I’ve decided on my third black powder gun

Russell13 said:

I was looking up the different scrolling patterns on the Colt revolvers and I found out that one of the main reasons they have "engraving (?)" is to prevent people from selling fake ones. So if you saw the cylinder with the engravings you knew you had a real colt. Not sure how true that is but it seems logical.

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It is true that Colt engraved the cylinders from the 1836 Paterson all the way through the 1862 Pocket Police/Pocket Navy. It was basically his "signature" that it was a Colt gun. Even the somewhat look-a-like revolvers of the period (Manhattan, Metropolitan, et al) had plain or different cylinder rollmarks.

To my knowledge, the only Colt cylinders that were not rollmarked were the 1860 Army full-fluted cylinders. None of the Confederate "copies" of the Colt 1851 Navy had rollmarked cylinders (Schneider & Glassick, Leech & Rigdon, Rigdon & Ansley, Augusta Machine Works, Columbus Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, Griswold & Gunnison, J.H. Dance & Brothers, and L.E. Tucker & Sons). It was cheaper for the Confederate gunmakers to eliminate that aspect, and it was also cheaper to produce a part round/part octagonal barrel as opposed to a full octagonal barrel as found on the Colt 1851 Navy.

My replica 1862 Dance .36 and Rigdon & Ansley .36. No apologies for the Confederate Battle flag as it represents that era of the ACW.



Regards,

Jim

expat_alaska said:

It is true that Colt engraved the cylinders from the 1836 Paterson all the way through the 1862 Pocket Police/Pocket Navy. It was basically his "signature" that it was a Colt gun. Even the somewhat look-a-like revolvers of the period (Manhattan, Metropolitan, et al) had plain or different cylinder rollmarks.

To my knowledge, the only Colt cylinders that were not rollmarked were the 1860 Army full-fluted cylinders. None of the Confederate "copies" of the Colt 1851 Navy had rollmarked cylinders (Schneider & Glassick, Leech & Rigdon, Rigdon & Ansley, Augusta Machine Works, Columbus Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, Griswold & Gunnison, J.H. Dance & Brothers, and L.E. Tucker & Sons). It was cheaper for the Confederate gunmakers to eliminate that aspect, and it was also cheaper to produce a part round/part octagonal barrel as opposed to a full octagonal barrel as found on the Colt 1851 Navy.

My replica 1862 Dance .36 and Rigdon & Ansley .36. No apologies for the Confederate Battle flag as it represents that era of the ACW.

View attachment 926176

Regards,

Jim

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I never figured you had anything to do with the wrongs of that era nor supported the same anyway... purty pistols too!

The date code is on the bottom of the can

I believe 75NO19B = Manufactured in 1975 on November 19th "B" (second) shift

I'll have to look at my cans - have about 6 or 7 left down in the basement. At one time I ordered 25 to save on the hazmat fee. I still have four Remington revolvers and one revolving carbine. It's what everyone shot in competition at Friendship on the pistol line. You'd never see a Colt, so Remijngtons are what I always bought. I could never get use to the back sight being in the top of the hammer. That slot going over the cylinder just seemed better. That, and I always thought the enclosed frame over the cylinder seemed stronger, right or wrong. The Colts do look nice.

Im in the mind frame that colts with their thicker arbors that bottom out on the barrel and have a tight fit with the wedge are stronger than a thin top strap and thin arbor. Although that is just my observation of things. Ive had other gun smiths tell me the same but i dont argue my point of view/opinion since i dont know for a fact and could very well be wrong. Im not sure if tests have even been done. I think it would have been awesome had remington used a large colt type arbor. As far as using the hammer to aim some folks (even back in the 1850s and later) would shave down the hammer notch and place a rear sight on the barrel near the forcing cone. This im sure made it far easier to aim. As a matter of fact im considering doing it to one of my guns.

Russell13 said:

I noticed on my Walker if I put the wedge in too tight the action won’t move. I have to back it out to find the sweet spot.

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That means that the arbor fit is wrong and the arbor is not bottoming on the arbor recess. You need shims at the very least in the arbor hole. That's the easiest way to correct the problem, but there are many ways to to remedy it but are more spendy and will leave your revolver in a not original state. Remove the wedge, move the barrel off the frame pins, rotate the barrel several degrees, reinstall orienting the barrel to the frame. If the barrel lug is located rear of the frame, you have a short arbor/arbor recess issue. There is no way that adjusting the fit of the barrel to the cylinder by way of adjusting the wedge for barrel/cylinder gap will work. If you think so, you will have to do so every time you take the revolver down for cleaning and re-assemble it using a feeler gauge for the B/C gap.

Regards,

Jim

Common Uberti problem.

