A story from the distant past

[Pulp]

Many years ago, mid '70's, I had permission to hunt some land along Cache Creek, south of Lawton OK. The night before I was in an OTASCO (remember those) store at Lawton and they had a brass framed Colt replica cap and ball revolver kit for real cheap. I bought it, took it to the in-laws house and put it together, but didn't work on the grips at all. They were about 1/2inch oversized in all directions and you could sand them to fit your hand. This was the first Colt style gun I owned. I did have a brass framed '58 that my brother had given me. The next morning, I drove out to the land, and while waiting for sunrise loaded up the gun.

While walking into the woods I saw a squirrel running along the ground. He stopped on the other side of a big cottonwood log, that the center had rotted out off. Kinda like looking through a tinhorn. I pulled out the Colt, drew a bead on his head and began squeezing. Something I had read about them shooting high popped into my head, so I lowered the barrel until I could no longer see the front sight, then squeezed off a round. When the smoke cleared I couldn't see the squirrel, so I walked around the log and there he was, minus the top of his head. Bullet went in his left ear and out the right.

So the best shot I ever made on a squirrel was the first shot I ever made from a Colt styled revolver.

That same gun later came apart on me. I'm not really sure what happened, I just know I pulled the trigger, there was an extremely loud BOOM, and I was standing there with a grip frame in my hand. The barrel, cylinder and arbor were all missing. It was after dark and I never found the pieces. I took the frame back to OTASCO and they gave me a new kit.

 

[Oldnamvet]

Chain fire??

 

[Indy4570]

my first colt replica , the first black powder gun of any kind I ever owned was a brass frame. It was about 35 years ago. I fired the gun often, never hunting with it though. I noticed the arbor was getting loose. it eventually became so loose that the gun was worthless. I have no recollection of the maker or the model. It has soured me on brass frame revolvers ever since.

 

[72coupe]

Pulp I can almost see your hunting spot from here.

 

[Pulp]

I really don't know if it was a chain fire or not. I've had a couple of those and know what they feel like. I suppose the bottom chamber could have fired and the force of that bullet hitting around the rammer could have caused the arbor pin to break.

 

[bigmouth]

In the 50's I was shooting my 1st 1849 Colt not knowing about lube over the loads & all 6 went off. Orig. of course for that time. 2 bullets went off on either side of the cyl., 1 down the barrel & 1 took on the shape of the rammer recess. There was absolutely no damage to the gun & I wouldn't expect any since each cyl. is designed to handle the pressure no matter where the bullets go. Sounds like crap metal in your case or accidental use of smokeless. Even at 9-10 yrs old, I'm a fast learner. Common sense told me to seal the cyls so I used Crisco.
Leaning from other people's mistakes is a virtue while learning from our own is not when their experiences can easily be found.
A pessimist is an optomist with experience.

 

[robhof]

I shot a squirrel a few yrs ago with my ROA, hunting deer during B/p season, carry the ROA for backup(legal in Ky). Walking back from my blind in the afternoon and this squirrel kept crossing in front of me, did a quick point and shoot and there lay a dead squirrel, guess I shoulda aimed, the fuzzy rat would have had a better chance, he was shot through the shoulders, only had back and hind legs for the pot. It usually takes 3 shots to hit a can point shooting, I guess it was the squirrels time.

 

[jmstevens2]

But the southern brass ones were not as strong as steel. Cool, but less sturdy.

 

[kBob]

The only muzzle loaders I had anything to do with around Lawton were 81mm and 4.2 inch bored. Most of my shooting involved breech loading 105mm, 155mm and 8 inch barreled arms though they did use a tiny bit of Black powder.

Although some round lead ball I picked up in creek beds and such did end up in a buddy'd lead pot. There were the lead shrapnel balls from the old 75mm French about anywhere that showed erosion on the compass corse areas. I used them for slingshot ammo as well.

The FA museum at the time was great for BP stuff as the then curator just piled whatever he had in the displays, unfortunately it was later modernized and interpetive displays took the place of a lot of interesting stuff. Also the new guy would not let me play with the Gatling so I lost interest in the museum.

WHen I had a chainfire with a brass "colt style" I just lost my cool. Haad the shakes for a few moments then checked everything out. lead smear on area around barrel wedge on left and smut everywhere but no actual damage. Have not neglected greasing top of ball since either.

-kBob

 

[Texas Moon]

My very first c&b was a CVA .44 1860 Army kit gun.
Like yours mine had the huge block of wood grip pieces that were to be worked down to what ever you wanted.
I assembled the metal pieces right away and cold blued them.
The grips took me a few days with a rat tail file to get down to where they looked semi normal.
In a big rush to get the thing running I took it out to the hunting property and loaded it up. I popped off several caps before I realized I had forgotten to clean the nipples out. They were still full of grease!
Got them cleaned out, recapped, and BOOM!
Gun shot like a champ. Very accurate although about 12" high from P.o.A.
Just a couple of shooting trips later, a good shooting buddy of mine fired it, and offered me twice what I'd paid for it on the spot.
It was GONE! LoL

 

[DrLaw]

OTASCO was around in 1870? I didn't know they were around then. I knew they were from some time ago, but not 1870.

Wow, what a story. Did you ever make the switch to a cartridge gun?

The Doc is out now.