Patterson Loading and Capping

[gunsmither]

After looking at it for about a month now, I finally bought a used Uberti Patterson replica from my buddies local gun shop today. Good price, I couldn't resist it; I'm a Cap 'N Ballaholic! Seems to be very well made, and probably unfired, except for caps, perhaps, as there is some residue and a slight bit of surface rust in the chambers.

I looked on Uberti's website for a capper and loading tool, but didn't see any. Does anyone out there shoot a Patterson? If so, will a straight line capper work on it? What about the loading tool; does it work; is it worth getting? Or would a bench loader/rammer be better? Also need a nipple wrench; didn't see one at Uberti's site. Odd shaped, 4 sided nipple flange; must be an exact replica I guess.

After smoothing up the action, and getting a loader tool, capper, and nipple wrench, I intend to "Make Smoke" with this puppy! Any advice for tool procurement would be appreciated. I've got caps, balls, 3F powder, and wads and grease. Thanks in advance! Joe

 

[mec]

The loading tool has a screwdriver, pry bar, nipple pick and the four place nipple wrench all in one. The trouble is poor metalurgy. it will break the first time you try to seat a ball with it.

A straight line capper with the gun at half cock should work unless you are using caps that have to be pinched to fit. #10s seem about the best.

fifty feet - offhand

VTI gunparts has most of the parts but zeroed out the sear spring. Cimarron sent me all the springs and seems very well supplied with parts for the uberti replicas.

I use a separate ball started to seat the balls. Rapid reloading is of course, out.

 

[gunsmither]

Great photo mec! Thanks a lot. Can you explain how to seat a ball with that tool? I'm trying to visualize how it's supposed to work. Thanks again! Joe

 

[mec]

The wide place just below the screwdriver fits into the slot in the arbor. The seater is movable and is supposed to fit over the ball You pull down on the round knob part of thehandle to cam the bullet into the chamber. You can see the reduction in the stem of the tool where it appears out of line. It is. The first time I tried to seat a bullet it snapped in two.

So Use a standard ball starter and, with a full chamber, just the short starter nub is enough to seat the bullet.

In the past, its been almost impossible to find replacement parts for any of the black powder revolvers with the colt navy and army models way out front because the action parts from the single action army will work. It was gratifying to find parts for the paterson, the uberti dragoon and the pocket model available from cimarron. Some of the italian companies consider it a badge of honor that they won't provide after sale support for their products. Uberti may be an exception.

 

[Josey]

Two issues come to my mind. The revolver HAS been fired. It needs to be cleaned with soap and water and then oiled properly. BP is highly corrosive, that cylinder needs to be checked over carefully. The source for parts and all the needed add-ons is www.dixiegunworks.com

 

[mec]

I am wondering how that works. Dixie Does List a lot of screws for original Patersons but Does Not List any springs or lock work parts What-So-Ever.

Do they have a special catalog or some service not available to the general public?

here is the link to the dixie cataloged loading tool:
http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_reviews_info.php?products_id=4597&reviews_id=306

 

[gunsmither]

Wonderful photo's mec! Thanks a lot. That really explains how the loading tool is supposed to work; kind of what I figured. Sorry to hear about the poor quality of the tool.

My personal experience with Dixie has been less than favorable in regards to quality. Really disappointed with their stuff everytime I've bought something, so I gave up on them a long time ago. Just my experience.

I'll either make myself a tool like that from tool steel, or make a bench style loader. Probably a bench style would be best, being as how you have to remove the barrel to load anyway.

Josey, I appreciate your concern. My Patterson doesn't show any evidence of a ball ever being seated; I think the previous owner just used it for display, and maybe fired a few caps off, and left it sit for years. No rust in barrel, just some light surface rust in cylinders, nothing to worry about. I already cleaned it up; no pitting. The hammer nose shows almost no evidence of ever dropping on a cap. Every Cap N' Ball I own has been bought used, and most were in the same condition.

I thank you gentleman for all your help. I'll let you know how my Paddy shoots! Safe shooting! Joe

 

[mec]

I'm interested in how well your's shoots. I would call mine " not bad considering" Compared to modern revolvers and most of the replicas, it's a bit less easy to shoot accurately. Mine has a light trigger- most shooters report a real heavy let off. the sight picture is like, very basic.

Given the great number of small parts, I figured on quite a bit of trouble. It sat in the local gun shop since 1991. Finally, I made some test parts orders and when I found good sources, I went ahead and bought it this year. The springs and lock work have held up very well and no replacements yet.

Dixie has been getting guns to me next day delivery no problems. They seem to advertise quite a few parts that they don't actually have but, on the balance, I've been happy with the orders.

The Paterson is interesting because it was the first practical revolver and racked up quite a bit of history in Texas between 1839 and the end of the Mexican war in '48. Shooting it, it's easy to see why Jack Hays and others were so thrilled with it. The mounted rangers tried real hard to have two fully loaded Patesons along with a Carbine and with the extra rounds, the rangers adopted Comanche tactics. When the Patersons with the loading levers came out, he was really happy because it was no longer necessary to get down from the horse to reload it.

