New Walker

[A. Walker]

I've been reading this forum for some time, and decided to post as I have just purchased a third gen. Walker and wow! is it everything everyone said it would be! This thing is huge! I got a pretty good deal on it ($350), and am anxious to try it out! Here are some pics of my new baby!

This is my first blackpowder gun, and so I have some questions;

I've searched the archives, and I'm not clear as to what is the best powder charge for this gun. Some use 60 grains, while others say I'll get better accuracy and have less lever drop if I stay between 40 to 50 grains. MEC's data seems to bear this out. So, what's the most accurate charge? I'll be using blackpowder, so would appreciate recommendations for BP.

Is It okay to use the chemical cleaners available, or must I use hot water to clean? The thought of getting this finely made piece of steel anywhere near water just makes me nervous. I don't want even the possibility of rust developing in some hidden nook.

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have to impart. I am impressed by the amount of BP knowledge demonstrated on this forum, and I'd like for my first plunge into the hobby to be a good one!

 

[K.A.T.]

WoW what a beauty!

Man if my eyes is right that is a "Colt" Walker for $350, you done great. I'll take one just like it if he has another. The Walker is the only one left to finish out my collection.I can't give you any loading info., buy sounds like you have it right. Completly take the gun apart and clean it in hot soapy water,(not the grips) Rinse it in hot clean water,towel dry,dry the inside of barrel and cylinders with a couple of patches,finish drying with a blowdryer. Oil the gun inside and out with olive oil. I put a little bit of breach plug grease on the nipple threads.The Olive OIL works great,you can use TC bore butter also.Send pictures from the firing range.

 

[KevininPa]

WOW!

That's all I can say. Being new to BP, I don't have any advice as mine is stainless. But that is a beauty!

Kevin in Pa

 

[DixieTexian]

It's junk. Sell it to me.

 

[mec]

Lever drop seems to occur even with fairly light charges. Bates has used American Pioneer which is a low velocity substitute and it seems his lever stays up more often than not. I just tape or rubber band the thing up and go with it. Mine gives good accuracy across a fairly large range of charges 50 grains will give you all the noise and smoke you need to know you are shooting a Walker.

140 Grain Ball velocity spread 6 rounds
55 Goex FFFg 1001 fps 54
60 Goex FFFg 1115 fps 46
60 Gr./Vol. Pyrodex P 1221 44
60 Gr./Vol. A Pioneer 974 80
60 Gr/Vol Swiss FFFg 1278 53
55 FFg 956 46
60 Gr./Vol. PyrodexRS 1045 35

I don't seem to have chronographed it but, I have used 50 grains of pyrodex P quite a bit. I get good ignition with Pyrodex in this revolver. No hang-fires and good accuracy.

That is a premium revolver you found there.

 

[brentn]

Man that thing looks real nice. Is that an uberti? jesus, looks better than my pietta when it was brand new, thats for sure.

 

[mohctep]

That is one FINE looking gun!

 

[Jamie C.]

Damn that's purty...

Almost too purty to shoot. Almost.


Do let us know how it handles and what kind of groups you get out of it. And don't worry about getting water on it... it's how they were meant to be cleaned. ( You can always take a hair dryer to it, to get those nooks an crannies good and dry. )

Anyway... you 'Walker boys' keep up, and I'm gonna have to have one'a those too.


J.C.

 

[mykeal]

It's not a Uberti - it's a Colt 3rd Generation. That is, a genuine Colt.

mec's loading data is correct. You can shoot 60 grains, but will find the lighter loads more accurate. However, the point is, try several different loads. Nothing says you have to stick with one all the time. Try some different ones and see what your gun likes the best.

$350 for a Colt 3rd Gen Walker is just plain outright highway robbery. I hope the guy you bought it from doesn't know where you live. Well done. Not that I'm condoning robbery....

The only down side to this is starting out your black powder experience with a Walker. Generally it's better to work your way up to this level - the Walker has some little idiosyncrasies that experience with other, smaller Colts makes easier to solve, such as the loading lever dropping after each shot. But that's a very minor point - and it's the only down side, so you should really enjoy this.

Congratulations. It's a beautiful gun. Have fun.

 

[mec]

The lever is a glitch the corrected directly after the first batch of revolvers. The transitions and Dragoons all had front lever latches and a number of surviving walkers have had those added after the fact. My main concern about the Walker Replicas evaporated a few years ago when cimarron, VTI and probably Taylors began keeping a reliable stock of spare parts for them. In the old days, you were better off with a Navy and even then, finding spare parts could be a challenge. Now, you can shoot walkers, dragoons, and pocket models and if a spring breaks, you won't have much trouble getting a replacement. Replacement parts usually have to be fitted to the individual gun but Uberti had a hand in making those Colt reissues and their parts should be workable. We shoot a couple of the colt replicas and have not had to replace anything.

