The Walker has arrived, and I have evil plans...

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

A buddy of mine had a buddy, and to make a long story short I am now the proud new owner of a CVA (Army San Marcos) Colt Walker reproduction- for a mere $180 including shipping. Mind you, it isn't perfect. The loading lever won't stay up- a failing common to this model. I wasn't unusual for the old-timers to tie a string around the barrel to hold the loading lever up! It also has a timing issue- the hand is too long, and if cocked vigorously the cylinder rotates a tad too far and doesn't lock up. The mainspring feels a little weak too. But no matter- I won't be using the loading lever and shortening the hand is pretty easy, not to mention that fabricating a new mainspring is pretty easy for me.

I have evil plans for this gun... like converting it to to fire cartridges. Not .45 Colt mind you, as a sane person would do. Oh no. It turns out an old buddy of mine has also turned to gunsmithing as a hobby and has accumulated a wealth of chamber-reamers. How does .45-60 sound? See, the Walker originally used a 60gr. load of black powder, and it had an iron cylinder. This gun has a modern steel cylinder, and in fact you cannot stuff enough black powder in it to blow it up by accident. I figure to use a load of Blackhorn 209 equivalent to 55-60 grains of BP. With the right bullet this will give around 500+ f/p of energy at the muzzle...

It won't be a true .45-60 of course; the original cartridge had a .458 bore and this gun has a .452- .454 bore (I'll need to slug it and see.) Rather than original brass the plan is to shorten .460 S&W slightly- maybe .100- .120"- and use a 200gr bullet. If my math is correct this will yield in the neighborhood of 1250 fps. It would be higher, but who are you talking to here? Of course I am going to shorten the barrel! haven't decided exactly how much yet, but mugawd this is a big gun...

No, I have not totally taken leave of my senses- conversions like this have been done before in .45 BPM, .45 Walker and .45-60-225. This works out well enough even with the open-top construction because the cylinder-axis post is .571" in diameter. It's beefy. It's also steel- the originals were iron, and they stood up to heavy loads for decades, so I am pretty confident it will be fine.

What I haven't decided is what route to go on the conversion. The easiest would be to get a Kirst Gated conversion. Second would be to turn and bore the existing cylinder and make a base-plate with a simple pass-through for the cartridges. Lastly would be to fabricate a brand-new cylinder from 4140 and do a long-cylinder conversion with no baseplate. That might come out something like this if I were to finish it in London Gray-


Whichever route I decide to go it's going to be FUN.

 

[adcoch1]

So incredibly cool... The kirst would be easy, but so many of your toys are amazing from taking the road less traveled.. Can't wait to see what you decide!

 

[BobWright]

Life's too short to shoot ordinary guns! I like your approach.

Bob Wright

 

[RPRNY]

The Black Powder Magnum. 460 S&W case and 60 grs 3F.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45_Black_Powder_Magnum

 

[entropy]

This is gonna be good!

 

[bannockburn]

Tinker

Keep us posted on the progress of your new hand cannon build!

 

[ArchAngelCD]

This sounds like it's going to be a "blast"! lol

I look forward to seeing the progress and completed project. This might be your best so far.

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

Screwed off a bit this morning when I should have been working. Completely dismantled the gun, shortened the hand and got the timing issue pretty well sorted. Also shortened the barrel, re-crowned it, removed the CVA and Italian markings applied a temporary finish to protect the gun. Cleaned the hell out of everything and put it back together. The barrel is now 3-1/2" and the gun still weighs 58 ounces!

I'm still considering London Gray for the final finish but you never know.

 

[horsemen61]

Op very nice!

 

[Officers'Wife]

That sir is bordering on blasphemy. I fear for your fate on judgment day when St Peter refers you to St. Sam Colt and St John Browning.

OK, I'm kidding, interesting concept but if you are going to do why not do it right and extend the frame enough to go with the venerable 45-70?

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

That sir is bordering on blasphemy. I fear for your fate on judgment day when St Peter refers you to St. Sam Colt and St John Browning.

OK, I'm kidding, interesting concept but if you are going to do why not do it right and extend the frame enough to go with the venerable 45-70?

That would mean not only extending the frame but also turning a new cylinder post. Frankly I am not certain the open-top configuration would handle it for very long, but I know it's up to the job with .45-60.

 

[45 Dragoon]

Make sure you correct the "too short arbor" problem. I would opt for a modern made cylinder rather than the original (questionable) cyl.
You make Walker springs?

Mike

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

Make sure you correct the "too short arbor" problem. I would opt for a modern made cylinder rather than the original (questionable) cyl.
You make Walker springs?

Mike

I can, but more likely I'll just tweak and re-heat treat and temper this one if it turns out I need to.

OK, I'll bite- what is the 'Too short arbor' problem?

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

If you are not familiar with cap-and-ball revolvers the loading lever is also a disassembly tool. You lower the hammer between cylinders, remove the wedge and use the loading lever to push the barrel off the cylinder post.
Having taken this gun apart and put it back together several times today, each time removing the loading-lever screw to put the lever in place I looked at it and thought, Duh! Two quick saw cuts and a few seconds of grinding and the mounting hole became a hook. Now you just slide the ram in place, hook the loading lever over the screw and Bob's Your Uncle.
This would of course work equally well for loading the cylinder if I intended to keep this a cap-and-ball gun.

