EnsignJimmy
Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 122
That describes this Colt 1878 double-action revolver (S/N 233XX, made in 1889.) I've had it for about a year and half now. Bought it for $855 as a shooter (since some previous owner had thoughtfully elected to have it entirely refinished. A nice job, to be sure, but one that about killed the gun's collector's value.)
Cylinder and barrel were dirty with fouling when I got it. The kind of fouling that can only come from small charges of smokeless powder wandering around cavernous .45 Colt cases. Yet, lockup was tight with a bit of cylinder end-shake (with a bit of throw-by, where the gun locked up a little past the 12-o-clock position.) The base pin turned out to be a slightly undersize Uberti pin (which turned out to have a tendency to jump under the recoil of proper black powder rounds.)
Loading proper black powder cartridges indicated the gun was remarkably accurate in spite of this (not to mention a lot of fun. A 255 grain conical headed downrange at nearly 940 ft/sec with a big cloud of smoke behind it gets attention.) I felt I could do better, so the cylinder pin was replaced with a well-fitted one from Belt Mountain and the cylinder bushing (once I paid a local shop $25 to get the old one out for me,) was replaced with a cut-down single-action cylinder bushing, fitted to eliminate the end-shake. Gun fired fine with those two simple fixes, but still had the throw-by. Examination of the hand revealed the problem. The top of the hand was worn just enough that it had to go just a little further to attain full lockup.
A hundred bucks got me a new hand which required lots of fitting (and an almost complete disassembly of the gun to get the old one out.) I've got much respect for the gun makers of old, who did this with tiny files and lots of patience. But now, I've got a Colt 1878 which locks up tight when it's supposed to. Now to go load up some more black powder rounds.
Cylinder and barrel were dirty with fouling when I got it. The kind of fouling that can only come from small charges of smokeless powder wandering around cavernous .45 Colt cases. Yet, lockup was tight with a bit of cylinder end-shake (with a bit of throw-by, where the gun locked up a little past the 12-o-clock position.) The base pin turned out to be a slightly undersize Uberti pin (which turned out to have a tendency to jump under the recoil of proper black powder rounds.)
Loading proper black powder cartridges indicated the gun was remarkably accurate in spite of this (not to mention a lot of fun. A 255 grain conical headed downrange at nearly 940 ft/sec with a big cloud of smoke behind it gets attention.) I felt I could do better, so the cylinder pin was replaced with a well-fitted one from Belt Mountain and the cylinder bushing (once I paid a local shop $25 to get the old one out for me,) was replaced with a cut-down single-action cylinder bushing, fitted to eliminate the end-shake. Gun fired fine with those two simple fixes, but still had the throw-by. Examination of the hand revealed the problem. The top of the hand was worn just enough that it had to go just a little further to attain full lockup.
A hundred bucks got me a new hand which required lots of fitting (and an almost complete disassembly of the gun to get the old one out.) I've got much respect for the gun makers of old, who did this with tiny files and lots of patience. But now, I've got a Colt 1878 which locks up tight when it's supposed to. Now to go load up some more black powder rounds.