I've heard that original users would use a rawhide thong or sleve to hold the lever in place. It makes perfect sense that this is one of the first things a Walker user would do but I haven't found any historic mention of it.(It woulld need to be thinned down to avoid interfering with the sight picture) Others on this board have modified the step in the retaining spring to prevent drop down. I do think its a good idea to do something to keep it from dropping down after every shot to minimize wear. I've seen one old one- either an original or a counterfeit, that would no longer hold the lever up at all.

 

[Bad Flynch]

As a rabid Colt BP fan, I'd say you did rather well.

First off: Black powder fouling is water soluble. See my response in http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=284830 . There is no sense in repeating it here.

As for charge, there is a range of charges over which this gun will shoot well. All you have to do is experiment. Simply be certain that there is no air space left over the powder (between the powder and the ball). It is propitious to use fillers on the lower loads: corn meal, lubed felt wads, and so on. You are trying to avoid too much bullet jump from the cylinder to the barrel. The only real danger is that if you go too low in charge, you might get a squib load (stick a ball in the barrel). Squib loads, of an by themselves, do no harm. One simply drives the lead ball out with a tightly fitting brass rod. However, if a squib load goes unnoticed and another shot it fired behind the first, problems soon arise, so best avoid squib loads

 

[Thomas Hawkins]

Walker

Walker,

Put that Colt in it's box and Zip tie the hammer. After that go buy another Walker from any other maker and shot away. You got a great deal on your gun, spend the other 350 or so on another Walker and have fun. That way you have a shooter and you still have a Colt Colt Walker for about the right money.

Tom Hawkins

 

[arcticap]

When shooting with substitute powders, I've found that using BP solvents for cleaning up the powder residue is an alternative option that works. And I usually don't shoot real BP or use any water to clean.
There's a lot of different commercial BP solvents that work effectively using some elbow grease, but they do cost more to use.
Some claim that using hot water to clean powder residue can cause flash rusting (maybe due to the sulfur?), and others have mentioned using brake cleaner or Ballistol for helping to remove stubborn accumulations.
I have several BP solvents in my cleaning arsenal because using a 1-2 punch covers a wider range of substitute powder residues.
And now TC has a newer solvent specifically designed for removing 777 residue.
I generally use Rusty Duck Black Off & Hoppe's Number 9 Plus BP Solvent and Patch Lube, along with some other less effective solvents that do work as "first step" residue cleaners. But there's other brands that may work even better.
Because I don't use H20, I usually don't use oil as a preservative in my rifle barrels either but use Bore Butter instead.
Sometimes I'll go back to the gun after a few days and run a very tight patch down the barrel to see if the Bore Butter has loosened up any trace residue that may have been left behind in the rifling grooves. I try to pay particular attention to cleaning any thread fouling by using a small piece of fitted dowel and tight fitting pieces of patch material and twisting it clean. The same with nooks and crannies, using whatever shaped wood fits into the crevices to assist with residue removal.
Wearing vinyl or similar gloves while cleaning helps to keep the hands and underneath the fingernails residue free too.
Can you tell by now that I have an aversion to using H20?

BTW, that Walker's a beaut!

 

[Calibre44]

WOW!!!! ... the gun is fantastic but the pics are fabulous too!! ... Crystal clear!! … do you mind if I copy and paste them into my gun pics library. I’ve got a Dragoon on the way – maybe I should have gone for the Walker after seeing your pics – excellent!

 

[Snaggletooth]

And I thought that I got a buy at 250 for a Uberti. Ill take a Colt if he has another. Id even take a 60 Army.....

 

[J.T. Gerrity]

Nice looking piece... I have a Sig Series just like it at home. The "real" Colts are very nicely done. Action very smooth and precise. Yours may be a little more shiny than mine... I suggest you send it to me, for comparison purposes only, you understand. Should only take oh, six months or so...

I like to use 45 grs in mine with 15 grs of filler. Gives good accuracy and doesn't shake the gun apart, but still makes a great boom. Can't say anything about lever drop as it's not really a problem I have, but if you search the forum, there are recommendations regarding steps you can take to help prevent it; some as simple as filing the notch in the spring. The leather thong or piece of string wrapped around the barrel is probably the most historically accurate fix...

I have quite a number of guns, and none of them has ever seen hot water, but they're all sparkly clean. Hoppes makes some fine cleaning and lubricating products, and #9 Plus is an excellent solvent formulated specially for BP (I like their Gun Oil in the aerosol can, too). I'm with Arcticap; I just don't trust water...

Anyhow, welcome to the forum, and thanks for sharing that georgeous pistol. You can shoot it and still keep it looking good... just clean it well and have a little respect for it. I've shot mine hundreds of times, and it's still looking nearly as fresh as the day I got it.

