun, but also letting shooters who were already comfortable using the percussion revolver reload considerably faster while still using their favorite sidearm.

#Madness #Gun #Revolver