Adventures with a used 1860 Army

[zardoz]

Today was my first purchase of a cap and ball revolver. Now I've got a couple of smoke poles in the collection here, both percussion type 50 cals, so the black is something I have a little experience with.

It is a Pietta 1860 Army Colt. I really wanted a 3rd model Dragoon, but this one leaped at me from the showcase, and you know how it goes......followed me home.

So, I get it home, and want to get it apart to check it out, and see if everything is copacetic. Easier said than done. I cannot get the wedge pin out. I ended up taking the little screw on the left side of the gun out, and then cannot get it back in. The leaf spring is in the way.

Long story made short, the previous owner had put the wedge pin in BACKWARDS. I only discovered this by examining high resolution photos of the gun from websites. The English translation of the Pietta manual left a lot to be desired and confused me totally.

It was jammed in backwards, so I had to get serious. I found that a WW lead ingot put on the wedge pin face, hit with serious dead blow hammer licks finally got the thing out. I had an array of wood blocks covered in towels to support the rest of the gun. I need to invest in some good brass drifts, but in this case, the lead ingot did not mar or mushroom the wedge pin face, and eventually budged it to where I could get the thing out. Then the gun came apart easily.

So now I could put the screw back in the hole, and with the wedge pin in properly, it now disassembles like it should, and fits together and operates properly.

Hopefully tomorrow, I can actually SHOOT the thing.

Where do these people come from???

[Razor]

......from cousins marry'n up wiff cousins ???

Yore gonna love it ...25~30 gr fffg with REM caps = FUN

[Gerry N.]

......from cousins marry'n up wiff cousins ???

Yore gonna love it ...25~30 gr fffg with REM caps = FUN

Sometimes, looking at guns some drooling mouth breathers have out for sale, I'm tempted to ask, "If your parents got divorced, would they still be brother and sister?"

Gerry N.

[zardoz]

It has been raining around here most of the day, but it finally lightened up enough to go out. I was just itching something fierce to try the Army Colt out.

Since this BP revolver stuff is new to me, I spent a bit of time reading up from various sources. I did not have any FFFG black, only FFG. I did have two pounds of Pyrodex RS, and decided to give that a go for the first time.

Measured out 20 grains Pyrodex carefully on the scale for each cylinder, not having any knowledge of what the thing is supposed to look like. I did note the Pietta manual said no more than 15 grains, but I figured that was for legal sake for brass frame guns. Mine is the steel frame one, and figured 20 grains would be a great start load to see how things shook out.

Had some manufactured Traditions balls that indicated .451 diameter on the box, but they all shaved a nice little thin ring at loading, so that seemed to be OK. I had also put some pre-made patches over the powder charges. Everything seemed OK. I waited until I got to the range before putting on caps. Those were some Remington no. 11, and I was very worried about fit and chain fire. The caps fit perfectly, and after three inspections, I was finally ready to go.

I had forgotten the black ignition sensation. A very pleasant thump...WHUMP! Not like the smokeless cartridge at all. Plus!......the big cloud of smoke. Everything was perfect, and the first three shots were way off, but the final three were in a 2 inch circle at 15 yards. Amazing. Shoots a little high and to the right. But thats OK, I was just happy to have the thing work like I wanted.

Back in the house, and all apart for cleaning. This time that wedge pin came out with just a few light taps of the plastic mallet.

Life is good......

[lathesmith]

zar, I think the 1860 Army is one of the best-handling firearms ever made. Of course, I admit, I am a revolver fan, I love wood and steel, and I just don't seem to have much use for black plastic...
These Uberti's are great guns, mine has very nice fit and finish, and is beautifully blued and color case-hardened. I finally went all the way with mine. I fitted it with a Kirst Cylinder conversion, and made a spring-loaded ejector set-up out in the shop. I know, I know, the '58's are better, the Colt's can't handle 44 mag pressures like a Ruger can, they're too expensive, ...blah blah blah. Whatever...Like I said, I just love these old Colts and their repros, they are a heckuva nostalgia trip for me, and they have a secure place in history, which I like to revive every once in a while. So enjoy that smoker, it's a great piece!

lathesmith

[StarMetal]

zar, I think the 1860 Army is one of the best-handling firearms ever made. Of course, I admit, I am a revolver fan, I love wood and steel, and I just don't seem to have much use for black plastic...
These Uberti's are great guns, mine has very nice fit and finish, and is beautifully blued and color case-hardened. I finally went all the way with mine. I fitted it with a Kirst Cylinder conversion, and made a spring-loaded ejector set-up out in the shop. I know, I know, the '58's are better, the Colt's can't handle 44 mag pressures like a Ruger can, they're too expensive, ...blah blah blah. Whatever...Like I said, I just love these old Colts and their repros, they are a heckuva nostalgia trip for me, and they have a secure place in history, which I like to revive every once in a while. So enjoy that smoker, it's a great piece!

lathesmith

I think the 1860 Colt is most handsome revolver ever made. Classic lines.

Joe

[northmn]

I have an 1860 Army I like very well. I put a higher front sight on mine so it would shoot to point of aim. Liked to shoot a full cylinder, meaning that when I loaded the ball was flush with the end of the cylinder. When I shot competition we had a variation of the bowling pin shoots where we put four blocks of wood on a platform and timed how fast they could be knocked off. Won a couple with it. Most fun came when I beat a real good pistol shot that made his own singleshots. He used a 6 o'clock hold and they put up a buffalo novelty target. I more or less patterned all over the scoring ring like I usually do. He had a pretty nice tight group at the top with two no scores. Of course I did not say anything about using an Italian made revolver against his very nice custom pistols that would sell for many times the price. His pistols no longer were sighted in for 6 O'clock after that.

