Wow, what a clever little revolver design! Ian does a great job explaining, and I just learned about a revolver type that I'd never heard of before.
Update:
I was able to purchase a Dixie Pietta kit for the 1851 in .44 caliber at the beginning of summer. Time has been short, so I'm making slow progress on the frame, which needs some filing on the flats and some sanding on the back of the recoil shield. I bought a great little front sight from Dixie, so I'm thinking of a 5-inch barrel with a new front sight.
You can see the grip and grip frame also need some reshaping and polishing. Lots of work to do, but at least I have a revolver to work on! I'm thinking of something that looks like a scaled-up version of one of the Colt Pocket models without a loading lever. I haven't decided if I'll add an ejector rod, or just go "Outlaw" and have a cartridge revolver with neither loading lever nor ejector, like something a backwoods gunsmith might have put together.
Looking close, you can see some of the rough edges, tool marks and other fun parts that I have the chance to work on! Since I have to hog out a channel in the side of the frame to allow access to the loading gate, the kit sorta' made sense. Besides, it was all I could find at the time, with the coronavirus ravaging Italy. Things haven't gotten any better since then: the supply of cap-and-ball revolvers has been overwhelmed by the demand, along with almost everything else gun-related.