A quick, not necessarily brief, review of my new 36 caliber steel frame Pietta 1851 Navy bought from Cabela's a few weeks ago. Pics and targets to follow in the next couple of days.
I disassembled and cleaned up my new 36 cal Pietta 1851 Navy the other day and replaced the factory flat bolt spring with a Wolff - EMF 32297 wire bolt spring. A fellow on another board received the same gun with a broken trigger spring. I figured I'd order some spares just in case.
Manipulating the gun before cleaning and bolt spring replacement, I noticed the timing was a little off. I think the new spring and wiping all the gunk off the internals of the revolver cleaned up the action. There was a sharp edge where hand spring connects to the hand. I buffed that on some 3M 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper then checked the bolt for fit on the cylinder locking notches. One of the notches seemed a little extra tight. Did a couple of swipes of the bolt on the same sandpaper.
I put a dab of T/C Bore Butter on the arbor (cylinder pin) as I find that helps my other Pietta 1860 Army revolvers run longer / smoother. I also tightened each nipple - maybe a 1/4 of a turn and reassembled the gun.
Yesterday / Thursday we had a boat trip planned on Bull Shoals lake at 930am. I got up early and did a little shooting at my backyard gong at 7am. I still need to cut some wads and only planned to test fire the gun with a couple cylinders for function.
A couple years ago an older friend of mine gave me a 1/3 full can of Goex FFFg powder. A month or 2 ago he gave me his old powder horn that was full of another 1/3 of the same Goex powder from 1985.
I have 2 powder flasks, 1 is brass with a 30gr spout that is filled with Graf's Schuetzen FFFg (from January) the other flask is plastic and has a 20gr spout that I loaded with the 1985 Goex FFFg.
Getting on to shooting...
I fired off 2 cylinders of caps - goal being to clear the nipples which I neglected to inspect and clean.
For the 1st cylinder of the day I started with 5 chambers with 20gr of Goex and 1 chamber with 30gr of Graf's. I used .375 diameter Hornady ball and Remington #10 caps. I put T/C bore butter on top of 20gr ball loaded chambers. I really just wanted to do a quick test fire of 1 or 2 cylinders.
In the very 1st cylinder, I had one misfire. The cap went off but the main load didn't (pop but no boom) w/ one of the 20gr Goex chambers. It fired with a 2nd cap (I blame not cleaning the nipples / chambers). The 30 gr chamber fired with authority. The 20gr loads were mouse farts in comparison.
I fired the next 6 cylinders using 30gr of Graf's FFFg which created a nice cloud of smoke and made my gong move nicely. 30 grains fills the chamber to mouth. Pressing a ball on top of the powder required a little extra effort but I like the idea of standardizing to 1 powder flask. This being a steel framed gun it should handle the full powder loads just fine.
I will see how both charges do on paper either Friday or Saturday. I'll probably wind up buying another powder flask and cutting the nozzle to 25gr to 28gr to allow room for a wad and make loading easier.
I do note the hammer on this 1851 really sucks caps if the action is manipulated slowly. Brisk manipulation of the hammer and a little shake here and there had the caps falling off nicely. My pair of Pietta 44 1860 Army Colt hammers don't suck caps like this 1851 Navy does.
Another minor point, the rear hammer sight is even smaller than my 1860 hammer sights. May widen that in the future.
Overall - black powder is fun and the 51 Navy seems to shoot well so far.
I disassembled and cleaned up my new 36 cal Pietta 1851 Navy the other day and replaced the factory flat bolt spring with a Wolff - EMF 32297 wire bolt spring. A fellow on another board received the same gun with a broken trigger spring. I figured I'd order some spares just in case.
Manipulating the gun before cleaning and bolt spring replacement, I noticed the timing was a little off. I think the new spring and wiping all the gunk off the internals of the revolver cleaned up the action. There was a sharp edge where hand spring connects to the hand. I buffed that on some 3M 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper then checked the bolt for fit on the cylinder locking notches. One of the notches seemed a little extra tight. Did a couple of swipes of the bolt on the same sandpaper.
I put a dab of T/C Bore Butter on the arbor (cylinder pin) as I find that helps my other Pietta 1860 Army revolvers run longer / smoother. I also tightened each nipple - maybe a 1/4 of a turn and reassembled the gun.
Yesterday / Thursday we had a boat trip planned on Bull Shoals lake at 930am. I got up early and did a little shooting at my backyard gong at 7am. I still need to cut some wads and only planned to test fire the gun with a couple cylinders for function.
A couple years ago an older friend of mine gave me a 1/3 full can of Goex FFFg powder. A month or 2 ago he gave me his old powder horn that was full of another 1/3 of the same Goex powder from 1985.
I have 2 powder flasks, 1 is brass with a 30gr spout that is filled with Graf's Schuetzen FFFg (from January) the other flask is plastic and has a 20gr spout that I loaded with the 1985 Goex FFFg.
Getting on to shooting...
I fired off 2 cylinders of caps - goal being to clear the nipples which I neglected to inspect and clean.
For the 1st cylinder of the day I started with 5 chambers with 20gr of Goex and 1 chamber with 30gr of Graf's. I used .375 diameter Hornady ball and Remington #10 caps. I put T/C bore butter on top of 20gr ball loaded chambers. I really just wanted to do a quick test fire of 1 or 2 cylinders.
In the very 1st cylinder, I had one misfire. The cap went off but the main load didn't (pop but no boom) w/ one of the 20gr Goex chambers. It fired with a 2nd cap (I blame not cleaning the nipples / chambers). The 30 gr chamber fired with authority. The 20gr loads were mouse farts in comparison.
I fired the next 6 cylinders using 30gr of Graf's FFFg which created a nice cloud of smoke and made my gong move nicely. 30 grains fills the chamber to mouth. Pressing a ball on top of the powder required a little extra effort but I like the idea of standardizing to 1 powder flask. This being a steel framed gun it should handle the full powder loads just fine.
I will see how both charges do on paper either Friday or Saturday. I'll probably wind up buying another powder flask and cutting the nozzle to 25gr to 28gr to allow room for a wad and make loading easier.
I do note the hammer on this 1851 really sucks caps if the action is manipulated slowly. Brisk manipulation of the hammer and a little shake here and there had the caps falling off nicely. My pair of Pietta 44 1860 Army Colt hammers don't suck caps like this 1851 Navy does.
Another minor point, the rear hammer sight is even smaller than my 1860 hammer sights. May widen that in the future.
Overall - black powder is fun and the 51 Navy seems to shoot well so far.
