How to not shoot your new Walker...

[Brad_Bradsher]

Note that I didn't title this "How NOT to shoot your new Walker" (for example, "load 60 gr. of ground sparkler powder and ram small glass marbles in the chambers" is a one way NOT to shoot a Walker). No, this is a tale of how to get a Walker for Christmas and manage to not shoot it for over a year. The alternate title is, "There's a reason we call them kits when we buy a new one..."
So, last year, I posted a photo of the lovely and talented Vicky showing off the beautiful new Uberti Walker she bought me for Christmas:

...And now comes the fun part, let's break her down and clean her (the revolver, not Vicky)! We're going shooting! Or not...
One tap, and the wedge pops free. Great! Half cock, loading lever against the cylinder, give a push, then a tap, then a smack...nothing. Barrel ain't moving. Try a few more tricks, might as well be welded on the arbor...*** (Well, that's funny)?
So fast forward a bit, I've soaked in multiple "break-free" lube recipes, I've pulled off the grip frame and action and used heat on the barrel, cyl and frame, I've tried every suggestion on THR, basically just just wasted a few months of precious Sunday gun tinkering time (we are raising two 9-year-old grandkids, so there's not much of that), and I still have a new Walker that's never been taken down...return it under warranty? Ridiculous! This should be EASY!
To be continued...

 

[ClemBert]

Sounds about right.

Don't get me started on my story about the gorilla at Pietta responsible for jamming wedges into 1851s. Third time was a charm as Cabelas finally sent one that didn't require a cutting torch.

Best of luck on your adventure.

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

To make matters worse, Vicky gave me a .45 LC conversion cylinder from Kenny Howell for Christmas THIS year. Which I can't use, since I STILL haven't gotten the Walker apart. Time to admit defeat and get help!

So, since I've got an ASM 1860 at Goon's getting Goonerized, let's make the "call of shame" and ask Mike for advice! He was gracious as always, spent a good chunk of his busy day talking to a customer too dumb to take a Colt cap 'n' ball apart, and said:

"I have an aluminum rod that I stick down the barrel and allow it to rest on a feeler gauge leaf (instead of the bare chamber wall between two chambers) on the cylinder face. A good smack with a heavy hammer and "botta bing, botta boom"!! ( see the Italian influence there?! Lol!!)"

So, brilliant. Tried using a .38 cleaning rod inserted into a fired .38 case, which fit nicely down the bore to act as a cushion against the cylinder face. After much frenzied smacking with a plastic mallet, managed to ruin a cleaning rod and almost punch a hole clean through the base of the .38 fired case.

Nothing. Barrel and arbor still frozen together. I know,should have returned it, should go ahead and buy a .44 aluminum rod like Mike said, but what "fun" is that?

Not as much fun as shooting the durn thing, I decided, and I'm starting to ding up the Walker. Took it to a gunsmith with Colt open top experience and told my sad story. He had it broken down by the next day, said it wasn't "easy"..at least SOMETHING to sooth my ego. So, the culprit? Alignment pins mushroomed or off kilter? Bent arbor? Answer next post!

 

[drobs]

I bet shooting it, would loosen it up...

or make things much worse.

 

[Mizar]

Try gentle taps with rawhide/plastic mallet on the loading lever base sidewise - it might break the bond. But do it gently - there are two indexing pins on the frame that have corresponding slots on the barrel and you can bend/brake them if too much force is applied.

P.S. Judging by the big grin, Vicky just found the perfect revolver for her. Be advised...

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

Thanks, guys! Vicky prefers the '62 pocket Police, for the record...So, I FINALLY, with help from Goon and a local smithy, got the Walker apart, and here's what I found, in the interest of helping the next guy that has this problem...

