We had no trouble persuading Brownells Gun Techs and resident firearm historians Keith Ford and Steve Ostrem to visit to Rock Island Auctions, so they could show us a Colt Model 1860 Army Thuer Conversion revolver. The Thuer Conversion turns the cap-and-ball 1860 Army into a front-loading metallic cartridge revolver. Why front-loading? Because Smith & Wesson owned the patent on the revolver cylinder with bored-through chambers. The patent's original holder, gunsmith-inventor Rollin White, offered to sell it to Colt, but they passed. Smith & Wesson did not and hence was the sole LEGAL producer of revolvers with rear-loading cylinders. Realizing its mistake, Colt tried to backtrack, and the Thuer Conversion enabled them to build a metallic cartridge revolver without violating S&W's patent.
Rock Island's Thuer Conversion 1860 Army is in superb condition and even comes with a few of the unique, tapered, centerfire cartridges. Steve demos how you load and - more interestingly - UNLOAD a Thuer Conversion revolver. Even more unusual, the gun itself served as a reloading press to reload the special cartridges! The gun was finicky to operate compared to a Smith & Wesson revolver, and every Model 1860 Thuer Conversion came with a standard cap-and-ball cylinder as backup. It was superseded by the Colt 1872 open-top rear-loading cartridge revolver, introduced soon after White's patent expired.
