Bucket List Colt Frontier Six Shooter .44-40

[Outpost75]

Saw the bucket list rifle thread and has to post pics of my latest:

1st Gen Colt Frontier Six Shooter made 1906. Colt factory letter has been requested. Been too hot to shoot, heat is breaking tomorrow so will try the old girl out rain or shine!

Cowboy Gun Porn attached:

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[Winger Ed.]

[QUOTE=Cowboy Gun Porn attached:[[/QUOTE]

Gosh that's purty.

I used to have a buddy that when you came over and showed him some special firearm-
He'd say, "Let me hold that. I'm going to go into the bathroom for a few minutes...…."

[gwpercle]

Nice !
I always wanted to just shoot one but never had the opportunity... shoot a few rounds for me !
Gary

[Outpost75]

I have an El Tigre to go with it, my Hill-billy assault rifle. Don't need no stinkin' Evil Black Rifles!

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[rancher1913]

I got a similar one that I picked up about 30 years ago, local gun shop said it probably was not safe to shoot so its been in the safe for all those years, been thinking maybe the shop owner was not that versed in safety because after reading all the threads on here about unsafe to shoot guns, mine has no issues that I can see.

[Outpost75]

My plan initially is to shoot some pre-WW2 Rem-UMC and WRA factory 200-grain softpoint ballon-head cased factory rounds which are clearly standard rounds and not intended as rifle-only. I want to accumulate vintage cases for the Colt, as I have other modern Ruger .44-40 revolvers and Marlin rifles which get fed hotter Group 2 loads which I don't want to get near the Colt. Anything in Starline brass only gets shot in the strong, modern guns. The olde WRA, Western, Rem-UMC brass will be emptied from the factory loads, then after benchmarking those, I'll test some BP handloads and develop some milder, smokeless loads which don't exceed factory or BP velocity, for use in the Colt.

I have some Ideal #42798 bullets which came with the gun and some from Savvy Jack's Accurate mold to try. And I got a bunch of factory stuff to shoot up and benchmark, first in my S&W 544 Texas Wagon Train and also in the El Tigre to ensure I don't do anything stupid.

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I'm figuring that the 43-206H "Button-nosed Keith" bullet from Accurate should be about right with 6 grains of Bullseye, TiteGroup, Red Dot, WST, 452AA, etc.

[shtur]

Nice revolver and nicer stash of older factory ammo.

[Bazoo]

Pretty awesome man. Thanks for sharing.

Hope I'm not telling you all about something you're well aware.
I don't have personal experience but from what I've read, if the ammo you have is primed with mercury primers, firing them will weaken the brass. The mercury causes a chemical reaction with the brass causing it to begin weakening, and you can't stop it even if you washed the cases. Like I said I'm just repeating what I've read, but if your goal is to reuse the brass it's be worth making sure of. Be worth it to disassemble and reassemble with new primers if it's the case. I think it's pretty neat to use old cases with an old gun.

[Outpost75]

The WRA balloon-head cases may have mercuric primers, as the box does not say otherwise, but primer cups are nickle plated and not copper colored. Not sure whether this just indicates they are smokeless rather than black powder. Having no "W" on the primer cup, suggests they are later production.

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The Remington-UMC states Kleenbore primers which are noncorrosive and nonmercuric, so no issues with those.

A cartridge collector told me the Western having nickle-plated primer cups should be non-mercuric, we will see.

[junkbug]

That revolver is a thing of beauty. Any plans on shooting black powder reloads out of it?

[Outpost75]

That revolver is a thing of beauty. Any plans on shooting black powder reloads out of it?

Absolutely! I want to benchmark the velocity of BP loads against pre-WW2 balloon-head factory, and current production stuff to determine a suitable velocity range for my cast bullet handloads. I also have #42798 as-cast bullets which came with the gun, and some modern designs from Accurate Molds which Savvy Jack sent, and from my own 43-206H.

Will first try the older factory loads in my S&W 544 Texas Wagon Train to ensure none are too hot for the old Colt, and if they seem OK, we will have a comparison between old revolver .427 barrel, .4285 throats with 0.012" loose cylinder gap and modern revolver with .429 barrel, also .4285 throats, but tighter 0.006" B-C gap. Should be interesting and fun.