Double build: .44 Remington and .22 Remmy conversion

[Lunie]

Looks like your project is coming along nicely Levi! Keeps the pics coming.

You never realize how useful it is until you have one.

LIES! :banghead:

I can't count how many times I've thought or said "I wish I had a lathe for xxxxxxxx." And a vertical mill. And a surface grinder. And sundry other machine tools. And a place to put them.

Come to think of it, I just need to buy out a machine shop!

 

[Jaymo]

I don't know about Levi, but I have a 7x12 Chinese mini lathe, an Atlas 10x36 lathe, a Chinese mill/drill, a Benchmaster milling machine, and an Atlas 7" metal shaper.
I'd love to have a small surface grinder. I forget the size, but the smallest of the common surface grinders (a design that I've seen made by many mfrs) would do just fine, for me.
One of my customers has a Chevalier CNC surface grinder that gives me serious machine envy.
You should see their ultrasonic cleaners. Big, and heated. You could clean a bunch of rifles in one.

 

[Busyhands94]

I've got a Central Machinery mini lath. It's a good one!

I don't know if I've ever addressed this but the reason why they call me Busyhands is because I'm always building something. Folks get the wrong idea. I think sometime I'll to a tour of my machine shop I set up, I have to clean it. Sadly it's my storage area, that means a big fat mess.

I'll be sleeving the rest of the chambers today and possibly cutting a port. It's not for loading cartridges, I just like to use a capper and get a running start! The fact that cartridges slide in there is just a coincidence. Or maybe the scalloped part just needs to be a little bigger so my big fingers can get in there.

~Levi

 

[Busyhands94]

Finished!

Done! I finished the conversion, now I've got a nice little .22 caliber six shooter! Life is good!

Checked the timing, it's good. All the chambers line up fine and we've got positive ignition on all chambers. I fired a couple cylinders of Aguila Super Colibri and some Mini Mags in my indoor range, very fun! It grouped well on the soup can I was shooting at, I think we have a winner!



So a lot of sweat, blood, and four letter words later and I've got a neat little .22. Next step is the blackpowder cylinder. That will be awesome. I still have some fit and finish things to take care of, but I'll be getting that done soon enough. I widened the scallop in the recoil shield, my fat thumb has a hard time capping the cylinder. Sadly .22's won't chamber without the cylinder being removed, but oh well. I have several guns that need the cylinder removed for loading. It's no biggy.

I suspect with the length it is I could get at least ten, maybe 15 grains of Triple Seven FFFG under that bullet. That could get pretty fast, I'd imagine at the very least 1000+ FPS.

Stay tuned for my next build. A .44 pietta steel framed Remington.

Keep your powder dry and your eyes on target!
~Levi

 

[Busyhands94]

P.S. sorry that my camera is horrible.

 

[Jaymo]

Did you thread the barrel and screw it in, or did you press/pin it in?

 

[Busyhands94]

I pinned it in. What I did was drill a hole through the frame and cut a notch in the barrel. After that I put a pin in there, peened it in place, and sanded it smooth.

~Levi

 

[1KPerDay]

Cool. I could use some more details on how you did the actual cylinder sleeving or whatever, making sure it's all centered, etc.

 

[Busyhands94]

I turned down some barrel, reamed out the rifling, bored out the cylinder, sanded the liners and the inside of the cylinder until everything fit well, silver soldered them in place, then chambered the cylinder with a bit that I made for that purpose. All in all it wasn't too hard to do!

 

[Busyhands94]

Range report

Today I went out shooting with Pa' and fired my converted Remmy. This is a seriously fun pistol! It is pretty accurate too, I was hitting my target at 25 feet repeatedly! I was shooting at soda cans. All the bullets flew pretty straight, and cut nice clean and round holes. I was using Federal Automach, it's a 40 grain .22 caliber bullet with a velocity of about 1200 FPS out of a rifle. My guess is they clock around 1000 out of a pistol

Only problem was I forgot my Allen wrench I was using to push out my empties, so I ended up just using my knife to pry them out to where I could grab them.

I forgot to do an update on my handgun after I did some more work on it. I cut the sides of the cylinder pin flush then checkered them so you can pull it out. I also blued the frame with some brass blackening stuff I had for my stained glass. It's kind of like gun blue, only the concentration is different. I also shortened the barrel to 5 7/8" long and installed a more Remington looking front sight. I re-profiled the grips a little so the pistol fits the hand much better and now she points like a dream!

I widened the space between the trigger guard and the grip a little to accommodate my father's fatter fingers, I've got fat fingers too so that's a good soloution. It's a very fun gun to shoot and very lethal on those soup cans!

All in all it's a really fun pistol to shoot, I put a lot of ammo through this pistol and not one failure to fire or squib. That was a fun project!


My papa tried shooting it today and he really liked it. What a wonderful little pistol! I've been wanting a single action .22LR revolver for a while now and this suits the purpose very well.

I'll be sure to update you guys when I get started on my next build, a steel framed .44 caliber Remington revolver made from some parts and a frame I got in an online auction.

~Levi

 

[Acorn Mush]

Congratulations on a successful build Levi. At this rate you could be a master machinist before too long!

 

[Rojelio]

Busyhands, I like your build, but, something's been bothering me. How do you keep your shells from falling out the right hand side since you don't have a loading gate to close?

What did you have to do to your hammer nose to hit the rim?

Thanks, Roger

 

[Busyhands94]

Thanks Acorn Mush! I've got dreams of becoming an excellent gunsmith, I'll be going to Lassen Community college to take their course in gunsmithing! From what I've heard it's a pretty spectacular course. They sure do show you how to do a lot of things, bluing, color case hardening, machining, and other useful skills.

Busyhands, I like your build, but, something's been bothering me. How do you keep your shells from falling out the right hand side since you don't have a loading gate to close?