For starters, a rough day at Uberti. The alignment pin holes: one is full of metal shavings from machining. That's the problem! Nope, after a cleanout, I can turn the barrel upside down, and the pins slide in the holes clean and tight. Arbor is straight, but try to put the barrel on the arbor, and it stops cold JUST after the pins enter the holes...giving me a gap between the frame and barrel at the alignment pins you could slide a couple of credit cards into, and a barrel/culinder gap of, well, not thousandths of an inch, but more like...tenths. I can actually beat the two parts together until they mate, but then I'm right back where I started, I gotta beat them back apart...not exactly a procedure the indoor range RSO is going to appreciate every time I load my Howell .45 LC cylinder with live rounds into the Walker on the firing line. So, out with the digital calipers...
The arbor hole is a consistent .520 ". Ok. Up by the wedge slot, the arbor is ..518. Ok. Move back toward the recoil shield, the arbor gets wider....519, .520, then right at the last 1/8" before the barrel and frame would mate up...
.529".
Sigh. At least I'm not crazy, and the legend of Bongo, the Uberti mallet-wielding gorilla continues. Goon suggests to pound it together, then apart, to see if it breaks in, 40 repetitions later...nah. So, a Saturday afternoon on the back deck with 1500 grit wet/dry sandpaper and Remoil, taking .001 of at a time, and I have the smoothest, shiniest Walker arbor in existence, a (VERY) tight fit, and a function Walker that comes apart wth a light tap from the loading lever!
And it only took a year!
FYI, the color case hardening was gone from the arbor before the first .001 of metal was reduced, so that's how deep it is...Now, to see if the Howell .45 cylinder fits, de-blue the percussion cylinder, and then...RANGE TEST!
Thanks for listening to this sad tale of hobby gunsmithing, thanks especially to Goon for his very gracious repeated free advice, and I hope this helps the next shooter solve the "oversize by .009 " arbor" issue quicker than I did!

 

[earplug]

Would it have been possible to spin a split rod/dowel with abrasive paper inside the cylinder to open up the area for the arbor?
I'm not a BP REVO user/owner.

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

Hey Drobs, it occurred to me to try to shoot it loose, but I couldn't bust it apart to clean the factory lube out first, and if it didn't come apart after shooting, man, it was going to be interesting to clean after...look what the nipple holes looked like once it came apart, I'd hate to "cook" that red preservative in!

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

Hey, Earplug, yeah, I wrapped a dowel with the oiled 1500 grit wet/dry and futzed with the arbor hole, but couldn't accomplish much more than beveling the first 1/16" of the hole...since I was fighting the last, maybe, 1/4" of the arbor being .006 or more oversized, I went after the arbor. More knowledge, like the other contributors here have, and better tools (like, well, see above) might well have steered me on a different course. Goon wasn't thrilled that I attacked the arbor, for instance, but as the guy with boots on the ground, I felt it was the way to go. I repeat that I spend hours with 1500 grit wet/dry and didnt dive in with 400 grit. I figure I took of .001 an hour and test-fitted constantly. It was just way easier to monitor how much damage--I mean progress--I was accomplishing on the arbor I could see and feel than a hole I could barely fit my little finger into.

 

[ClickClickD'oh]

Sigh, I could have written pretty much the same post regarding my Walker. Metal machining shavings all up in the alignment pin holes. Had to use a dental pick to get them out. There was also some crap up in the arbor hole that had to be cleaned out. My grip frame screws were in so tight, that when I attempted to take the grip frame off, the two rear screws came lose with loud pops. I boiled the dang revolver thinking it was gunked up with dried preservative. Nope.. Gunked up with Uberti.

I used a 3/8 inch brass rod down the barrel to finally get mine to come apart the first time.

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

I understand your frustrations, Click, BELIEVE ME, but tell yourself, "it's part of the fun!"
When I find a present from "Uncle Berti" under the tree at Christmas, I'm always thrilled...So far, I'm somewhere in the range of 80% completely satisfied, the Walker is the only clunker I've gotten. My Pocket police from two years ago is flawless. The Uberti Remmy New Navy I found in a gun shop in Florida three years ago is the best C&Baller I own. Total investment on both, less than $400. And the Walker? I could have returned it. But it was picked out for me based on the wood and the color case hardening...I'm happy I polished a few thousandth's of an inch of metal to make it MINE. I honestly couldn't afford to pursue my gun hobby now if I couldn't buy new toys for $300 to $400 new, but even more fun, the used fixer-uppers (or better) you find in the local gun store as the only C&B there, for under $150...There is an appeal to low cost, no legal FFL paperwork (did I mention I'm from NC and I snatched that Remmy on a whim for $139 in Fla?) that makes a little work ok...Manufacturing these 1800's revolvers to be 100% perfect would drive their cost out of my range...

 

[ClickClickD'oh]

but tell yourself, "it's part of the fun!"

Oh absolutely. One you get beyond the "project" phase, the Walker is an awesome beast. Nothing stops down a whole range like the Walker going off.

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

Yeah, I can't wait...Going to the indoor range tomorrow (hopefully, if the Howell .45 LC conversion locks up OK) to shoot some baby cowboy loads...but heading to farm country this weekend to load up 50 gr of fffg...Range report coming! Gonna try RB and some of DoubleD's BigLube boolets, too--just got my sample pack. Drooling!