Shooting it, it's easy to see why Jack Hays and others were so thrilled with it. This is from 25 yards standing one handed and, while it would not get you a berth at Camp Perry, It would be a very effective weapon

 

[Josey]

Dixie has been good for me. They have had ASM parts when nobody did. They are close enough for me to wal in. I have been happy with their service. Parts/guns and assorted items are in house that you will not otherwise be aware of.

 

[mec]

I really like the fast delivery on my Lemat and a friends Uberti Walker Kit. One parts set up they did have was a packaged essential parts kit with Pietta lable. The bolt from this dropped into my Navy without any fitting at all.

The zeroed out parts I mentioned are probably inevitable. I've tried asking about parts that might not appear on the web site by e-mailing their customer support staff. These people do not seem to have effective knowlege of the product line. Sometimes they answer, other times they don't and sometime they just say the parts arn't available. " No sahib. we do not have parts for that.." Actually, they did but when a guy is operating from a computer terminal in Bangalor, India, you have to cut him a little bit of slack.

 

[Mike Weber]

Howdy Gunsmither, Josey, Mec:
That Patterson tool sounds like it was a cheap repro of an original, Had a cheap repro of an original style Colt nipple wrench break on me after very little use turned out that the danged thing was made out of potmetal. I do recall seeing Dixie selling a bench type Patterson loading tool but its been a while back when I saw this. Mec you do have some interesting C&B revolvers, I haven't branched out into the Lemats and Pattersons yet but they are definately on my list. I've got 51 Navies and 60 Armies and a growing collection of Remington revolvers. Gunsmither we've definately got to get together this fall when you're over this way and burn some Holy Black, Maybe bust a few birds out at my place.
Fightin Creek Slim

 

[mec]

The old replica nipple wrenches have always been that way. If the nip is a little tight they snap right off. I used to call it "pot metal" and this may be what it is. Not being a metallurgist, I don't know but it makes me happy to think of some of this crap as "Pot Metal."

There has always been a dark side to the percussion revolver industry and I'm in the process of reviewing the field right now. I've really had better luck with some segments of the industry than I expected. I have the notion that the Navy's and Army's are the best bet for the shooter as there are more parts available and some of the really good parts options for theColt SAA are there too.

I'm interested in Single shot percussion pistols too and have had excellent results from the Lyman GP pistol. Down the line, I will have at least one Pedersoli LePage on tap and expect great things from it too.

What I-and a parter are doing is putting together a comprehensive book about the era of percussion pistols. This will be entirely funded by us and not beholding to the industry. We may not sell a dozen copies but it will keep us off the streets for a year or two.

I would like to here your experiences with the Remington replicas. We have one nice stainless one and I have shot others in the past. So far, I found them pretty glitchy about cap fragments and other debris.

 

[4v50 Gary]

I don't see why that tool couldn't be hand forged. Heck, all you'd need is a big propane tank to heat the metal until it's red and then you could pound it out to make that screwdriver portion. The pivot portion is a hacksaw job and then drilling & pinning. The nipple wrench isn't hard either if you chuck it in a lathe and lacking that, use a drill press and a file (Kentucky lathe style).

 

[mec]

I took a high quality screwdriver type nipple wrench and used a file to make it into a four pointed one for the paterson. This is before i even knew the round thing on the end of the paterson wrench had a nipple wrench in side of it.
I would have done it anyway because of the pot metal issue.

 

[Mike Weber]

Mec:
So far my impression of the Uberti revolvers has been generally good. My Uberti's are the 1875 Outlaws sold through EMF. While these pistols do have their faults and they aren't true to the original design overall they have been good shooters for me. All Remington revolvers that I've dealt with have been particularly sensitive to BP fouling not a real problem once you learn how to deal with this in a CAS match environment. I keep a spray bottle filled with a 50/50 mix of murphy's oil soap and water and about every other cylinder full I will spray and wipe down the cylinder pin to keep em from locking up with fouling. I learned the Murphy's oils soap trick from Lone Yankee and its much cheaper than Ballistol. I do the same with my 58's and my 75's. I haven't yet had the opportunity to shoot one of the Remingtons from the Hartford Armoury, but after seeing my Pard Throckmorton shooting one of the Hartford 1890's I'm green with envy. Of course I understand that the Hartfords are costing around $1500.00 for the 1890 model quite a price jump from my EMF 75's.

On the matter of Cap fragments I don't seem to have as much of a problem with this since switching to Remington Caps, these seem to be a softer alloy and I also get much more reliable ignition with them than I did with CCI caps. The softer metal seems to drop out of the workings without snagging up as much as the harder alloy used in the CCI caps. I happen to be an advocate of Hammer seating caps which is now illegal under SASS rules. I get much more reliable ignition using this method as the caps seem to seat much better than using a dowell to seat them or just using thumb pressure on the caps. I use a piece of antler whenever I cannot hammer seat my caps.