What did you have to do to your hammer nose to hit the rim?

Thanks, Roger

There really isn't a gate to keep them from falling out, but it seems to be working well. Of course there's plenty of revolvers without loading gates, I've got an old H&R nine shooter I keep handy with just a cut in the recoil shield so you can load the shells in there. Of course if you put the hammer in the safety notch on this gun a shell will fall out the chamber because it's lined up with the gate, but if I were to carry this I'd just load one, skip one, load four so it's on an empty chamber.

As for the hammer, I thinned it a little bit to a blade so it would strike and set off the rimfire cartridges.

It will also set off caps too! I'll be making a percussion cylinder for this gun sometime soon, I just need to get a hold of a spare 1858 Remington cylinder. I'm broke right now, but I'll get down to it sometime and post some pictures. I'd suspect some pretty good velocity with Triple Seven and some 30 grain bullets, I'd suspect at least 1000 FPS.

To arms!
~Levi

 

[Rojelio]

Gotcha, thanks.

Roger

 

[Acorn Mush]

I've got dreams of becoming an excellent gunsmith, I'll be going to Lassen Community college to take their course in gunsmithing! From what I've heard it's a pretty spectacular course.

Levi, I do hope your dream comes true. Have a brother and a couple buddies who took some classes there. They all had nothing but high praise for the school.

 

[Busyhands94]

Thanks! I like that it's in Lassen, that's a pretty beautiful area! I remember going there years ago for boy scout camp. Really pretty terrain out there!

 

[tom e gun]

i've heard of that course at Lassen, and if i am not mistaken, its one of the very few places you can take gunsmithing courses. maybe just in this state or this part of the country, but good luck in any case!

 

[Busyhands94]

Thanks! From what I've read there's only a couple colleges that teach gunsmithing. It's great that there's a school in my state. We were looking at another one in Arizona, but it costs more to go to school out of state as opposed to in state. This should be great, I'll get to learn how to fix firearms, and hopefully make a career out of it.

 

[Mauser lover]

I'm planning on going to Lassen as well. Not quite as advanced as you, yet, at least, not on the machining part. Yet. I don't have a lathe, all I have is a drill press and some miscellaneous sanders, routers, and "normal" power tools. It is amazing how much you can improvise with a hand drill and a disk sander, and while you use them, dream of a lathe... Don't know how long you will be at Lassen, but maybe I will see you there... I am probably going to start fall 2013.

Is there some way that you could soft solder or screw on an ejector rod assembly? or maybe solder (or screw) on some sort of stand off so you could mount an ejector assembly to the stand off? You wouldn't forget your allen, or rather, it wouldn't matter if you didn't bring it.

 

[mackg]

Could you show a rear view of the cylinder, I cannot figure out how far the liners go?

And is the hammer the only thing standing between your face ad the brass?

Thnks

 

[goon]

You're a very creative guy. I had a similar idea before, only I thought it would be cool to do with one of the small Colts.
For future reference, Track of the Wolf has .22 caliber barrel stock.

 

[Busyhands94]

Thanks Goon, that would be pretty cool in a small colt like an 1849 pocket. One of their little .31's I've always thought a .22 caliber 1863 Remington pocket would be neat.

Today the mailman dropped off a package! My Remington frame, cylinder, faux ivory grips and base pin, all got here this morning! Life is good! So I fitted and installed the barrel on the frame, slapped on the loading lever and the small screw that attaches it. So I now have a lovely .44 Remington that's begging to throw some lead downrange.

I still have to blue the barrel though. I'll get it done once I find a good gun blue that will give it the nice color the frame has. I used some stuff in a jar my friend gave me a while back, it turned brown.


Yes, that's a thumb splint. The doc said my left hand won't be as busy as my right for about a week until the laceration heals.


Of course it would look good plum brown, however I want black. Although in the white might look cool too! Opinions on the finish? I could just strip it and nickle the whole revolver.

~Levi

 

[kBob]

Looking good! I do like those grips and though brown the barrel looks nicely done. I personally might be tempted to strip everything an use that brown finish on everything.

What did you do to your thumb? Hope it is just a little boo-boo and it gets well soon.

-kBob

 

[Busyhands94]

Sorry it took so darn long to reply, I went camping down in southern California and didn't want to say I wasn't home, being I have guns and such there. Not that I don't trust you guys, I just don't want to post that I'm going away from home on the web.

I did let my cousin fire a BP pistol for the very first time, she liked it. I took her down the train tracks about a mile and fired a couple cylinders from my Super Companion with her. She really liked making some smoke!

I think the whole entire frame would look nice browned, although I'm very tempted to keep it in the white or nickle the whole gun. That would look really nice. Either that or really well polished steel.

I lacerated my finger last Tuesday when I was clearing a ton of weeds and Bermuda grass out back, it was from a rose thorn. I haven't the slightest clue how a rose thorn could cut me to the bone, it was really sharp and cut a really nasty wound. I had to go to the E.R. and have them glue me back together, but it's almost healed. They used something like super glue to do it because I didn't want stitches.

I do have a question regarding steel framed Remingtons though, what's the max load of Triple Seven? I've got a bunch I haven't used.

~Levi

 

[kBob]

Rose thorns are always sneaky. Back the end of May I was checking for "wild plums" Hawthorne fruit near the rail line up the road and stepped on a branch that had a thorn sticking straight up. Went through the "cross training" shoe sole and through a toe to stop on the bottom of the nail.

Worse part was the 11 year old was with me so I could not scream hollar and cry like a little girl. Pulling it out was...interesting. I took the branch with me to the Doctor the next day when the toe looked bad. He recommended antibiotics and watching and leather soled work boots when in places like that. Everyone is a commedian.....

-kBob