Pietta J H Dance .44 cal. pistol

I heard recently that Pietta has discontinued this model. Can anybody verify this. Pietta's website hasn't been updated for a while and shows nothing.

Well I don't know, seems like I saw some on sale at Cabela's a while back when I was broke,of course :cursing: I thought once of building a copy (?) of a Dance Bros.,and Park revolver from a .44 Colt's dragoon. :hmm: Has anyone tried this? Tree.

Cabela's had them on their site a few days back. If you want one I would suggest you buy it soon. There have been various copies of the Dance made but they don't stay around long. The gun is not a big seller and it usually is produced in runs with quite a number of years between. The Pietta is slightly larger than a '60 Army and has superb balance.

The Dance made revolvers are a sort of oddity. Besides their lack of recoil shield (probably done to prevent chain fire by nipples impacting the recoil shield), The guns are a bit odd sized. Though the majority of the production ( serial #324 is the highest known)was .44 caliber, the guns were a bit closer to a round barreled M.1851 Colt Navy in size...sort of the old Mr. In-Between. The Pietta gun does have the M.1860 style front sight, which is correct, but the gun is an inch shorter than the original and a pound lighter. Pietta also decided to give it a square-back trigger guard where the originals had the oval shape like most other revolvers. The Pietta gun has .440" grooves and .452" grooves but only .446" chambers. Opening up the chamber diameter may be necessary for the very best accuracy. If you're looking for a fun banger...go for it! They certainly look odd, though Geronimo had one, or at least the photographer had one as a prop! :wink:

Yes; checked Cabela's and ordered one along with a belt and holster. Free shipping and no tax.

Say, how'd that Dance turn out?

Wes/Tex said:

The Dance made revolvers are a sort of oddity. Besides their lack of recoil shield (probably done to prevent chain fire by nipples impacting the recoil shield

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I was told that the lack of a recoil shield was due to the inadequacies and short-cuts in the manufacturing.

A flat-sided frame was whole lot easier to produce than any 'lumpy' model.

tac

not to mention it also used up less precious steel/iron whatever they used.

bubba.50 said:

not to mention it also used up less precious steel/iron whatever they used.

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Uh, isn't that what I wrote?

tac

Pouring the castings as well as machining would have been simplified without the protruding round sides.

So, no range reports yet.

"uh, isn't that what I wrote?"

no. re-read yer own post. you wrote about inadequacies, shortcuts, and ease of production but nothin' about savin' metal.

Allegedly the frames lacked recoil shields as they were cut from boiler plate and it lacked the thickness to provide recoil shields. I believe the plate was 5/8" thick but I could be wrong. Flayderman's may give more info (I haven't been able to find my copy for a couple of years now).

Flayderman's only gives a brief description of the Dance revolvers.
The 9th Ed of Flayderman's Guide (2007) says the .44 caliber was worth $25,000-$60,000. The .36 caliber was worth $40,000-$85,000.

hawkeye2 said:

Allegedly the frames lacked recoil shields as they were cut from boiler plate and it lacked the thickness to provide recoil shields. I believe the plate was 5/8" thick but I could be wrong. Flayderman's may give more info (I haven't been able to find my copy for a couple of years now).

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Rolled boiler plate for frames... they had some pretty good boiler plate back then.
They might have been kinda skimpy sometimes on what to do building boilers but they did have some good plate.

Caught this post on Dance Bro. pistols. I've been studying these recently. They were of course made in .44 and .36 cal. What I found is they were also made with recoil shields. Actually, about half the surviving Dance pistols have them. There's one that has partial lines where the shield was not completely filed off. After really looking at this from a builders point of view, I think I know what they were doing. These frames were made in swaging dies, not cast. Not all of them came out with perfectly formed recoil shields. Rather than waste all the time and effort, they simply cut, ground and filed away the malformed shield and continued the machining work. Note, the 44 cal pistols are about the same size as a Colt Dragoon. The 36's are the same size as a standard 51 navy. Also, they are not marked Dance Bro.- rather they're neatly stamped on their top barrel flat, G.ERICHSON. HOUSTON. TEXAS. They also have a variety of cryptic stampings and lettered initials such as JB. Serial #s are also seen. Images of the two Dance Bros. also still exist as well as an image of their shop and house. Hope this was of interest. G.S.
Reference... Confederate Revolvers by Gary, chapter 6, start page 57.

Good point Senor Smith! Most people don't realize the .44 Dance was Colt Dragoon size and not the size of a M.1860. There's a lot of misconception about the gun and it's maker.

Thank goodness we can pay a lot less for one made by the lesser-known brother Pieta Dance. Mine has such bright color case hardening it looks tie died! LOL

So the frames were forged?

On the originals? No. Reproductions: cast, machined, polished, finished

A picture's worth a thousand words. Kinda like young Colonel Washington with a fusil on the F&I forum...