The COVID pandemic brought a halt to many of the reproductions of classic American firearms made in Italy. One victim of the temporary factory shutdowns was Pietta’s Starr black powder revolvers. Late last year, Pietta announced it would be re-introducing their Starr revolver in both its double-action and single-action form, and now, the guns are finally arriving stateside.
Designed by Ebenezer Starr of the Starr Arms company, the double-action Model 1858 used a unique design where the front “trigger” cocked the hammer and rotated the cylinder before engaging the true trigger at the end of its travel to fire the revolver. The revolver could also be cocked and fired in single-action mode. Introduced in .36 caliber and later offered in .44 caliber, approximately 23,000 of the latter would be purchased by the U.S. Army Ordnance Dept. during the American Civil War.
By the height of the Civil War, the Federal government requested that Starr make a simpler and cheaper version of their revolver. The result was the Starr single-action. Nearly 50,000 of all models of Starr revolvers were produced, and they would be the third most purchased handgun by the Federal government during the Civil War, following the Colt 1860 Army and Remington Model 1858. Following the war, they would be used throughout the West, and the double-action version was made famous in the 1992 Clint Eastwood movie “Unforgiven.”
Pietta’s Starr revolvers are faithful to the originals. Both are six-shot designs in .44 caliber with a blued finish and walnut grips. The Starr double-action has a 6-inch barrel, while the single-action version uses an 8-inch barrel. Both the Pietta Starr single-action and double-action models have an MSRP of $860. For more information, see the company’s website.
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