Walker

[Sam Carp]

What size round ball does a Walker 44 use? I have some .451 that don't want to stay seated on the powder. Also how much powder should I use?

Sam

[waksupi]

Sam, I believe they take a .454. As far as powder charge, you can fill the chamber if you're feeling up to it. It will handle it just fine, and the recoil isn't all that bad, in such a heavy pistol. I don't remember what charge I was using, been a lot of years since I shot one. I would fill to within about 1/2" of the mouth, put in a pinch of cornmeal to avoid crossfires, and then seat the ball.

[mooman76]

That is correct, it used a 454.

[freedom475]

I prefur the 457's in mine just because it gives more bearing surface to the boolit . It still loads easy enough.

When I first got the Walker the wedge would barely get into the off-side slot without tying up on the forcing cone. After a few hundred full chamber loads (leave room for the ball) the wedge was nearly bottomed out and the slot was showing definate wear signs. It also hits VERY high with this load... 200yrd zero...well it puts all balls through the gong frame at the range. don't hit the gong to often.

Before I open a can-o-worms hear let me just say... I have heard all of the horror stories of not seating the ball all the way to BP...

but I have shot 1000's of balls out of my Navy Arms Walker with just 25gr. 3fff. this load is a little slow(lock time) but is a lot of fun,cheap,won't trash your gun, and hits dead on at close range....can run the plate-racks out to 25yrds at the pistol range clean

[Ghugly]

Sort of, semi, on topic. How the hell do you keep the loading arm locked in place? My one gripe with Walkers. Sure are fun tho.

[mooman76]

You could put something around it like a rubber band or something. That was one of the early revolvers and that is why they changed how the loading arm locks in place. Don't try bending the small holder to tighten it. I tried iton a bran new gun, it took close to a year to get a replacement part.

[StrawHat]

I believe Colt solved the many problems of the Walker by producing the Dragoon series of pistols.

Not that the Walker isn't fun to shoot but it was not produced through to the cartridge period for a reason. Too many faults.

The italians have done a good job of reproducing it including all the problems except the exploding cylinder.

[freedom475]

Sort of, semi, on topic. How the hell do you keep the loading arm locked in place? My one gripe with Walkers. Sure are fun tho.

I had a machinest friend of mine Tig weld the retainer on at a stronger angle . This solved the problem completly.....This was also required because I blew-out the dovetail of the retainer while trying to bend it [smilie=1:

After this thread was started I took out the Navy Arms Walker and loaded it up with 50gr. Pyrodex "P" and shot it through my chrono....1430fps ave. with .457 RB's!

[Ricochet]

I couldn't quite remember what I'd measured on my Armi San Marco I bought in 1980, and I'd done it with a cheap flimsy plastic caliper quite some time ago. So I just now got out my metal digital caliper (cheap recent Chinese make from Harbor Freight), pulled the barrel off and measured. Groove diameter is .447". Chambers mostly measure .442", a couple may be .443". That's why it leads worse on firing than any gun I've seen. Blowby melts the lead off. I need to get my chambers reamed out. I've been using the Lee 452-160-RF boolit in this thing lately, so a diameter in the .450-.452" range that would fit snugly but not shave much would be ideal. It's got plenty of taper in the barrel throat to handle that, and plenty of "meat" around the chambers.