Loyal Reader Mike S. (thankee) sends me this lovely pic of a gun (or a pic of a lovely gun, whatever):
Note the extra cylinders. These will be explained later. But first, a close-up:
I don’t care who you are, that’s a purty lil’ thang right there, yessirree.
“But Kim… what’s it chambered in?”
According to the article Reader Mike so thoughtfully provided:
A close copy clone of a Colt Single Action Army (SAA), the King Trio comes with three cylinders, making it capable of shooting four different cartridges, earning King status on versatility for six-shooters.
And the boolets?
First up is the .38 Super. The .38 Super came out in the late 1920s and is a favorite cartridge for Mexicans. Being illegal to own firearms capable of shooting cartridges of war like 9mm and .45 ACP, the .38 Super is a popular choice by having the power to take care of business in the famous 1911 platform. Having a cylinder for .38 Super adds to the versatility of the King Trio revolver while upping the cool factor by 10!
Next is the .357 Magnum/.38 Special cylinder. Who doesn’t love the power of the .357 Magnum? Capable of taking deer-sized game, as well as being a proven one-shot man stopper, the .357 may be our most balanced and practical cartridge for everyday chores.
That .38 Special can be fired in the same cylinder, making it doubly good! Usually abundant and cheaper than most ammunition, the mild loads are great for practice, small game and teaching youth how to shoot without all the nasty muzzle-blast the .357 Magnum is known for.
Lastly, we have the 9mm. For plain plinking fun and varmints, the 9mm is hard to beat.
As any fule kno, I’m not a huge fan of the last-mentioned. But the ammo is cheaper than almost anything except .22 LR, and I bet it’s great fun to shoot those teeny lil’ Europellets out of a honking big revolver like the Trio.
Can you say “Governor’s BBQ Gun”, children?
beautiful hogleg. How do you carry the spare cylinders with you? Do you put them in their own little sack and put those in a backpack type bag or do you get leather pouches made to carry the cylinders on your belt. The latter would take up room for pouches for speed loaders. Still a really nice revolver.
I’m assuming this is for those people who took out a second mortgage and bought 50,000 rounds of 9 mm a few years back. Now they finally realized the ammo is worthless unless you actually, you know, go out and shoot it. This gives them a traditional .38/.357 revolver that can also chew up their giant stash of EOTW zombie ammo. No idea why they include the .38 super as I’ve never seen a box of .38 super ammo here in the USA. Maybe it’s just a marketing ploy.
Still, I’ve got several EYE-talian replica revolvers and they are all a dream to shoot. I’d take another one in a heartbeat, especially with the color case hardening.
OK, if you change the cylinder/caliber don’t you also have to change the barrel?
IOW, you can’t shoot a 9mm bullet through a .38 barrel can you?
You can. .38/.357 Mag bullet diameter is 0.357″. 9mm diameter is 0.354″, 38 Super 0.355″. Don’t know which diameter Pietta bored this for, but their lawyers didn’t object to it.
Would the heat treatment of the cylinders preclude case hardening? It looks good as is, but I think it would look great if the cylinders were also color case hardened.
9mm is .355″. Had to “fix” that, lol.
I dunno on the case hardening and the cylinder, other then I seem to remember it being a bad idea for some reason.
However, since I’m given to understand a lot of the modern case hardening patterns aren’t case hardening at all, but a chemical bath that produces pretty swirls and is for appearance sake only (modern frame heat treatments being far more reliable and even)…
I suppose it would be possible to color the cylinder.