P.S. Nice job on the photos, too. You a photographer?

 

[songsofreedom]

Hey A. Walker, where did you buy that? Where can I buy an original Colt BP revolver? Do you guys know? I keep seeing ones on guns america for like a couple thousand dollars, whats up with those??

 

[A. Walker]

Hey, there! Thanx for all the great comments about the gun... it is gorgeous, isn't it? Yes, this is a "Signature Series" AKA "3rd Gen." Walker. I found it at an Estate sale last week. They wanted $500 for it, way too rich for me. I couldn't get it out of my head, though, so I came back by later on in the day, just before closing, and they'd marked it down to $400. I offered them $350 cash, and they went for it. I'm not sure that they knew what they had. They just wanted to get rid of "the gun"! Cheapest I've seen them is $700, so I knew I was getting a real deal!! Even came with the grey presentation box and Colt Blackpowder manual!

I do have a few more questions to ask:

Looks like 40 to 50 grains is where I want to start. I've read about using filler here in the forum. I guess it's supposed to increase accuracy. Seems kind of tedious. How do you dispense it - two measuring flasks?

The manual suggests using a .457 ball and #11 caps? Isn't this .45 caliber? What's the difference between BP and smokeless calibers? Where can I get .457 balls?

Thanks for the tip on the Hoppes #9 Plus. I'll have to get some and try it. I don't even want to think about getting this near hot water (I wonder if they used hot water "back in the day" because it was cheap and plentiful, and there wasnt anything better to use? Nothing against the hot water people. This is just my own hang-up).

Of course you can copy the pictures that I post. I just do photography as a hobby. Glad you like the pics!

And to all of those who want me to send them the gun for whatever reason, I fear - in the immortal words of Captain Barbosa - that I am "disinclined to acquiesce to your request". Good try, though!

Once again, thanks for all of the excellent advice. Great Forum!

 

[Bad Flynch]

>The manual suggests using a .457 ball and #11 caps? Isn't this .45 caliber? What's the difference between BP and smokeless calibers? Where can I get .457 balls?<

Well, caliber is not determined by the ball size, which corresponds to the groove diameter. Caliber is correctly determined by the bore or land diameter.

In addition, those balls should cut about 0.003" of a ring off the outside edge as they seat. That is not much, only the thickness of a human hair, and may not be very noticeable. So here goes the math:

0.457" ball - 0.003" = 0.454" for final ball diameter and, with luck, that will equal the groove diameter.

Customarily, BP revolvers have deep grooves--as much as 0.007" on a side. I don't know what your groove depth is, but let's go with that number for the sake of the illustration. So, 2 X 0.007" = 0.014" for total groove depth (both sides added up)

0.454" -0.014" = 0.440" for a bore diameter, and that makes it a 44 caliber gun.

I think that both Hornady and Speer make 0.457" balls, but you can buy cast and swaged from DGW www.dixiegunworks.com or from Track of the Wolf www.trackofthewolf.com .

Hope that helps.

 

[arcticap]

Hey A. Walker, where did you buy that? Where can I buy an original Colt BP revolver? Do you guys know? I keep seeing ones on guns america for like a couple thousand dollars, whats up with those??

A local dealer has a Colt Walker for sale for about $1000, and it may have some fancy gold leaf on it too, plus several other unfired Colt models.

 

[mike101]

Stunning!

Congratulations. What a beautiful Walker. I've noticed that the 3rd Generation Colts seem to be even prettier than the 2nd Gen. guns. The blued parts are more brightly polished, and the case hardening is more colorful. Gorgeous! Excellant pictures, too.

The price you paid is pretty stunning too. Even at $500, it would have been a steal. Check out www.gunsamerica.com sometime, and you'll see what I mean.

Not too shabby, for your first BP revolver. Not too shabby at all. Green with envy.

 

[mike101]

I forgot. As far as the lever drop. In the old days, they tied a leather thong (shoelace) around it near the muzzle. It will work, and it's historically accurate.
Happy shooting.

 

[DixieTexian]

Check arpund local shooting shops or pawn shops. They might have your balls and powder.

 

[mec]

a lot of the first replica Walkers used .457 balls. Recent ones from Uberti are happy with .454. .457 is the correct diameter for the Ruger Old army so, the balls are available. You almost have to have a gun shop guy who is an enthusiast to be able to find c&b powder/balls/caps at a local gunshop. Best way to avoid frustration is to order them from a variety of internet sources. Midway, the Possibles shop, cabelas have all been good. You can get black powder from clarksville rod and gun, grafs and a couple of others though you will end up paying hazmat for shipping of black or substitutes.
All above available by Google.