Another 51 Navy Question

[eagle24]

I know the colt designs are more prone to percussion caps getting in places that cause problems, but is it a bigger issue with the .36's than .44's? I really seemed to have trouble getting the fired caps out of the way. I'm going to try some Tresso nipples with smaller touch holes and see if that helps.

 

[sundance44s]

I`ve got a 36 Navy ..Its only happened to me once , lock up over a cap fragment ..after it happening and ruining my day ,.I now shoot slow , twist my wrist to the right as I cock , and make sure the cap fragments fall on the ground . Its just something that is part of the Colt open top design .

 

[Im283]

twist my wrist to the right as I cock , and make sure the cap fragments fall on the ground

Thats the ticket alright.

My '58 Remmy seems to have much les of a problem in this regard. I am thinking it has to do with the slight angle the nipples sit at in the Remington cylinder.

 

[scrat]

Now not saying i want to go redesign the colt. When it really seems like a problem with the caps and nipple combination. However in what i see and deal with too. I would put some kind of little flapper that would rub against the cylinder so that parts of the spent caps would go over the flapper and off the gun.

 

[pohill]

I have a Colt Signature Series 1861 .36 Navy that for some reason spits out the spent caps like a semi-auto. It never ever jams. Does anyone else have a Colt Colt that does the same, or did I just get lucky with this gun?

 

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

I wonder if 'Wild Bill' ever had a problem with the caps on his .36? Anybody ever hear anything about that? I'm not talking about something somebody made up for a movie; I'm talking about in real life. Did anyone ever read or hear anything about something like that? I just wondered. Hell, they must have. The quality of the steel and the quality of the percussion caps are better today than they were back then.
My great Grandpa told me that when you bought cartridge rounds back then for a rifle, you had to look at each round carefully because the primers would be set crooked in some of them and some would be real loose and whatnot, and being waterproof the way they are today was pretty well out of the question.
I can still remember when the shotgun shells were greased and waxed paper instead of plastic like they are today. I remember when I was a little boy I would trail along with my daddy when he went squirrel hunting and I remember the plastic shells were just getting started good. Daddy told me about how sometimes he would buy a box of 12 guage and a lot of them wouldn't shoot right because they had gotten wet or whatever somewhere along the line....

 

[eagle24]

I know one thing for sure. I'd make the first shot a good one just in case.

 

[scrat]

Goc i wouldnt doubt it if its just the cheap quality of the caps on how they are made today. i mean you can take a primer for a rifle round and shoot it. The primer is fine. Pop it out besides the dent and burnt powder the shell itself is good. However today that thin shear piece of what colored aluminum foil they use is supposed to stay in one piece when your done shooting it. I tell you what my son had one of those cap guns. I took one of those caps to see if it would fit on one my colts nipples. Too bad it didnt because heck i would have tried that out next. im really tired of those things.

 

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

Well, knock on wood (my head) but I haven't really had a problem with cap fragments. I'vd had fragments fly off just like everyone has but I haven't had an action hang up. I thought I was going to one time for sure on the little '49 because I didn't see the spent cap after I had shot a squirrel, but it had fallen completely off onto the ground. Most of the time, at least for the most part, my cap's stay on and when I look at them they have burst into sort of a star shaped pattern.
I looked at an original LeMat one time year's ago at an antique shop down in the French Quarter in New Orleans. (not too many year's ago. I was still in the Merchant Marines then [that was after I was through with the Marine Corps] and the ship just happened to dock there) That LeMat had the biggest nipples on it I have ever seen on a blackpowder gun. I don't know what size they were but they were huge....

 

[pohill]

If I remember correctly, Wild Bill was saved by a cap not igniting. A couple soldiers had him pinned down on a barroom floor and one pointed a gun at his head and pulled the trigger but the cap didn't ignite. WB pulled his gun and killed them first.

 

[Steve499]

I had lots of trouble with cap fragments jamming up my Colt pocket navy (Uberti) replica. I had made all the modifications mec suggested in his book, Percussion Pistols and Revolvers, which helped, but didn't clear it up. I installed Ampco nipples next. More improvement but not fixed. Then I increased my hammer spring tension by shimming it and now it seems to be fine.

The problem I had was the cap being blown off the nipple as the hammer was blown slightly rearward by the charge. The cap then fell down between the hammer and frame and acted as a hammer block.

I'd suggest strengthening your hammer spring. If you can keep the hammer pressing the cap onto the nipple until you actually cock for the next shot, the flip technique will probably work. My trouble was that the cap was already in front of the hammer in the hammer cut of the frame as soon as the chamber fired and no flipping or other gyration I could go through would get it out.

 

[Pancho]

Steve499, Could you go into more detail about the shim you installed on your pocket navy?

 

[Steve499]

The shim I used was just a piece of heavy leather beveled at the bottom to fit the tapered opening between the spring and frame. When the hammer spring bends the leather at the top of the shim bends down onto the frame. The thickness at the bottom is what's adding tension but I thought it might stress the spring less when it's under tension if there was an even bend in what it's being forced against. I just backed the spring screw off a little, inserted the leather and tightened the screw back down which captured the leather's tapered lower end well enough that it hasn't shown any tendency to shift around.


I had attempted to strengthen it initially by adding a second piece of thin spring steel which I didn't remove when I added the shim. I think the shim alone would have done the trick, just would have to have been a smidge thicker.

 

[pohill]

I shimmed the mainspring in an 1851 Navy .36 in the same way and it works pretty well. I used a piece of broken mainspring for the shim.

 

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

Eagle, I expect that what they did back then to. The spent caps seem to fall off of the Colt a lot easier than they do the Remington. Like some of these guys were saying, I just flip the gun sideways a little and if they haven't already fallen off then they will then. The spent caps on the Remington seem to set there pretty good.
I know that when I clean them, lot's of times I will find tiny little colored fragments inside of the piece. I'm just lucky that so far no major fragments have fallen into the action and jammed it up.
I think that in addition to the the strength of the spring that it also has to do with what type and size nipples one is using and the type and size of the caps....

 

[Pancho]

A picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks Steve499 and Pohill

 

[Jim K]

The old cavalrymen learned to handle the problem by holding the gun back over the shoulder and shaking it as they cocked it so the fired cap fell out. They liked the Colt better than the top strap types because caps on the latter were harder to get out.

The "over the shoulder" habit became so ingrained that the cavalry kept using it with cartridge revolvers and even into WWII soldiers were trained to hold the .45 pistol pointed up and back, then brought down on the target. (I have never had a fired cap hang up a .45 auto, but there is always a first time!)

Jim