>The funny part is that cartridge conversions are totally period - they
>were sold as kits, and a great many people who couldn't afford a whole
>new gun bought and applied them to their Civil War-vintage
>cap-and-ball revolvers.

Oh, absolutely--but re-enactors aren't always the most rational bunch ;-P That, and I volunteer at a civil-war-era fort, so cartridge conversion wasn't really chronistic for the specific time period covered. They're all cap-and-ball there.

>(Of course, you can also do that with an SAA, but that wasn't
>the point, the point was the this guy had trained himself to do that
>because of the limitations of his old cap-and-ball sidearm, and
>the other guys hadn't because they didn't think they'd need to.)
>

I have some recollection that the SASS has specific rules for that methodology during competition, but I don't have the rulebook with me.

>Nowadays the punch line - as in the fictional anecdote of the Bryar
>GP-41 in the OP - is that there are companies that makes "cartridge
>converted" 1851 Navys and the like that were never percussions
>firearms to begin with, which is pleasingly ouroborian.

Kind of like the ancient and honorable taxidermological creation of 'gaffes'--sure, it's not a -real- two-headed calf, but it's real convincing-like.

>>(The 1851 Navy is a very pretty revolver. I have a repro.)
>
>As have I! Sort of. Mine's a Connecticut Valley Arms copy, vintage
>ca. 1989; I say "sort of" because, although my revolver has the 1851
>Navy roll engraving on the cylinder (the naval battle), it's a .44
>(which was the "Army" caliber in Colt's product line), not .36 like
>the real one. Historical authenticity aside, it's a good gun, and has
>considerable sentimental value. My grandfather and I built it from a
>kit.

Mine's not nearly so nice; it's one of the Italian repros--but it is in .36, so hey, points there.

> It's like using modern materials and technologies
>to build an automobile, but deliberately making it as uncomfortable
>and hard to drive as a Ford Model T. Why?)

We're probably 10 years away from finding out that answer, when the non-hardcore steampunk people move on to dieselpunk. ;-P

>
>I've also got a reproduction "Pocket Navy", which is just what it says
>on the tin - a pocket-sized version of the 1851 Navy, caliber .31.

Purty! Though I dislike the short revolvers, myself. They don't feel properly 'proportional' to me. Personal foible.

>
>The provenance of this one is unknown; I found it fully finished in a
>now-defunct Army-Navy store up in Presque Isle, and it bears no
>identifiable maker's markings. Whether it's a kit someone built and
>sold, or a fully produced item by one of the various Italian companies
>that do 19th-century repros, I don't know. It's a dandy little gun,
>though. I don't think I'd be eager to carry it in a pocket, but then
>I could say the same thing about my 1903 Pocket Hammerless. Men must
>have had bigger pockets in those days. :)
>
>--G.
>and greater trust in safety catches

Not so much with the safety catches--SOP for single-action six-shooters, esp. with the cap-and-ball models, was to load five cylinders and carry it with the hammer down on the vacant sixth cylinder. Even if you drop it, it won't go off; being a single-action pistol, you have to cock the hammer in order to get it to a place where you can pull the trigger. It would take some considerable pocket gymnastics to elicit a fireable state on a single-action revolver accidentally.

That being said, I keep mine in a holster, empty. ;-P