Marking on Italian Percusion revolvers

[Darryl]

Ever wonder what all those stamp marks on your Italian cap 'n ball revolver mean?



1. The shield with the crossed rifles with bayonets under a five point star in a wheel is the mark for the Gardone Val Trompia proof house. The shield is believed to be the coat of arms for GVT.



2. The "PN" under a five point star in a wheel is the actual proof mark. This "certifies" that each chamber was proofed at 8,800 psi with a 30% plus load. The "PN" are the initials for "polere nera" or black powder.



3. The two upper case letters or roman numerals in a box is the code for the year the firearm was proofed. See below.



The star in the wheel is the symbol of the Republic of Italy adopted in 1950 replacing the crown of the monarchy. The year stamp, proof and house marks appears once on long guns, while the proof and house marks appear three times on revolvers; barrel, receiver and cylinder (normally on the cylinder face). Because the stampings are apparently done manually, it is not uncommon to have partial, incomplete, weak, missing or double hit stampings.



The year of proofing codes are : 1954 X, 1955 XI, 1956 XII, 1957 XIII, 1958 XIV, 1959 XV, 1960 XVI, 1961 XVII, 1962 XVIII,1963 XIX, 1964 XX, 1965 XXI, 1966 XXII, 1967 XXIII, 1968 XXIV, 1969 XXV, 1970 XXVI, 1971 XXVII, 1972 XXVIII, 19'73 XXIX and 1974 XXX.



The code was changed to two upper case letters in 1975. 1975 AA, 1976 AB, 1977 AC, 1978 AD, 1979 AE, 1980 AF, 1981 AH, 1982 AI, 1983 AL, 1984 AM, 1985 AN, 1986 AP, 1987 AS, 1988 AT, 1989 AU, 1990 AZ, 1991 BA, 1992 BB, 1993 BC, 1994 BD, 1995 BF, 1996 BH, 1997 BI, 1998 BL, 1999 BM, 2000 BN and 2001 BP



There is letter skipping, but still some sort of pattern. Unverified "possible" extrapolation seems to indicate that: 2002 BS, 2003 BT, 2004 BU and 2005 might be BZ. The code dates may not indicate the actual year of production, but does indicate when the firearm was proofed.



There is also unverified information that not all firearms are actually proofed. It is said that when a batch of one type of firearm is submitted for proofing, only a few are randomly proofed and not necessarily in every chamber. The rest are inspected and all are proofed

 

[Pork Chop]

I know that this info has been posted before, but I appreciate your posting it again. It prompted me to get up and check when my guns were made. (1977 and 1979) Now, if I had only had the presence of mind to write down that info when I finished the .36 cal brass framed pistol kit. The marks were obliterated when I finished the frame. Of course, the date stamp is not on the barrel or cylinder, but the other marks are. Interestingly enough, the Made in Italy stamp on the bottom did survive...

 

[WV_Hillbilly]

2. The "PN" under a five point star in a wheel is the actual proof mark. This "certifies" that each chamber was proofed at 8,800 psi with a 30% plus load. The "PN" are the initials for "polere nera" or black powder.

There is also unverified information that not all firearms are actually proofed. It is said that when a batch of one type of firearm is submitted for proofing, only a few are randomly proofed and not necessarily in every chamber. The rest are inspected and all are proofed

I'm asking about this because it is very common when translating & interpreting different languages, that important words can get omitted, reversed, or transposed, and that can change the meaning of the statement significantly.

IS that 30% additionally on top of the 8,800 psi? Let's see, that would be 11,440 psi, OR is that including the 30%--which would have made it 6,770 psi initially...? That is quite a bit of difference depending on how the pressure load numbers were "meant" to be understood.

Also... what is the point of only proofing "some" revolvers and NOT all of them? besides the extra cost. Then this would mean that some revolvers that have those proof marks actually were never proofed--that is VERY SCARY!

I ALWAYS proof test ANY muzzleloading rifle or single shot pistol that passes through my hands, even if I only shoot it rarely and then it gets sold or traded off for another rifle (or whatever) that I wanted more at that time. BUT I can never proof cap-n-ball revolvers in the same manner, as there is not enough additional chamber space to put in XXX percent of the maximum load. I'd rather not say what the additional percentage/amount of powder that I use is--so that someone doesn't think that it's a load that can be used regularly and damage their gun or injure themselves.

