Do or don't? 1st gen Colt 45

[WinchesterAA]

My grandfather passed away and left me a nice old revolver.

It's marked Colt 45 on the barrel, PAT SEPT 19, 1871 on the receiver, the dates below that are hard to make out.

Serial number 199XXX which should be a 1901 manufacture date from what I've read.

Anywho, it's condition is fair. The bore isn't perfect, some pitting near the throat, the lands look good all the way down. The cylinder doesn't shift much more than a cheap taurus's would, but the gap between the face of the cylinder and the barrel when cocked seems a little big (a little less than 1mm eyeballing it)

I wouldn't ever sell this piece, but I would like to shoot it a few times.

Think that's a good idea? Tentatively I would only shoot light BP loads through it if anything.

 

[mec]

It usually works out alright but not always. The cylinder walls are thin as is the metallurgy. Sometimes you can even see little dimples inside the chamber under the notches. Hamilton Bowen- the custom pistol smith's custom pistol smith advises, (sic) " Have it checked out by a gunsmith and then Don't Shoot It Anyway!"

 

[Old Fuff]

An alternative to MEC's well-advised suggestion would be to have a new, modern cylinder fit to the revolver. Any alterations should be made to the cylinder, not the revolver. Then you can safely shoot it with modest loads, and always shift the original cylinder back when you want to.

Following World War Two, but before they reintroduced the Single Action Army, Colt did this to hundreds of older revolvers and had no problems.

 

[WinchesterAA]

Yeah, I was reading some of the threads you posted in discussing the fitted cylinders.

Would I send that to colt or try to find a Smith in Houston to do it?

If the latter, anyone have any recommendations?

 

[mec]

Picture in your mind.... Christie Gunworks. Gone and just about forgotten.

 

[rcmodel]

Colt won't touch it with a 10' pole.

Don't even bother asking them.

rc

 

[CraigC]

If you're in Houston you want to look up Alan Harton.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

The barrel/cylinder gap is a little less than 1mm? 1mm is roughly .039". That is way too big. Ideally the barrel/cylinder gap should be around .006-.008. If you are measuring correctly, I would not dream of firing a revolver with that large a barrel/cylinder gap. How are you measuring the gap? With the hammer down, you can insert feeler gauges between the rear of the barrel and the front of the cylinder. But .039 is way too big. Does the cylinder slop forward and back with the hammer down?

Regarding the bore, a little pitting in the bore is usually not a problem as long as the rifling is strong.

The SN range for 1900 was 192001 - 203000. That is where your SN falls. Coincidentally, 1900 was the first year Colt factory warrantied the SAA for Smokeless powder. So if everything were up to snuff, you could shoot it with light Smokeless loads.

But you need to have it checked out by someone who is familiar with Colts before you shoot it. Particularly that huge barrel/cylinder gap.

 

[mec]

If end-float is the problem as it usually is, the Colt bushing is replaceable. If you had a gunsmith fit a new cylinder he would be able to take care of it.

A lot of first generation SAs that have been used a bit are like this.

 

[eastbank]

i have a 1902 bisley in 38-40 wcf with a 4.75" barrel that has next to no finish,but tight as a drum that i shoot with lead bullets. i paired it up with my 1892 winchester in 38-40wcf and i am going to take them deer hunting this year, there is a small cut where the deer cross and the shot would be 40yds or less. i have killed two deer with one of my 44-40,s and with double lung shots they don,t go far. eastbank.

 

[Jim K]

A lot of those old guns have big b-c gaps because the forcing cones are eroded away and replacing a bushing won't fix that, only replacing the barrel will. Then a new cylinder can be fitted.

The problem is that today, SAA's bring big bucks as collectibles and doing a major rebuild just about destroys the collector value. The best thing the owner of a worn SAA can do is to either keep the gun as a collectible or sell it for its collector value and buy a new Colt, Ruger, or Colt clone to shoot.

Jim

 

[WinchesterAA]

@Driftwood: I measured with my eyeball. They're not super accurate, but being a little more precise, it's going to fall somewhere between 2 and 3 hundredths of an inch. Unfortunately my feeler gauges and such are still packed up in storage, so I'm a little limited at the moment. "Slop backward and forward" is how I would describe it with the hammer down. Also a little left/right slop, too. The rod that holds the cylinder in doesn't perfectly fit the holes that retain it.

I plan on giving Alan Harton a call sometime this week to see what he thinks, but I'm probably going to end up shadow-boxing it and buying something to scratch the itch this thing has given me.

I've never personally owned anything I would want to use black powder in, but now I want to =)


@Jim K: Ones I've seen on auction sights in better condition than mine are only pulling in a couple thousand or so. The fact that I now own something that people from at least 3 previous generations of me had a blast with is worth a bit more to me than that =)
I would like to give her a shoot or two, but I don't know that she's ready to come out of retirement.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

@Driftwood: I measured with my eyeball. They're not super accurate, but being a little more precise, it's going to fall somewhere between 2 and 3 hundredths of an inch. Unfortunately my feeler gauges and such are still packed up in storage, so I'm a little limited at the moment. "Slop backward and forward" is how I would describe it with the hammer down. Also a little left/right slop, too. The rod that holds the cylinder in doesn't perfectly fit the holes that retain it.