Northmn

[leadeye]

1860s balance and point better for me than any revolver so it's been a long series of experiments to make a blackhawk feel like one.

[crazy mark]

ZARDOZ,
Word of caution. Get a volume measure for BP/Pyrodex. It's measured by volume and not by weight. Check your 20 grs weighed by 20 grs volume and you will see a difference. Mark

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

nice pistols, but I fell in love with the squareback 1851 Navy Colt the first time I saw one. The gripframe worked well enough to make it to the SAA minus the squareback feature.

Rich

[StarMetal]

Another classy looking Colt is the 1860 with fluted cylinder and the 1862 Colts.

Joe

[Geraldo]

Another classy looking Colt is the 1860 with fluted cylinder and the 1862 Colts.

Joe

They certainly are, but you left out the 1861 Navy. The 1860 Army, 1861 Navy, and the 1862s have the best looks of any cap and ball revolvers IMO.

I had a repro fluted cylinder '61, which I couldn't shoot worth beans and needed serious cleaning after twelve rounds, but dang did it look good I'm waiting on my not so good looking ROA to arrive so I can start over with BP revolvers.

[StarMetal]

They certainly are, but you left out the 1861 Navy. The 1860 Army, 1861 Navy, and the 1862s have the best looks of any cap and ball revolvers IMO.

I had a repro fluted cylinder '61, which I couldn't shoot worth beans and needed serious cleaning after twelve rounds, but dang did it look good I'm waiting on my not so good looking ROA to arrive so I can start over with BP revolvers.

Yes sorry, I meant to put that 1861 in there too.

Joe

[zardoz]

ZARDOZ,
Word of caution. Get a volume measure for BP/Pyrodex. It's measured by volume and not by weight. Check your 20 grs weighed by 20 grs volume and you will see a difference. Mark

Yes, I figured this out. I do have a couple of volumetric measures. Per TC, 52 grains Pyrodex has the same volume as 70 grains BP. Thus a correction factor would be to multiply weight of Pyrodex by 1.346 to get BP equivalent (or so they say.). A 20 grain by weight charge of Pyrodex, would then supposedly yield the same energy as almost 27 grains of BP. Is there really that much more energy available in Pyrodex as opposed to BP per given weight unit? Or is it burn rate, and time to peak pressure?

BTW, on my TC volumetric measure, I had to set it at almost 30 grains to get close to 20 grains by weight of Pyrodex.

In all of this, I am curious about true peak pressures of equivalent weights of BP versus Pyrodex, all other factors being the same. Surely someone here has the low down on this subject.

[lathesmith]

zar, from what I understand, Pyrodex and BP have very similar pressure curves, with Pyro perhaps having a small (10-20%) higher peak. This small difference should have no practical effect in real-world shooting, as your safety margin should(better be!) far higher than this.

I have seen all the old corrosive arguments, BP vs. Pyro, and to me this is just a "less filling vs. tastes great" dead end, bottom line is you better clean your piece pronto after using either one. However, as you noted, Pyro requires a lighter WEIGHT to achieve the same ballistic performance, and because of this, fouling volume is noticeably less for me than BP.

lathesmith

[crazy mark]

Zar,
If you look at the size of the grs of Pyro Vs BP you will see the Pyro is bulkier. I played around with measured 80 grs by weight VS 80 grs by volume and there is a big difference. Pyro in my testing seems to age better than BP. I have ran some loads over my Crono and checked the results. The Pyro was only 20-30 FPS slower and the BP of the same age was 50-60 FPS slower. Not to say everybody will have the same results. The powder had aged 5 years. Of course my testing was done using a 50 cal rifle and not a pistol. I also can fire 20-30 shots with Pyro with no barrel fouling where 10 shots with BP will cause some fouling. Mark

[Dframe]

I've had my best luck with real black powder. 20-25 grains 2F or 3F) with RB and T/C bore butter over the top. Shoots great, easy to clean.............love it.

[StrawHat]

My favorite 1860

[zardoz]

I never saw an 1860 snubby before! Pretty good there Strawhat.

Went looking for some FFFG black this past week, and apparently this stuff is considered more dangerous than plutonium or something around here anymore. I did find something interesting, that I tried out. They were Pyrodex P preformed pellets for a 44 caliber. Indicated 30 grain volumetric equivalent.

I weighed the pellets, and they average around 24 grains each. A little stouter than my first loading of Pyrodex. I noted the pellets had a hollow core to them. This reminded me of the hollow core in solid propellant rocket cores. Even the space shuttle has a hollow core in its solid boosters to expose more fuel surface to the flame front. I wondered what effect that would have.

The loading was quick and easy with those pellets. Just drop one in, put a wad over, and then ram the ball. When I got out to the range, the ignition was quite noticably faster. Almost as fast as smokeless cartridges. I figure that hollow core was the feature that allowed that.

I had my shots far better centered this time, but still went high. I read where the gun is sighted in at around 75 yards or so, so figured that was the reason why. The group was quite tight this time, as opposed to the first time.

This time for clean-up, I took the whole thing apart, and dumped all the metal into a sink full of hot water and soap. There was gunk that came out, that I bet had been in there for ages. After a compressed air dry, oiling, and assembly, the gun feels a whole lot smoother and precise.

Got to thinking, you never see the hero in western movies taking the 1860 completely apart for full cleaning. The most you ever see is them wiping them off with a rag or something. Doesn't make for great entertainment I suppose.

[StrawHat]

I never saw an 1860 snubby before! Pretty good there Strawhat.

Thnak you.

I first saw the snubbie 1860 in some movie with Chuck Heston, he played Brigham Young. At that time nobody made one so I took one of my 1860s and a hacksaw. You can see the results. I put the big front sight on and have since filed it down to impact at 25 yards. The frips are elk stag with the bark removed.

I hear that one of the Italians is making something similar.