 

[the Black Spot]

Drooling

 

[45 Dragoon]

Michael,
The arbor is supposed to bottom out in the arbor hole. Basically all Walkers, Dragoons, most other Armys,Navys by all manufacturers have arbors that don't reach the end of the arbor hole. The easiest way to check it is to drop a washer in the hole and assemble. If you can, you need another washer . . . The arbor length is what dictates the barrel/ cylinder clearance. The wedge is just to hold the assemblies together under tension, not to "adjust" the bbl/cyl clearance. If this isn't corrected, the Walker (or whatever) will slowly beat itself to death. The original open tops were built correctly (of course they were!!) the Italians found it easier to omit this step. Pietta has corrected this for several years now (maybe 2010?). I set all my bbl/cyl clearances to .0025"-.003". It makes for a clean shooting, long lasting (cause it won't beat itself up!) open top revolver. This allows you to shoot 60gr. Trip.7 charges or max charges and heavy bullets (hunters) all day, every day.

Mike

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

Michael,
The arbor is supposed to bottom out in the arbor hole. Basically all Walkers, Dragoons, most other Armys,Navys by all manufacturers have arbors that don't reach the end of the arbor hole. The easiest way to check it is to drop a washer in the hole and assemble. If you can, you need another washer . . . The arbor length is what dictates the barrel/ cylinder clearance. The wedge is just to hold the assemblies together under tension, not to "adjust" the bbl/cyl clearance. If this isn't corrected, the Walker (or whatever) will slowly beat itself to death. The original open tops were built correctly (of course they were!!) the Italians found it easier to omit this step. Pietta has corrected this for several years now (maybe 2010?). I set all my bbl/cyl clearances to .0025"-.003". It makes for a clean shooting, long lasting (cause it won't beat itself up!) open top revolver. This allows you to shoot 60gr. Trip.7 charges or max charges and heavy bullets (hunters) all day, every day.

Mike

Thanks for explaining that Mike! I'll check for that and fix it if need be. My C&B days were a good 35 years ago, and with no internet I guess I missed out on a lot.

 

[Malamute]

If you have any more problems with the cylinder bypassing the locking bolt, keep in mind that the Walkers and early Dragoon models had oval locking slots, which was changed to the squared ones with a leade into the notch, presumably because of this issue. A stiffer locking bolt spring may help if it overrides the notch again. 45 Dragoon would know more specifics I'm sure.

Looks like a fun project. Looking forward to see how it all comes out.

 

[Mn Fats]

I've been enjoying your projects since post one. I gotta ask, is snub style bp revolvers your main focus these days? I sure appreciate your craftsmanship and don't mean to take anything away from this thread but I'd love to see some long/original barrel projects from a talent such as yourself. Anyways, thanks for the eye candy.

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

I've been enjoying your projects since post one. I gotta ask, is snub style bp revolvers your main focus these days? I sure appreciate your craftsmanship and don't mean to take anything away from this thread but I'd love to see some long/original barrel projects from a talent such as yourself. Anyways, thanks for the eye candy.

It sure seems to be working out that way, doesn't it? There are a pair of S&W Hand Ejectors I rehabilitated that still sport their original barrel-length (4 & 6-1/2") but for the most part I do shorten them. Partly that's because I just love the look of a short-barreled revolver; it just seems to balance better visually on the particular guns I have been working on. The other thing is these days I'm finding my eyes just work better with a short sight radius. I need to switch to bifocals this year, then we'll see how things go.

This is a monster of a gun- weighed about 4-1/2 pounds with the stock barrel length. That's a lot of weight to hang out there at the end of your arms. I was going to go 5-1/2" but couldn't make myself love the looks. I did some math and figured out that with the loads I plan to use I won't lose an unacceptable amount of grunt by shaving the extra two inches. The gun lost 3/4 of a pound by shortening the barrel, which helps. What helps more is the gun's moment arm is reduced, making it feel a lot handier and quicker in the hand. That seemed important in a gun that will likely be going into the pucker-brush with me this fall (I've got the opening weekend of deer season locked down on a friend's property near Chehalis) and a shorter, handier gun is called for in some of the terrain.

What I won't be doing on this gun is modifying the shape of the grips. Walker and Colt got this one right; it's a perfect shape for hanging a heavy gun out at the end of your arm. I've been mulling over a future project that would involve, among other things, putting this shape and size of grip-frame on a Blackhawk with a longer barrel.

 

[LonesomePigeon]

Modern repro Walker's have exploded. Here is a thread: http://1858remington.com/discuss/index.php?topic=7700.0

 

[Mn Fats]

I've been mulling over a future project that would involve, among other things, putting this shape and size of grip-frame on a Blackhawk with a longer barrel.

That would be very cool, especially with a dragoon trigger guard like on the SBH.

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

Modern repro Walker's have exploded. Here is a thread: http://1858remington.com/discuss/index.php?topic=7700.0

Thanks for posting that- definitely food for thought, and kinda' makes me lean towards the Kirst Conversion. This definitely adds an additional layer of caution to my thoughts about load-testing...

 

[Blacksmoke]

Your plan sounds most interesting and please keep us current on your progress.

I had a Colt Heritage Walker which I really enjoyed. It seemed to shot best with 40 to 45 grains. While it handled 60 grains, I could never quite get the ball where I wanted it. Perhaps with a conical bullet and the right powder you will have more accuracy and better shooting?

 

[Michael Tinker Pearce]

Your plan sounds most interesting and please keep us current on your progress.

I had a Colt Heritage Walker which I really enjoyed. It seemed to shot best with 40 to 45 grains. While it handled 60 grains, I could never quite get the ball where I wanted it. Perhaps with a conical bullet and the right powder you will have more accuracy and better shooting?

I hope so; others have had good luck with similar conversions. .45 Walker, .45-60-225 and .45 BPM have all yielded good results using bullets ranging from 185-255 grains.