I had the .36 1851 but also had two.44's, the1860 Colt and 1858 Remington. The area I hunt is closed to everything but shotgun, archery and muzzleloading and they eventually ruled that cap-n-ball revolvers were't muzzleloaders so I never replaced them after they got stolen. Sure were fun to shoot though and they all did fine work on anything coyote size and smaller within 25 yards.

Main thing to do to keep from having problems is to keep it clean.Aftershooting3-4 cylinders full, or wheneverthecocking action starts feeling stiff,take the gun down and clean fouling off the cylinder and cylinder pin. DECAPANY UNFIRED CHAMBERS FIRST!!I always kept a small wooden hammer, a rag and small bottle of black powder solvent in my shooting bag just for this. The gun will freeze up if you let it go too long between cleaning off the gunk, and it's much better to clean it before it freezes than after. I'd much rather take down a gun with an empty cylinder than having to do itwith loaded but decappedchambers. Put a healthy coat of bore butter or similar lube on the cylinder pin when you put it back together.

Keep in mindI'm talking 20 years ago, so things might have changed since, butfired CCI and Remington capswere kinda bad about dropping into the action and jamming the works. RWS caps weren't as bad about it,but that is something that will happen. When it happens, just hold the gun upside down, pointing in a safe direction of course, and thumb thehammer back and forth until the spent cap falls out.

On my guns, I got a 90 degree countersink and chamfered the chamber mouths slightly, about .015", to keep from shaving lead off the balls when I loaded them.

If you use less than full power loads, don't run the ball too far down the chamber. Use corn meal for a fillersothe ball won't be seated deeper than just below the face of the cylinder. A lubed wad between the powder and ball is also a good thing to do. Fill the end of the chamber with lube after the ball is seated, put on the cap and you're ready to go. I used Crisco shorteningfor the lube topping for a long time but it's kinda dumb to do that when we've got such great lubes now.

The South made a copy of the 1851 Navy in .44 cal, usually brass framed but not always. So I guess they make the .44 version to be sort of correct for a Confederate officer reinactor.