Ethan Allen Pepperbox kit

[Idz]

I recently put together the Classic Arms pepperbox kit and had some observations. See http://www.possibleshop.com/did-you-...-200-inst.html for the assembly instructions.

How I think the gun should work: 1) In the resting position the trigger spring keeps the trigger forward and the sear spring presses the sear against the hammer. 2) Halfcock: as the barrel is rotated the cam plate lifts the hammer until the sear engages the hammer notch. 3) Firing:as the trigger is pulled the sear lifts and rotates the hammer until the sear rotates out of the hammer notch and the hammer drops.

The kit reality:
a) The barrel cam plate doesn't lift the hammer high enough for the sear to engage the hammer notch. I suspect this was a design change to make the kit cheaper. The barrel wasn't finished so I had to turn the OD to get a decent surface, the barrel boss where the cam plate mounts was too large and had to be turned down about 0.015", also the barrel was full of metal chips so had to be completely disassembled and cleaned.
b) The trigger slot in the receiver wasn't milled correctly so had to be milled out so the trigger would fit.
c) The hammer to hammer spring retainer surface wasn't designed correctly. The top edge of the hammer spring binds on the hammer. The spring top edge had to be ground and polished so it wouldn't bind.
d) The trigger plunger binds on the trigger making a very rough trigger pull. The end of the plunger must be radiused and polished so it doesn't bind.
e) The sear plunger is incorrectly designed so sear will not fit into the trigger. Easy solution is to leave out the plunger and just use the sear spring.
f) The grip screw was so rough it would not thread into the receiver. The screw had to be re-threaded with a die.
g) I found it impossible to do the 5-handed operation of compressing the hammer spring, aligning the hammer, inserting the hammer pivot pin, and driving it home. I finally used a nail to hold the hammer in place so I could compress the spring and then marked how far the hammer springer retainer extended from the back of the receiver. I then took it apart and cross-drilled a 1/16" hole in the retainer. I could then re-assemble things using a nail pivot pin, compress the spring, and then lock the compressed spring with a wire. That removed enough spring tension so the hammer could be manipulated and the hammer pin aligned and driven in and then the wire pulled.

Overall this kit is way overpriced for what you get. As others discovered the trigger pull is horrendous and the hammer doesn't fall hard enough to reliably fire a cap. My solution is to use my homemade percussion caps which fit better and are more sensitive than commercial caps. Next week some range tests!

To build this kit you will need a machine shop, gunsmithing knowledge, and patience, but will end up with a interesting conversation piece. Good Luck!

[waksupi]

That's why they call it a kit!

[Idz]

Did some more cap testing in the pepperbox and it didn't fire reliably. So I took it apart and tested the hammerspring. It should be able to supply 130 oz*in of energy. Rem #11 caps need about 44 oz*in to fire so plenty of energy is available. The hammer and spring retainer are poorly designed so I cut the back tang off the hammer where it binds on the spring and removed the useless spring retainer. Then I drilled out the socket the spring sits in and put a 3/8-24 screw in it so I could adjust the spring compression. While things were apart I shortened the trigger spring to 0.43" so it wouldn't bind as much on the trigger.
With these fixes the pepperbox now fires caps reliably and I took it out for a range test. With 12 gr 3Fg, 0.015 patch, 0.350 ball it would fire although its poor accuracy reputation is well deserved.
Success! now on to something else.