The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Not the army model, but close, before being turned into a belly gun this was a Colt 1878 DA in 44-40. I got this from an old neighbor of mine many years ago, he found it as a young man working in a CCC work crew sometime in 1934-35 in the wall of an abandoned building in Deadwood South Dakota. All he did to it was rub off the light coating of rust, it was still loaded when he found it .

OK, I want.......

Dolk

That is a nice revolver, and what a great find with history all around it.

Probably belonged to some gold miner who had it stashed, for some reason he never retrived it, maybe he ran afoul of Al Swearengen and ended up as pig feed

At least yours is in better shape than the revolver I found, despite all I have tried the rust just won't come off.

There are commercial rust removers that would strip the rust off, but it looks good the way it is, this will never be a shooter by the look of it, but would look great in a display as it is.

You have really nice neighbors ;)
This is really a nice gun. I saw one offered on an auction site lately.

MuzzleMarc

He was a very interesting storyteller, unfortunately he passed long ago. He had many story's about his days in the CCC, and later in the army during the War.

Wow what a cool little pistol. And in 44-40 too! For a belly gun it was a no BS situation if that one got pulled. Would you think it is shootable? I am thinking you could with some light bp loads perhaps?

With light BP loads it could work if the overall condition of the weapon is acceptable - this is what I learned ;)

MuzzleMarc

It is shootable, and I have shot it with BP 44-40 loads, it's a point shooter at best without sights.

Happy to read you have a shot it, makes it an even better find when they still work.

Like a belly gun for your next poker game!

To remove scale rust try soaking in salt and vinegar. Thats how i remove scale from my blacksmithing peices.

Just vinegar alone will do it, the white stuff from the supermarket, just be sure that if you use this that the entire piece of metal is below the surface of the liquid as anything left above it will rust badly. It will also remove any bluing or other patina on the metal .