As far as the cap-n-ball revolvers go:
I just fill the chambers up as much as it will take and seat a ball that will just barely let the cylinder freely rotate. I'm pretty sure that this is NOT significantly more pressure than a typical load. The other problem with doing it is: should you load all six chambers up when proofing to keep test conditions the same as in regular firing sessions? or just load one chamber at a time up with the maximum to prevent any chances of a REALLY bad multiple discharge event?

I suppose if I used some 4Fg, instead of 3Fg, and if I REALLY put some major compression on the powder and ball... but then would pressure get up to at least 50% more (my goal)than a normal maximum loading? But sadly, I do not have a pressure transducer setup to confirm any of that. AND there are finer granulations of black powder than 4Fg also, but that stuff is next to impossible to come by; and I am not thrilled about grinding my own (even in extremely small batches) with mortar and pestle.

Then this, "maybe it's proofed--maybe it's NOT!" information, makes shooting the cap-n-ball revolvers more like a game of "Russian Roulette"; except that the gun has more than one chamber loaded, AND that the gun is pointed (hopefully) away from the shooter.

Doesn't this information concern any other "cap-n-ballers" on the Forum? I guess I'm going to have to try to come up with a "reasonably safe" but valid method of "proofing" my cap-n-ball revolvers. IF anyone else is interested, I would be very grateful to hear your take on this potential "problem". You can PM me if you have any specific ideas.

I do think you maybe should still comment here though, so that everyone else might benefit from the different viewpoints and opinions.

Shoot Safely!
WV_Hillbilly

PS Who or what was your source for this information? particularly about the proofing issue/problem. I hope that it was just a poor translation was where the problem lies, and that every revolver (and every chamber) were actually ALL proofed to that 11,440 psi load.

 

[mec]

I've got some recent guns and you have extrapolated the Date Codes exactly right. They went from BU to BZ 2004-05
I wouldn't be surprised if they don't proof all the guns because Ribbonstone recently bought a Uberti Remington Navy that had a .36 barrel and a .44 cylinder. Either they didn't proff it at all or the parts got swapped during final finishing.

 

[Darryl]

The information was given to me years ago and yes I was wondering myself how they got 30% more powder into the cylinders! The "not all revolvers are proofed" is unverified since nobody is willing to admit this. But I am starting to believe this is true. Over the years I was amazed at the poor quality control done. If poorly timed, rough and ill fitted revolvers are exported to the USA on a regular basis the actual proofing may also be skipped.

Most of the problem revolvers use to be Pietta, ASM and those marked FIE. The Uberti was normally a cut above. About a year ago two Uberti .36 police models were brought in. They were very rough. They had to be stripped, polished and lubed. The I saw an increase in quality with the Pietta stuff. A few months ago a Uberti 3rd model dragoon came in and while not the best it was fairly smooth.The problem is you never know what you gonna get until you open the box.

 

[unspellable]

A proof load normally runs 30% more pressure than its corresponding service load, not 30% more powder.

For the revolver, loading a conical or heavier bullet would probably increase pressure more than trying to get the last grain of powder in under a round ball.

CIP black powder proof laods call for eleven thousand some odd psi.

The question of proofing also comes up with long arms and has generated some controversy since some of the modern inline stuff with super loads would seem to run above 11,000 psi in the service load. So far, I've seen lots of controversy and name calling but no real answers.

The CIP proof load for a 50 caliber single shot pistol or rifle calls for around 130 grains of powder and a heavy bullet. Some of the inline manuals call for 150 grains of powder! So there are questions that need some answers.

 

[mec]

According to Col Robert Whittington in "The Colt Whitneyville-Walker Pistol", the fires Colt walkers were proofed with a "full charge" of fffg and a Bullet. No specifications as to the bullet.

The powder sent to Vera Cruz with the first run of pistols was called " rifle powder" and they mention moulds throwing "balls" It appears that they might have been using the term "ball" to refer to conical bullets but this is unclear.