2 or 3 hundreths of an inch is .200 or .300. 1/4" is .250. So now you are talking about a B/C gap of about 1/4". You need to measure it a bit more accurately. Slop backwards and forwards is known as Endshake. You don't want much more than a few thousandths (.003 or .004) of endshake. You really need to have somebody who is familiar with these guns examine it before shooting it. Alan Horton sounds like a good choice.

 

[WinchesterAA]

Wait a minute...

One quarter inch is 0.25" which is 25 hundredths of an inch and 250 thousandths of an inch or something a little bigger than 6mm.

20 thousandths of an inch is somewhere a little south of half a milimeter.

I think your numbers are wrong. Where did you come up with the 6-8 thousandths number for the so called B/C gap? I know Colt was an absolute badass, but that tight of a tolerance back then would be magical, and make me like those old guys even more.

 

[9mmfan]

2 or 3 hundreths of an inch is .200 or .300.

It's been a while since I took a math class, but if I'm not mistaken, .200 or .300 would be two hundred thousandths or three hundred thousandths respectively. AKA two or three tenths. Two or three hundredths would be .02 or .03.

 

[mec]

Most revolver shooter would go looking for a gunsmith if the gap exceeded .005. One famous in-print guru used to say that anything over .003 was unacceptable.

I thought I remember that S&W allowed a .010 gap and this is what somebody said on the Pistol Smith board, "Smith Wesson's official spec used to be .003 to .010". I have seen new SW guns with gaps as wide as .015".

 

[WinchesterAA]

mec, I saw that too. I also found a discussion about shooting black powder and acceptable gaps were out to .04".

 

[Jim K]

A common pencil measures about .260 across the flats. I suggest that it is very unlikely that any revolver has a b-c gap you can put a pencil in.

FWIW, the folks who advocate extremely small b-c gaps may find out that firing can cause the gun to bind from the cylinder heating up. There is a reason most folks suggest a gap of .006" to .008".

Jim

 

[CraigC]

The problem is that today, SAA's bring big bucks as collectibles and doing a major rebuild just about destroys the collector value. The best thing the owner of a worn SAA can do is to either keep the gun as a collectible or sell it for its collector value and buy a new Colt, Ruger, or Colt clone to shoot.

Not all old Colt's are high dollar collectibles. Lots of them already have swapped parts and/or refinishing in their history. Plenty of old SAA's and Bisley's ready for a new lease on life with a little work. Shooting a new Colt or replica ain't nothing like an old Colt.

 

[eastbank]

i just took my 1902 colt bisley 38-40 out and used a auto feeler gage, it would just take the .013-330mm gage leaf, between the cylinder and barrel with the hammer fully down in the fired position. eastbank.

 

[WinchesterAA]

I think I just learned something.

found some posts by driftwood talking about how to measure bc gap.

cylinder forward, the gap is going to be between 3 and 5 thousandths.
endshake then is between 0.0251 and 0.0249, respectively. the maximum gap is 0.0254"

that is a pretty big gap... Lots of gas would escape.

 

[heycods]

I would have to try it, first round with gun around the corner of a substaintial building. Maby even with some mild black powder handloads

 

[rcflint]

Unfortunately a lot (most?) people who are not engineers, machinists, modelmakers, gunsmiths or such don't know the difference between 10ths, 100ths or 1000ths. Even if they use a feeler gage, they might misinterpret the decimal point.... Let a gunsmith look at the revolver.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

OK, I admit I had a bit of a brain fart. Yes, 2 or 3 hundredths is .020 or .030. I just wasn't thinking clearly.

Anyway, my favorite reference for the SAA is Jerry Kuhnhausen's book The Colt Single Action Revolvers Shop Manual, Volumes 1 & 2. In it he recommends a barrel/cylinder gap of .006 for jacketed bullets and .008 for lubed lead bullets. I have many single action revolvers; Colts, Rugers, and clones. The vast majority of them have b/c gaps of between .005 and .008. For some reason, many shooters seem to think that a wider b/c gap is preferable for Black Powder, believing that the increased fouling needs more clearance between barrel and cylinder. However my personal experience is that gaps of between .005 and .008 perform just fine with Black Powder cartridges.

In another book, The S&W Revolver Shop Manual, Kuhnhausen states that most modern S&W revolvers leave the factory with a gap of between .003 and .006. In this book, he states that for Smiths, a gap of .008 is considered max for good performance, and a gap of .005 or .006 is considered ideal. I have not gapped any of my modern Smiths, but I will measure a few over the weekend just to get a feel for what they are.

I can tell you that this old 38-40 Bisley Colt, made in 1909, has a gap of .008 and it shoots just fine with Black Powder.





This old S&W 44 Double Action, chambered for 44 Russian and made in 1881 is a bit worn. It has a pretty wide gap of .015, but it shoots just fine with Black Powder cartridges without any lead spitting.



If I had an old Colt with a gap of .013, and a reasonable amount of end shake, on the order of .003 or so, I would not hesitate to shoot it with Black Powder. However I do agree that the OP should have a gunsmith check out his old Colt before shooting it.