Rusted stuck 1858 Navy cylinder suggestions?

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J

Jenrick

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A friend of mine picked up an 1851 Navy cap and ball from Cabelas a while back to see if he liked BP shooting. Short answer was no. He offered to give me the pistol with the caveat, that he hadn't cleaned it since that last time he shot it. Well that turned out to have been almost a year that it sat and got rusty.

On the other hand it's a free pistol so why not check it out? The barrel is a candidate for replacement, but who knows it might clean up enough to work as a smooth bore after I get the rust out. The frame and internals are fine (surprisingly enough), though I did manage to break the loading lever latch. No biggie replacement part isn't that expensive.

The big issue is that the cylinder is frozen to the arbor. Hard frozen. I've tried pretty much everything I have in the garage to get it freed up. I'm hesitant to go with heat, as I don't want to mess up the frame. The cylinder is going to be a paperweight with the amount of rust it has in it, so that's not really an issue. I haven't grabbed it with a pipe wrench and a cheater bar yet, as I don't want to risk tweaking the frame if I don't have to.

Any suggestions you guys have would be appreciated.

-Jenrick
 
Check out electric rust removal. I have seen several threads on this. Removes rust not metal.
 
I'd try in the following order.

1. Two or three day soak in a can of good penetrating oil.

2. Tap, tap, tapping & whack whack whacking several times during the soak with a hard plastic mallet to jar it loose / shake more oil down the joint.

3. Boil it in boiling water for half an hour.

4. A small strap wrench to try to turn it.

5. Heat the cylinder smoking hot, but not cherry red!.
It won't hurt the frame if you don't turn it blue with a blow-torch!

6. Drill out the arbor and replace it.

rc
 
Last edited:
Free Up Rust

Kroil is the best penetrating oil I have ever found. However, in you situation I would try any good thin oil. Get whatever is cheapest. Now you definitely need to do this next part outside and away from anything flammable. Heat your oil to 140-160 degrees F. Then place the frame and cylinder it to soak. If you can keep it warm without over heating it and catching it on fire do so. If you can not, heat it and let it cool off. Try this cycle several times. The heating and cooling helps the oil creep in the gaps.

Next try bumping the cylinder and or the rod with a hammer buffered by a wooden shim. If you can ever get it to move even just a slight amount. You can work it back and forth to get the oil in to break it free.

Slow and steady with very little force is the way to go.
 
To break the cylinder loose, pad vise jaws with leather and clamp the cylinder tight. Then turn the frame by hand (no tools). Don't turn just one way, keep wiggling the frame back and forth. Chances are that both the barrel and cylinder will clean up good enough to shoot with no problems.

I have cleaned up revolvers that were a lot older (about a century older) and probably a lot more rusted than that repro Remington, and they ended up working fine.

Jim
 
I would try Evaporust. Just submerge the rusted parts completely so as to not have a "water line" show up. A friend bought a derelict WW2 Jeep that was exposed to the weather for 20+ years. The shift boot has rotted out so the rain filled up the manual transmission and floated out the gear lube. It was rusted solid. He filled the trans with Evaporust daily for about a week and was able to shift it and eventually drive it after resealing it to hold lube. Good stuff.
Joe
 
Jolly Rogers said:
I would try Evaporust. Just submerge the rusted parts completely so as to not have a "water line" show up. A friend bought a derelict WW2 Jeep that was exposed to the weather for 20+ years. The shift boot has rotted out so the rain filled up the manual transmission and floated out the gear lube. It was rusted solid. He filled the trans with Evaporust daily for about a week and was able to shift it and eventually drive it after resealing it to hold lube. Good stuff.
Joe
Click to expand...
Never tried it on a gun, but stuff is awesome on cast iron.
 
I've tried PB blaster, Kroil, and a couple of other penetrating oils with no luck. I've whacked it and clamped it in a vice to try to turn it with no luck. I have not tried Evaporust though. Any idea what it'll do the bluing? Not that it really matters just curious.

-Jenrick
 
Bluing is rust. (iron oxide in one form or another)

I would not expect bluing to survive anything that eats rust.

I was going to suggest soaking in white vinegar in my earlier post.

But everything in it will come out rust-free, colorless, and frosty silver after 24-48 hours, including the frame.

rc
 
Well I went ahead and went with Evaporust, put in in this afternoon. We'll see how it goes. Report to follow in 24 hours or so.

-Jenrick
 
OK, the cylinder is toast anyway, and so is the arbor. So disassemble the gun, taking out all the internal parts. Now look at the frame where the hammer fits and you will see the end of the arbor, locked in place with a small pin. Drill out the pin using a drill not too much larger than the pin. Now clamp the cylinder and unscrew it and the arbor together. If the arbor won't unscrew, then use a bigger drill at the back and drill out the arbor.

If you get the arbor out intact, you can probably drive it out of the cylinder; else you will have to replace the arbor, but that can get tricky as the factory cuts the slot for the wedge after the arbor is installed.

If you do get the arbor out intact, you can simply screw it back in; you might have to replace the pin with a slightly larger/longer one; you will have to file it down.

Jim
 
Since you say that the cylinder is trashed anyway, put it in a milling machine and CAREFULY mill a slot in the cylinder down to the arbor. Flip it over and do the same thing on the other side. The two halves of the cylinder will fall away from the arbor.

Shouldn't take but a couple of minutes if you mill the slots down the length of one of the charge holes where the metal will be thinnest.
 
Another good idea.

The problem with some of these ideas is that unless the OP or his friend has his own machine shop, it might cost more to free that cylinder than that old repro is worth.

Jim
 
1851 Navy, realized I put '58 in the title to late to change it.

Basically I'm in the gun for free, so I'm willing to spend somewhere under or around $50 to see if i can get it running again. So a can of Kroil or Evaporust is no biggie.

On the other hand the suggestions people have come up with are pretty cool, and show so good mechanical ingenuity.

-Jenrick
 
Electrolysis will almost certainly work but will likely remove the blue too. It's cheap and easy and gentle on the metal. Plenty of instructions on the interweb. I keep a tank going all the time now.
 
If you watch American Restoration you'll see that they use heat to free rusted parts. Someone mentioned heat earlier but it is worth repeating.
 
So in the first hour the bluing was gone. After about 48 hours total soaking, it's still stuck fast. It is completely de-rusted though. Going to try heating it this weekend.

-Jenrick
 
No joy on heat either. I think I'm going to just strip the barrel of the bluing as well, and rust brown the whole thing. Will make a pretty wall hanger.

-Jenrick
 
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