1851 secrets

[TheRodDoc]

i have recently figured out how to set up and properly adjust this gun to work flawlessly over and over again. learned colts method of keeping caps from coming off or jamming.

I decided to ignore all that has been written in articles and on Internet sites for 99% of it is just hear say or just false information. It keeps getting passed on and on. I wanted to see if it can be changed and find out what really works.

below is a photo of the last 18 caps saved from my 278 shot test of my changes to the gun. all caps looked just the same. every cap splits open at top. stays on nipple till at center of loading gate where it just falls off. every time.

Also three recovered balls used to test muzzle accuracy. dime next to them. (will explain if asked)

If any one is really interested in how these things were acomplished, just ask and I will try and explain with text and photos and or drawings.

 

[mickdk2]

I'm interested. Would you please explain?

 

[Zombiphobia]

I'm interested. It's kind of annoying having the caps block up the action or stay on and need to be pulled off every time

 

[husker]

Do tell.

 

[BCRider]

Just a sec while I make some popcorn and pop a wobbly pop........




..... OK, I'm back and I'm all eyes. VERY interested and pretty please.

 

[Fingers McGee]

We're all ears - or rather eyes in this case - out with it............ Please!

 

[the Black Spot]

yep, i am really interested.

 

[hardway]

Very interested in what you have to tell.

 

[Captain*kirk]

Spill it!

 

[Benmathes]

It appears he has reached BP pistol nirvana.....

 

[GeoffC]

This threads kinda like the last season of The Sopranos... lots of build up, then..........nothing.

I kept scrolling down....nothing

What a foul joke.

 

[Fingers McGee]

Waiting...........................................


:banghead:

 

[robert garner]

Well Done !
Do Tell?
robert

 

[TheRodDoc]

I have had a stroke and have to type this with one finger now so it will be a bit slower then i thought.

the main part of keeping caps in place is this ring on recoil pad. And exact nipple length and dia. red arrow is pointing at the outer surface of that ring. When a new cap is seated on nipple it should just slightly drag in that corner. as in trying to rotate it on the nipple as cyl. is turned. .001" clearance is what i have on mine. nipple also must be exactly long enough to keep cap .002" away from recoil pad surface.

 

[TheRodDoc]

i tried getting a spent cap to sit about where it would slide along in that corner.

While looking at this picture i thought i would let you all know that the indent in hammer face that looks like was caused from hitting nipple, is in fact gas cutting and not from hitting nipple. the hammer on this gun hits back of frame before it can hit the nipple.
Also notice how close that mark on hammer is to outer surface if the ring.

 

[TheRodDoc]

i have noticed some suggesting to round off the outer dia. of nipple face. Don't do that! that squared edge of nipple face is keeping spent cap in place.

 

[TheRodDoc]

of coarse nothing will help if hammer is blowing back. this must be fixed first if it is. smaller flash holes, slightly stronger main spring and or reducing load or switching to FFG instead of FFFG.

i use 24 grains of geox FFG. this reduces chamber pressure considerably over fffg. but is still a fairly stout load.

Another seceret is the slot in hammer face. it's purpuse is two fold. 1 is to set hammer on a cyl. pin. the other is to redirect some of the gas pressure that blows through cap away from hammer face. helping stop hammer blow back. Don't fill it. if it is getting mushroomed shut, open it back up.

 

[TheRodDoc]

THE THREE RECOVERED BALLS

this is to test to find out if muzzle is at fault for inaccuracy problems.

1st the cyl. timing must be corrected if chambers do not line up perfectly with bore. this gun was and still is right from colt so didn't have to mess with that. this is important for this test to work.

now load gun with good smooth cast balls with sprue exactly centered and straight up in chambers.

mount a sheet of 16 ga. steel for a target. it is just what i had. just something the ball won't go through. i then laid an old white bed sheet on ground under and in front of target to make it easy to find fired balls that fall from target.

you must be shooting as close to square with target as you can. up and down and sideways both.

now shoot some balls at around 25 yards. all need to hit in different places on target.
retrieve flattened balls. sprue should still be smashed right in center of flattened ball. if not then muzzle most likely needs work.

since these guns have a fairly slow velocity it doesn't take much to push the ball off of its trajectory. it will show up as a sprue off center or even completely on other side of smashed ball.

in other words, the gas from an uneven muzzle has escaped on one side first which is rotating the ball.

if the ball rolled any direction other then it's spin the muzzle has deflected it some. -- gas escaping on one side before the other for some reason.
(muzzle not cut perfectly perpendicular with bore,
nick or dent on one land at muzzle, some one tried to bevel end of rifling. muzzle should be perfectly flat. no crown. no beveling at all.


i will give a full list of exactly what i have done to this gun later. need a break. typing with one finger sucks.

 

[Fingers McGee]

Another seceret is the slot in hammer face. it's purpuse is two fold. 1 is to set hammer on a cyl. pin. the other is to redirect some of the gas pressure that blows through cap away from hammer face. helping stop hammer blow back. Don't fill it. if it is getting mushroomed shut, open it back up.

I must respectfully disagree here. The notch in the hammer face is and always was to act as a safety device when set on a pin on the cylinder. Filling the notch in the hammer face will prevent the hammer from pulling a spent cap off of the nipple after firing , and virtually eliminate any possibility of cap jams. Some of my pistols did just that prior to my filling the notch with JB weld, and, to my consternation, dropped the cap into the action or held the cap tightly preventing subsequent firing of following chambers.

FM

 

[scrat]

so adjust the nipples so that you have .002 clearance between the nipples and back ring then fill the hammer with some type of weld. is this what your saying

 

[Fingers McGee]

I've never measure the gap; but filling the notch stopped the hammer from pulling the expended caps off the nipple.

