Man, there's nothing like the real thing.
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I ordered and received some replacement parts.
Yesterday I took the 1849 colt pocket revolver apart. It was made in 1859, covered in rust, and not working.
The trigger spring / bolt spring was broken.
The new trigger spring was too long and square.
I ground it down.
The hand was missing when I took the revolver apart.
The pin on the new hand is 0.131"
The hole in the old trigger is 0.128"
I drilled out the hammer with a 0.136" drill.
The hole is now 0.134".
0.134" -0.128" = 0.006" clearance -> 5 degrees of wobble.
I guess I could have ground down a drill in diameter, but I was moving at mach 3.
The hand is stuck in a narrow channel, and will not wobble.
The trigger spring screw was too short to get started, so I made a spacer from Aluminum and clamped the spring down to get the screw started.
The revolver will no longer do full cock.
Through experiments I can see the cause is the the new hand is too long in the vertical direction.
I can fool the revolver into cocking by getting between chambers so the top of the hand is not hitting the cylinder star.
I can then rotate the cylinder and fire normally. Not desirable with heavy bolt drag on the cylinder.
The replacement wedge screw is too short.
I need to:
Find another wedge screw
cut down the hand
fit the new cherry stock
Probably replace rusty nipples.
I was grinding on the new hand until I had the cylinder timed.
This may be the first time this revolver worked in 150 years.
Very nice work.
I give loading advice based on my actual results in factory rifles with standard chambers, twist rates and basic accurizing.
My goals for using cast boolits are lots of good, cheap, and reasonably accurate shooting, while avoiding overly tedious loading processes.
The BHN Deformation Formula, and why I don't use it.
How to find and fix sizing die eccentricity problems.
Do you trust your casting thermometer?
A few musings.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |