merwin and hubert, please uberti make that gun. i would buy it in a instant. well made and the best of the west. i see it in a netfixs western also. if again, uberti or someone makes a repoduction, im buying it.
& please, out of nitrided stainless, so that when I used BP it isn't a disaster if I can't clean it until the next day...
Howdy Again
I had to start another post about Merwins and Hulberts because this board only allows me to post six photos per post.
Shooting a Merwin Hulbert with Black Powder:
You do not have to run home and clean any revolver that was fired with Black Powder immediately. It will not turn into a pile of rust over night. For one thing, we no longer use corrosive primers, and they were half the reason that BP fouling caused such bad corrosion. No need for Stainless, if you know how to prepare a revolver to be shot with Black Powder you can wait until the next day to clean it. Or even a week later. I will not publish here how long some of my guns have sat before cleaning after being shot with Black Powder, but it has been a heck of a lot more than a week.
This is a 44-40 Merwin Hulbert Pocket Army 2nd Model, made sometime between 1881-1883. The same model pictured in an earlier post but without the engraving. (Notice the spelling and notice there is no 'and' in the name.)
I hear all the time how the Merwin Hulbert was the finest revolver made during the 19th Century. This myth is largely because there is only one authoritative book about Merwin Hulberts. The Story of Merwin Hulbert & Co. Firearms, by Art Phelps. In this book Phelps continually harps on the fine precision needed to make a MH, and how it was the most innovative design of any revolver made during the 19th Century.
What Phelps fails to mention is that although all the empties can be dumped out of a MH by pulling the barrel and cylinder forward and rotating them...
It cannot be reloaded while the mechanism is open. The mechanism has to be closed and fresh rounds have to be loaded one at a time through a loading gate, not much different than a Colt. Because of the way the rounds are captured by the internal extractor ring, it is physically impossible to reload while the gun is open.
Smith and Wesson Top Break revolvers were a better design, the empties were automatically ejected when the gun was opened, and it could be reloaded while the gun was still open. Much faster and more efficient than reloading a MH one round at a time.
Why did Joseph Merwin come up with his radical design for a revolver? Because Smith and Wesson held all the patents that allowed them to make a Top Break. Merwin had to come up with something radically different without infringing on Smiths patents. S&W was well known for aggressively going after patent infringements. The reason for that is another story for another time.
The other thing I hear all the time is how MH was the only company that could produce such a precise mechanism. Complete baloney. I have run out of space to show more photos on this post, but I can tell you that the internals of a Merwin Hulbert were not as well machined as similar parts in a Smith and Wesson Top Break. If S&W wanted to produce a rotary design like the MH, they could have done it easily. But they did not need to because they held the the patents for their Top Breaks.
Uberti make a new revolver with the Merwin Hulbert design? Sorry folks it ain't going to happen. About ten years ago there was a company that attempted to make a replica of the Merwin Hulberts. They were underfunded and never got beyond 3D CAD models and making a few parts that were shown at some of the big gun shows. They eventually ran out of money and the whole project ground to a halt. Don't hold your breath for Uberti to come up with a MH copy, they have their hands full with everything they are making now.
So, now that I have spent all these electrons putting down Merwin Hulberts, don't get me wrong. They are fascinating revolvers, and they are loads of fun to shoot. But the myths that have been attributed to them are mostly just myths.
