Paterson With Lever

[mec]

I had intended to buy one of these from Cimarron and make a trip by the Enchanted Rock at the same time. Cimarron was Out of Stock and I don't abide transcontinental back-orders very well. Happens that Midway had a several day sale and I saved $100.00

I've had a leverless Paterson for some times and this one behaves about the same if not somewhat worse out of the box. Out of the box, it would not fire until I relieved the hammer nose a bit and it developed that there is still a major difficulty setting off caps. Like the earlier revolver, the sear rides the hammer face -possibly at or near the half cock notch slowing down the hammer. The hammer also slows down against the left side of the frame as it drops- shifting visibly to the right near the nipple. I found that fireing deliberately produced many failures to fire with good ignition on the second strike. Also due to minimal clearance between the cylinder and frame and no groove in the right side of the reciever for cap travel, It would hang up on every shot.
At 60 feet, it hit high and a bit to the left. I clocked Goex 3f and some 3fg I removed from some 90 year old revolver cartridges. Heretofore, the goex has recorded higher velocities. This time the old powder took the lead:

The velocity for the goex (obscured) is 879fps.
Interestingly, the chamber capacity is somewhat less than a Navy and .22 grains is a full load.
Additional problems with basic function include a near non-existent frame relief next to the loading lever. There was no way to seat a ball without hammering it into the chamber before rotating it under the lever.
I have done several things that seem to be making the revolver function better. I relieved the portion of the breach to the right of the hammer to reduce the cap hang ups to something less than 100 percent. It now functions very well with caps only- poping them in the living room.

Looking at pictures of historic Colt Patersons, I note that most of them have much deeper frame relief in front of the loading lever. I had to removed a radical amount to get the balls to seat freely and turn under the loading lever.

To partially correct the light hammer strikes, I attempted, with little effect to polish and stone the hammer face over the half cock notch and just before it where it seemed to have been polished by contact with the sear. I did improve ignition by relieving the side of the hammer and the inside of the frame cut where the hammer rides. I can still induce misfires by attempting a slow trigger pull but I no longer have to slap the trigger to get the sear to ride free of the hammer and set off the caps on first strike. Having to pull the trigger with some speed militates against fine accuracy but at least I anticipate that the gun will fire most of the time

 

[Manyirons]

Good post Mec! Have avoided gettin a Patterson for tha extra drama. By tha way, tha new bullet woulda saved ya some trouble, drops right inta chamber!

Had yer address once, clumsy&stupid, i've mislaid it, send and i'll throw somma my last old stock bullets yer way. (Before redesign)

 

[mec]

Jack Hays was very happy with the levered patersons because he could load without getting off the horse. this tells me the originals were open enough for ball loads to travel under the ram.

Given that the glitches in this one are a lot like the characterists of my leverless one made in 1991, I suspect that these get used in movies and are shot very little. I sure wouldn't recommend it as a first C&B for anybody.

address pm'ed

 

[MCgunner]

So, um, have you encountered any Commanches at Enchanted Rock with that Patterson, yet? (famous incident with a Ranger, guessing that might be the reason you mentioned it?)

Good read. Historic gun, but I think I'll stick to the more refined later models of Colt and Remington. LOL

 

[Manyirons]

Prolly the REAL ones from Colt worked and worked WELL cause they weren't toys! People used em for REAL and that kinda failure woulda wiped Colt out afore they started.

 

[mec]

"So, um, have you encountered any Commanches at Enchanted Rock with that Patterson, yet.."

I was there 12 years ago and would return only for some digital pictures. It was a total madhouse. They warn on the website that the parking places fill up during the morning on weekends and they close the park until it clears out. When I was there, there was a mob of drunken rock climbers who stayed up all night yelling firetruck words. They didn't shut up until somebody down the way let off a shot. The place was as crowded as South Guadalupe in Austin. At one point a church bus arrived, the door flew open and about thirty youths double timed out in single file, ran up the side of the major rock yelling "Hey!Hey!Hey!....", reached the top in rank order turned and repeated the drill all the way back to the bus. Then they marched into the bus in perfect order and drove away.
On the whole, I would prefer Comanches.