 

[LonesomePigeon]

My 2015 Uberti Walker had the same problem. I opened up the arbor hole with sandpaper wrapped around a wooden dowel.

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

I was torn between opening the arbor hole and reducing the arbor...I went with the arbor since I could measure, thousandth by thousandth, the metal I was removing with the caliper. It seemed like I'd have to dig out the hole down like 1/4" deep to accomodate the arbor--but an argument could be made that I could have fixed or ruin the gun either way with equal efficiency! Realizing now, through the knowledgable input from fellow THR'ers, that I ain't the first to see this...but am I right that it seems to be a Walker issue? Thanks for the responses!

 

[denster]

What you ran into is a gross exaggeration of Uberti's solution to not having an arbor that bottoms out in the arbor hole. They put a tapered increase in the arbor diameter to prevent the barrel going past a certain point. What you described is an extreme example. With most Uberti's after a few times of being taken apart and reassembled particularly if you tap in the wedge or are one of those that believes this is how you set the B/C gap. The wedge, which is an incline plane and a powerful tool, has managed to wallow out the arbor hole in the barrel and the increased diameter is no longer noticeable.

 

[Tommygunn]

What you ran into is a gross exaggeration of Uberti's solution to not having an arbor that bottoms out in the arbor hole. They put a tapered increase in the arbor diameter to prevent the barrel going past a certain point. What you described is an extreme example. With most Uberti's after a few times of being taken apart and reassembled particularly if you tap in the wedge or are one of those that believes this is how you set the B/C gap. The wedge, which is an incline plane and a powerful tool, has managed to wallow out the arbor hole in the barrel and the increased diameter is no longer noticeable.

Why doesn't Uberti simply make a correct size arbor?
Or would that be too simple of a solution for those complicated Italian mechanical engineers to consider?
Forgive me if this question has been dealt with in the past .... *sigh* .

 

[denster]

Why doesn't Uberti simply make a correct size arbor?
Or would that be too simple of a solution for those complicated Italian mechanical engineers to consider?
Forgive me if this question has been dealt with in the past .... *sigh* .

That is an excellent question and I don't know the answer. Pietta manages to get it done nicely but Uberti makes you correct it yourself.

 

[45 Dragoon]

Brad, you are most welcome!! (Good job. Whatever it takes to get to a usable shooter!)

As far as Uberti correcting the arbor length, they refuse to acknowledge there's a problem! You'd think as much is written about it and as many folks correcting it for customers, they'd take a hint . . .
Oh well, it gives me something to do!!

Mike

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

The tapered arbor makes sense in that respect...now I'm curious, do Colts of any generation have tapered arbors, or is this just an Uberti quirk? How about the other spaghetti clones? You learn something new every day on THR!

 

[denster]

The tapered arbor makes sense in that respect...now I'm curious, do Colts of any generation have tapered arbors, or is this just an Uberti quirk? How about the other spaghetti clones? You learn something new every day on THR!

Colts, the originals, were made with the correct length arbors not tapered. Piettas arbors are the correct length as are most ASMs. This is a Uberti problem and they are the only ones to put a tapered diameter on the arbor which in no way corrects the problem they create with a too short arbor length. Dragoon is right they just go merrily on their way ignoring the problem, and make no mistake it is a serious problem to a well functioning firearm.

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

Pretty much what Goon/Mike/45Dragoon said (man, that guy's got more secret identities than a Marvel superhero movie)...Thanks, Denster, I suspected as much. I mean, I'm an Uberti guy, don't own a single Pietta, but for a company that markets serious competition/hunting guns, cartidge and cap 'n' ball, it seems like there's a hint of built-in obsolesence, since the Colt open-tops will eventually beat themselves to death with serious use...

 

[Tommygunn]

They're probably stronger than you think. I've shot Ubertis for .... 20 years. I didn't know about the short arbor until recently, yet even my oldest Ubertis are still in very good condition. I am very meticulous about cleaning them, and oiling them, but have never had other problems.
I'm not saying the short arbor isn't a problem, but OTOH, none of my Ubertis have blown up because of it.

 

[Brad_Bradsher]

Yeah, TommyG, that's true--my oldest one is 1980-marked. All mine have been flawless...but just for fun, I might try a Pietta 1851 steel frame next for comparison!

 

[Tommygunn]

Pietta makes very good revolvers too. IMHO, the ones made today are better than the ones made in the early to mid 1990s. I think they've really "upped their game" in recent years!