At this time all of my C&B revolvers are Pietta's and all but one came from Cabela's. The other one an 1860 Army came from Navy Arms and this gun did give me some problems with nipples and reliable ignition til I replaced the nipples with stainless steel ones had a similar problem with an earlier Pietta 51 Navy but not as severe as with the 1860. I know that quite a few people have had complaints about Pietta revolvers but my experience with them has been generally good. I've not had any problems at all with the Pietta replacement cylinders I've got ten spares for my 58's that I carry in a period correct tupperware container. I did run into a minor glitch when I bought a pair of R&D conversion cylinders for them. I did have to do some minor relief on the lower frame of one revolver with a dremel, as the frame had a slight hump which was binding the cylinder, not a problem with the smaller diameter Percussion cylinders. After doing this the R&D cylinder performs flawlessly. I bought these cylinders about two weeks apart and one cylinder will not function on one of the pistols without binding the mechanism. I suspect that the hand might be just a hair too long on this pistol however after swapping cylinders between the two pistols the cylinder works flawlessly in the other pistol. So both of them are up and running with the R&D cylinders. I've been very happy with my Pietta C&B's and whenever I've had a question or complaint with one of then Alchimista has been very quick and helpful to respond.

 

[mec]

It sounds like you have a really good touch with the C&B revolvers. Remington caps do have a different alloy and it is softer. I found this out trying to get reliable ignition with the shot barrel of the lemat. It has about a 3/4" hammer fall with the nose rotated down and sometimes takes several hits to ignite. What worked was stoning off the top of the caps until extremely thin. The ccis take about fifty more passes over the stone than the remingtons to get to reliable ignition.

I've been having better general cap fragment performance with the remington caps too although I'm pretty much at the mercy of local retailers for them.

I presently have a spare parts order in with VTI Gunparts for the Lemat and will be trying an order with Dixie in a couple of days. Dixie advertises the weight bearing screws associated with the rammer but not the action parts. VTI has ordered the action parts direct from the company and I am hoping they are actually available.

The Murphy's soap deal I've been using also has equal parts hydrogen peroxide and alcohol. It is really great for overal cleaning -though I usually use it along with the hot water thing too.

I've seen an internet picture of those hartford remingtons. even heard a rumor that Tafin is claiming they are strong enough for corbon type hunting loads -although I haven't seen the article myself. There are getting to be a lot of high grade single actions out there and VTI tells me their part orders for percussion guns are way up too. This was a surprise to me since I figured the bp thing was on the skids.

And I looked up "Pot Metal" Number one in the definitaions is high inclusion, low carbon iron that sucks so bad that you can only cast it into pots. I think the nipple wrenches and the paterson tool meet this definition. Other alloys are called Pot Metal too- the key being that they are pretty useless for anything except primative cookware.

 

[Mike Weber]

Howdy Mec:
I probably shoot my C&B revolvers and my other cowboy guns with black powder more than any of my more modern firearms. One thing that I neglected to mention when handloading blackpowder loads for the Remington revolvers, Make sure to use lots of soft lube in order to keep the fouling softened up. I use a 50/50 mix of beeswax and crisco sometimes I'll throw in a smidgin of olive oil to the mix and I'll pan lube my bullets. The best bullets for the remingtons are the round nose flat points with big wide lube grooves. I'm currently using a Lyman mold #452664 but I've got a six cavity PRS mold on order from LEE's Custom Shop.

On that matter of cap fragments one annoying thing with the C&B revolvers is their tendency to drop hot cap fragments right onto the web of the right hand when shooting strongside. I shoot a repro Henry rifle and that barrel does tend to get hot after a rapid ten shot string on the clock, So I will often wear a pair of cavalry gauntlets which remedies the problem of the hot barrel and the cap fragments.

On those Hartford Remmies I've heard some claim that these are a strong as a Ruger. I would tend to lean toward caution when considering hot loads in them allthough these might just be the ticket for those who would wish to carry an SA revolver for defensive purposes. My friend tells me that the Hartford 1890 remington was the slickest handling repro revolver that he's ever fired. They do pay careful attention to fit finish and action tuning details, but then for the price one wouldn't expect anything less.

I've been hooked on blackpowder shooting for well over 25 years. I shoot mostly Frontier and Civil War period guns along with several other muzzleloading and blackpowder cartridge guns.

 

[mec]

I've hads some funny experiences with bullets. My lemat mould throws a real pretty 220 grain bullet but it's way to big to fit under the rammer. There is one bullet company out there foisting 32-20/ 38 and .45 acp bullets off as suitable for bP revolvers. You have to swage the bases with a smaller diameter sizing die to get them to work and they are still kind off off the wall with the alleged .31 bullet goin 120 grains and the .36 weighing in at 150. the same company swages balls but manages to get them lumpy to the tune of .3" inch.

The old traditiona bullets with the rebated base are reliable - not as accurate as ball but you can keep them center chest at 25 yards.

 

[mec]

Big Difference in Dixie on the telephone/orderline and the computer assistance desk (Bangalor, India?) I just ordered quite a batch of parts and screws associated with the loading lever of the Lemat. The order taker was able to confirm in-stock parts and identified one that was not in stock.

Very polite, friendly and helpful.

By contrast, I asked about lock parts a week or so by e-mailing the help desk and got this back today:
"Dear Sir:
We are sorry but we are unable to help you.
Thank you,
DGW"