 

[MCgunner]

No mention of hang gliders? I figured they were still jumping off that thing, or is that against park rules? I'd like to watch the drunken hang gliders fall.....er....fly.

 

[mec]

I would bet that they have done away with hang gliders. They are not consistent with the communitarian principle that we will all live forever protected by our government.

In Texas, you can carry your licensed handgun in state parks. Of course, if you shot it you would almost certainly hit somebody in the shoulder to shoulder crowd.

 

[mec]

Un manned camera on timer.

I applied several attempted fixes to this. Mainly opening clearances and polishing. Managed to improve the function to some extent as well as the ignition situation. No way is it going to approach the reliability of a well set up Navy, Army, Dragoon or Remington NMA. The one in my left hand- a leverless Paterson is problematic too.

 

[sjohns]

based on what you guys are saying, the uberti and pietta Patersons are royal ripoffs, and not only in price.

If they don't work off the shelf...

 

[mec]

Not exactly. I don't know about the Pietta but the Uberti is well finished and the parts appear to be well formed. Some of the negatives I'm seeing have to be inherant in the original design -though either the originals worked better or somebody was doing more than the usual amount of lying about their performance.
But, you can see the design shortfalls by comparing them to the designs that followed. By 1850 the small and medium sized revolvers all had the frame dished out to keep caps from hanging up on the trip from the hammer cut to the capping window. They also have a good bit more clearance between the frame and cylinder front and rear. This was probably in response to the immediate accumulation of fouling in the tight places causing early sluggish function. Note the barrel extends back on later revolvers and the cylinder is not butt up against the front of the frame.

I would never suggest buying a Paterson as a happy-fun gun but its historic connections are interesting.

 

[sjohns]

I hear ya. I have always wanted one, but the prices are prohibitive, especially more so now that I realize that I have to work on it out of the box. I have seen Pietta copies with the 9 inch barrel as low as 199 from time to time.

I have wanted one so that I would have a copy of each design in my "collection".

I just don't want one of those "dammit" guns.

 

[Manyirons]

Know what ya mean! STILL arguing with this &%#$*@*&$% Double-Action Starr, It works, barely, and fitfully.

 

[Old Dragoon]

Manyirons,
S & S sales has Starr parts available. in their downloadable catalog here:
www.ssfirearms.com/download catalog.htm

Or you can send it to me and I'll fiddle with it.....LOL

 

[Manyirons]

Nah, its intrinsic (Big word for a hick!) to tha design, just not a happy carefree machine, certainly not what i had envisioned, woulda HATED takin this one to war!

 

[sjohns]

I have wanted to have a Paterson, a Starr and a Lemat so that I would have an example of each of those bps, but I hear many places that the copies are problematic.

 

[mec]

people seem a bit happier with the newer Starrs. Pietta rushed them out on the market and many didn't work The Lemat turns out a very accurate revolver with ignition issues with the shot barrel. I've had two and both were good quality but spare parts usually have to be back ordered - minimum two months from ital y. VTI and Taylor have managed to talk Pietta into sending parts but others have failed.

 

[Manyirons]

Mines newer, woulda HATED havin an OLD one. Kinda like ta shoot, tinkerins fine ifin ya wants to but when ya GOTS to, its classic PITA time ta me!

Prolly whys i's so likin my Rugers, cause, boom outta that box is worth tha few extra $ ta me. (Without waitin for it ta be worked over)

 

[mec]

I relieved the frame as mentioned then dug through my spare parts and found out that my extra mainsprings are much heavier than the one in the gun. The hammer still moves back a bit at firing but not enough to drop cap fragments down the hammer face. For the most part, cycling is smooth and I can get off two cylinders full before it gums up. Still getting about one misfire out of five and other problems remain.

One necessary thing seems to be to bridge the arbor hole in the cylinder with gun grease and spit in the area between the front of the cylinder and barrel after the first five shots. Actually a nice rendering of the revolver by Uberti and the parts are high quality. I suspect though that the originals weren't just a lot of fun to shoot either.