 

[TheRodDoc]

Fingers, I respect the knowledge you have learned about the history of these guns and their use, but did you ever stop to think that if spent caps sticking to the hammer, or cap jams in general, was much of a problem with colts guns through history that he would have changed the slot in the hammer or removed it in later editions or other models of his guns? he didn't for he didn't need to. it wasn't a problem and still isn't if gun is loaded correctly (keep chamber pressure down) and flash holes are the right size. Also cap fit is very important. old wild bill wouldn't have put on much of a wild west show if he had to stop every couple shots to remove jammed caps.
And colts wouldn't have been one of the most popular guns of the time either.

I have shot and worked with this same gun for 39 years. It has been almost the only gun i shoot. I bought it in 1971. No. 625 of the second gens out the door of the Hartford factory.
serial no. 4826.
through all those years of shooting it with much the same problems most of you have with yours, i gradually learned what was needed to fix each problem.

But never had the guts to try them till 3 months ago. I have put all my findings into effect on this gun. When i first got to shoot it again, I thought to myself, WOW, It is probable that they were very dependable in their day. It is now the best shooting colt style revolver i have ever seen being used.

I finished my 300 shot test this morning. not a single cap problem. Plus group size went from about 3" to under 1" at 25 yards. sand bag rests. (muzzle was at fault)
That's good enough for me.
I did clean the gun after the previous 278 shots though.

 

[Hellgate]

The few original Colts I have handled had pretty big flash holes in the nipples as well as big openings on the top for the cap flash to go down the nipple. So i don't think that Colt used small flash holed nipples on his guns. I cannot remember the width of the safety notches or spring tension on the hammers as the guns were tied so handlers (like me as gun shows) couldn't work the actions but on the Colt repros I have owned, those with the widest safety notches had the most jams until I filled in the space. My cheapo ASM 44 "Navies" that had narrower safety notches (that got battered even narrower) had the least jams and were the most reliable. My very first Walker repro was an ASM that had a small hole in the hammer face to put onto the single safety pin on the back of the cylinder. Caps kept getting jammed into that hole until I filled it with a short piece of thick copper wire. Once the hammer face was flush, no more jams.

From your photos I can't understand how you can get gas cutting through the back of the intact cap onto the hammer face and not on the hammer tip where the cap splits which would let gas jet onto the hammer overhang.

I'm not sure what I am seeing on the photos. What modification to the gun have you made? Did you build up the top of the ring on the recoil shield to tighten the tolerance for the narrow clearance of the cap?

I also take issue that cap jams weren't a problem with the original Colts. There are patents issued for modifications to Colt C&Bs with metal plates attached to the recoil shield to allow the hammer to strike the cap through a thin metal sheet that prevented the cap from getting back into the action. The issue we are dealing with is not new to just the reproductions. I'm with Fingers McGee on this one but don't want to create a fuss or wear your finger out over heated discussions on both sides. I'm just still a little unclear as to how you made the fix.

 

[Fingers McGee]

The few original Colts I have handled had pretty big flash holes in the nipples as well as big openings on the top for the cap flash to go down the nipple. So i don't think that Colt used small flash holed nipples on his guns. I cannot remember the width of the safety notches or spring tension on the hammers as the guns were tied so handlers (like me as gun shows) couldn't work the actions but on the Colt repros I have owned, those with the widest safety notches had the most jams until I filled in the space. My cheapo ASM 44 "Navies" that had narrower safety notches (that got battered even narrower) had the least jams and were the most reliable. My very first Walker repro was an ASM that had a small hole in the hammer face to put onto the single safety pin on the back of the cylinder. Caps kept getting jammed into that hole until I filled it with a short piece of thick copper wire. Once the hammer face was flush, no more jams.

From your photos I can't understand how you can get gas cutting through the back of the intact cap onto the hammer face and not on the hammer tip where the cap splits which would let gas jet onto the hammer overhang.

I'm not sure what I am seeing on the photos. What modification to the gun have you made? Did you build up the top of the ring on the recoil shield to tighten the tolerance for the narrow clearance of the cap?

I also take issue that cap jams weren't a problem with the original Colts. There are patents issued for modifications to Colt C&Bs with metal plates attached to the recoil shield to allow the hammer to strike the cap through a thin metal sheet that prevented the cap from getting back into the action. The issue we are dealing with is not new to just the reproductions. I'm with Fingers McGee on this one but don't want to create a fuss or wear your finger out over heated discussions on both sides. I'm just still a little unclear as to how you made the fix.

I am in complete agreement with Hellgates comments.

There were other models of C&Bs made at the time that did not have the pin and notch safety system found on Colt's. We could have a lengthy discussion as to why those company's models weren't as prolific as Col Colt's; but I doubt that the lack of a safety notch in the hammer and cap jams were the reason.

 

[GeoffC]

Obviously several of you guys are much more knowlegable about black powder revolvers than I am, but I wasnt aware that the old original 1851 or 1860 revolver had the pins for safety positions on the cylinder...


I was under the impression that this is a feature that came a little bit further down the line.

On my personal Pietta 1860, the safety pins/knotches had become so work that I went on and smoothed the things down, in reality I suppose I did one of two things. By removing these pins I either created an extra space for a cap to jam the action, or I created a little more room for the problematic caps to fall on out...... Or maybe it'll have no effect, can't say as I'm about a week from getting her back up and running.

I did purchase some little red plastic rings that go around the caps to hold them tight to the nipple though, I don't plan to use them for target shooting. At a price of $3 per 36 I think after I'm done experiementing with a few packs of them I'll reserve them for when my pistol is being used as a backup hunting gun or secondary truck gun(which sometimes ends it up being my only truck gun)

Sorry for the slightly off topic ramble.