By all means shim the arbor.
But until then, a Dollar bill can be used as a crude gap measure.
The spec's indicate that it's .0043 thick, and it can also be folded over to see if the gap is twice as large.
Some used to say that a Dollar bill measured .003 but maybe those were old or worn.

That is good indication the arbor is short, it's especially important on the big walker to correct the length. It can and will attempt to destroy itself with the heavy loads the walker is capable of. Mine did and a fellow shooter had to retire his after making a half dozen wedges. Fix it now and save yourself some aggravation. Once corrected there will be no change in barrel to cylinder gap when the wedge is tapped into place.

Ive seen a few guns where the arbor didnt bottom out and they would drive the wedge in tight and move it out barely so that the cylinder would rotate...but while cycling the gun the pressure from the hand pushing the cylinder forward and the barrel to cylinder face would rub up against eachother with enough force that it eventually wore part of the cylinder face and forcing cone barrel entrance so it no longer was perfectly straight and flat. Ruined both cylinder face and forcing cone/barrel face. So im always careful to lighten the spring pressure of the hand pressing the cylinder forward and i set all my guns to have a .0025-.003 gap. Ive noticed this is the sweet spot for cylinder gap

Push the cylinder back to seperate the cylinder from the barrel, thats how you measure the gap. Best to use feeler guage...theyre best. If you have no gap then you need to shim the arbor hole a bit. You can use a 3/8ths (or a lil larger) punch to punch out some thin disks from aluminum soda can...stack them in the arbor hole till you get a gap close to what you want. Its a temp fix (can be used permanently) so you can figure out how large of a shim/washer you need.

Back in the late 1980's I tried to buy one, that was when they had a back log of orders for that particular revolver.
In its stead I bought a 1860 cased set instead.
I never did buy one.
Some time 1994/1995 I had a coworker that was really big into black powder and his close friend (nick named carrot top) had a walker replica (cabelas) they borrowed my Dixie Gunworks 45/70 bullet mold.
They said the had scrounged up lead and were casting bullets for that Walker Clone.
A few weeks pass by and Carrot Top comes stops the hanger looking for a Dixie Gun Works parts catalog (mine) as he blew off a third of the barrels muzzle (wedge shaped portion) flew off into the willows when firing a few .457" round balls.
So I guess you can load a rather large conical bullet in the Walker Colt over a good ammount of black powder it would have nothing to do with barrel failure?

The .45-70 lead bullet is traditionally 405 grains and is a much too long slug to be loaded in any Colt .44 revolver cylinder, to include the Walker, with sufficient BP to propel it at any velocity to justify using such a large chunk of lead. Even the Trapdoor Springfield carbine used a reduced 55 grain BP charge behind a 405 grain slug, and the .45-70 is a cartridge, not a loose powder/bullet in a chamber. Modern .45-70 bullets are as light as 300 grains, and that is still much heavier than the original pickett bullet meant for the original Walkers. It would take a large amount of BP to even justify the muzzle velocity.

Even if the Walker is a modern repro, it still does not have enough steel around the charge compared to a Trapdoor or any other .45-70 rifle.

If you want a rifle load, use a rifle.

IMO, it is pure folly to even consider loading a Walker in that manner.

Regards,

Jim

Russell 3, I have TC hot shot nipples in my Walker. I have yet to have a cap jam. I also used a screw in the end of the arbor on mine. I drilled and tapped it for an 8/32 screw and filed and fitted till I got my barrel cylinder gap where I wanted it. Was a tedious process but worth it.

I read interesting website page on Hollywood westerns. It detailed how Eastwood carried two fake rubber Walkers in Josey Wales. Real guns were substituted in scenes where he took them out to shoot. I have a Walker (now defarbed). Pleasant to hold and shoot but no way would I carry it around on a belt holster all day. Almost nobody did that in the 1800s either with any Dragoon.

Back to that website (I forget where it is located). Hollywood movie and TV studios were concerned about safety in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's, almost no actor was allowed to carry their own private guns onto the studio lot.

All guns fired the same ammo. The Starline 5 in 1 blank cartridges (which are still made today). It was advertised to fit 'five calibers': rifle 38-40, 44-40, and pistol 38-40, 44-40, 45 LC. They looked different than normal cartridges and every actor in a scene loaded their guns from the same studio ammo. Safety was the reason. Later versions of the 5 in 1 would also fit 44 special and .44 magnum.

Astonishingly (to me) that site detailed how the studios hired gunsmiths to convert Winchester 92's and to look like Kentucky rifles, trapdoor Springfields to look like matchlocks, and Colt SAA's were converted to look like modern double action revolvers. It all sounded surreal and unbelievable to me. It said things changed with the spaghetti Westerns in the early '60s, a wider variety of weapons were now allowed and widely used. Everything was different from then on.