Setting up my Colt 1860

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Well, I guess now I'm comitted to trying out the Bullseye shoot with a BP gun :laugh:
That means I better clean up and work out a load for one of them eh? I decided to start with the 1860 that is a rarity in my horde - I bought it new in the box from the retailer, instead of scarfing up one of the pennies on the dollar Armslist deals where some poor guy is dumping all their BP stuff in one lot.

I haven't even shot this one yet. Still dripping in the packing oil..

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1st thing up - the gorram wedge was so tight, I busted a brass drift trying to hammer it out! 2nd thing, the hand looks nasty!
Just really rough and uneven, even up where it would contact the cylinder ratchet

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Right now I'm just going over it, cleaning, and de-buring. Rounding down a few edges that are sharp enough to cut ya.
At some point I will cut down the rear "sight" notch and probably re-profile the front sight a bit. More pics will follow.

At least one pleasant surprise was that the nipples were in very lightly. Barely more than finger tight. Also (and I'll have to try and photograph this up close) it looks like the cylinder chambers come beveled now?
Brian in StL

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Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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rockyriverleather wrote:Pietta, Uberti, or other?....
Mine's a Pietta, not so rough as that, though. My belief was always the Pietta was the lesser of the two, but my Remi is a Uberti, and I had to do a lot of work on it, including the cam on the hammer cause the timing was off.
it's a Pietta.

Did some more work last night.. as stated previously, the muzzle crown and cylinder bores all seem to come pre-chamfered by the factory now:
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Edge of the forcing cone was razor-sharp though, so I gave that a light honing by hand, with a cone-shaped dremel stone.

The bolt cut-out, the inside of the bolt/trigger spring, and the arbor bore in the barrel end all had wicked burrs on them. Spent a lot of time with diamond files to smooth theese out..
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And, hard to tell from the angles, but I filed out to widen and deepen the rear sight a bit. this will get further modification as I sight it in I'm sure
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The wedge slot was sharp as hell and needed smoothing, as well as a few other edges.. the clasp of the ram lever were sharp enough to cut flesh!

Next step will probably be to put a nice flat profile on the front sight, and give it a bit of an undercut..
Brian in StL

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Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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You're never going to be able to file that front sight because as is it needs to be higher by quite a bit.

I'd just leave the rear hammer alone now that you've widened it and have someone dovetail a new high brass front sight on. Much easier than monkeying around with the hammer (which you would never get to work if you start filing that front).

I'd put 20 grains of 777 and see how it shoots. Ought to get around 4" at 25 yards, where, hard telling - almost certainly high.

Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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Nice job...geez I'm just glad mine wasn't even close to that bad of rough. Some of the distributors are not as fussy as others as to what they accept at delivery. Taylor's in VA is supposed to be one of the better ones, and yet my remi needed more work than expected. My Pietta was from Cabella's and was 95% ok out of the box

Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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curtism1234 wrote:You're never going to be able to file that front sight because as is it needs to be higher by quite a bit.
I wasn't going to file it down, just make the rear-facing plane flat instead of rounded, and try to give it a slight back-bevel. more like a modern sight. the rounded profile always messes with me.
As for the hammer rear sight, deepening the groove a bit has the same effect as a taller front.
Not going to go too crazy with it.. just a starting point and we'll see how it goes from there.

Having someone dovetail a sight costs money. money to people I don't know of in my town. Filing is free! ;)
Brian in StL

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Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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lurker wrote:caps probably not fully seating, first hit seats them, second hit fires them. are you using #10 or #11 caps?
you can (gently!) seat them with the hammer.
I have two sets of nipples, one set OEM and one set from Track of the Wolf. The OEM use #10 and the Track ones use #11s. I carved a small wooden tool to help seat the caps properly and it doesn't seem like its helping in any way.

Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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Valen,
Can't be sure, but just some logical thoughts:
1. Caps not seating properly. Try different sizes, manufacturers. Mfgs might even have 2 kinds of say no 11 I think Remington does)
2. Back out one nipple half turn at a time, no load in cylinder, just cap it and try firing. Would indicate a distance problem between hammer and cap. Not a permanent solution, just a test.
3. Remove grips and try adjusting hammer spring. Even a half turn might make the hammer strike harder.
4. In the same vain as the hammer spring, the hammer edges/bolts. etc might be too rough somewhere and hanging up the full strike of the hammer....
5. Put literally 2-3 grains of powder in the cap before seating it, for a little extra oomph. Might indicate the caps are damp, or just inferior

No expert here, just some standard process testing.

Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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rockyriverleather wrote:Valen,
Can't be sure, but just some logical thoughts:
1. Caps not seating properly. Try different sizes, manufacturers. Mfgs might even have 2 kinds of say no 11 I think Remington does)
2. Back out one nipple half turn at a time, no load in cylinder, just cap it and try firing. Would indicate a distance problem between hammer and cap. Not a permanent solution, just a test.
3. Remove grips and try adjusting hammer spring. Even a half turn might make the hammer strike harder.
4. In the same vain as the hammer spring, the hammer edges/bolts. etc might be too rough somewhere and hanging up the full strike of the hammer....
5. Put literally 2-3 grains of powder in the cap before seating it, for a little extra oomph. Might indicate the caps are damp, or just inferior

No expert here, just some standard process testing.
All good ideas. I hope to get some time to mess with it this weekend

Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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valen wrote:I have one of these and I'm having a hell of a time getting it to fire the caps on the first strike.
Pull the hammer back and check where the arbor comes through the back of the "receiver". Often this friction fit raises a large burr or bump of metal, or the arbor comes through completely. If it's high enough, it can keep the hammer from seating completely and thus the primers are not fully struck.
Frankly, I've never heard of it this bad though!

I did a little filing on mine to smooth it down.

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Brian in StL

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Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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I went up north with a buddy for the weekend. His cabin is on 10 acres and I spent a couple of hours on saturday morning systematically testing percussion caps. No charges, just detonating the caps. My gun, with the track nipples likes remington #11 caps. It fired 18 caps in a row with no malfunctions and then fired another thirty or so round balls with a 25 grain load again with zero malfunctions.

No more CCI caps for me. I've cracked the case.

Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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Hmm, CCI caps were always good quality, not quite up to the German caps but pretty good.

I've been using Remington a lot because they are about all you can find in #10. They are good most of the time, if you're hunting you have to inspect the inside of the primer. Sometimes the green material is loose or missing entirely.

Winchester caps were pretty good a few years ago. I'm not sure where they are now.

Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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(NOTE: my apologies for the pics breaking format. It appears that Google has axed Picasa Photos, where I have been saving and linking my pics from. Now it's "Google Photos" and I can't find a way to link the smaller images)

This weekend I was finally able to get out to the public outdoor range and start tuning up the 1860 a bit.

My 1st goal was to simply determine what load would give me the best groupings, and if any particular cylinder(s) would throw a shot off.
Through my BP purchases over the years, I have accumulated sever different sized flask nozzles, so tailoring my load is pretty easy. I brought along a 30, 25, 21, and 18gr nozzle.

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In the above target, I shot 30 gr on the left, 20gr on the right, then went to 25 on the top middle. As noted in previous posts, I had deepened and widened the hammer notch a we bit, so I buried the front sight to where it was just kissing the bottom of the V for my "0-7ish yard" range. Though I wasn't really trying for bullseye here, it looks like 25gr of Triple-7 gave me the best group, and also about spot-on for the aim. Looks like my windage is in good order as well.

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After I had my load figured out, I moved the target stand out to the 15 yard line, and went for aim at this distance. I tried a variety of holds. I suspected that with the front sight about 1/2 way down the V, I would be about right for a 6 o'clock hold, but that's still a touch high.
On the right target, I took a "normal" sight picture with the front sight at the top of the V.. but I was starting to get a flinch and fatigue by this point.. About 90F out and I forgot my bottle of water.. plus I had a couple of jams when "Cease fire" was called, which brought me to the attention of the RSO's..
everyone's usually cool there, it just puts a rush on me that I don't like. One RSO doesn't care if you leave it capped but on half-cock.. one RSO wants me to pull the loading lever down for some reason. Another wants you to pull caps but gripes that I don't remove the cylinder.. arrgh!!

But anyway, I think I have my Bullseye Club formula figured out...

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They still hadn't kicked me out (I guess enough people were leaving that they didn't have to forcibly cycle folks after the hour) so I went out to 25 yards, standing this time. Here you can really see I was getting done. Flinch was real bad and I had the shakes. I had one mis-fire due to the hammer getting mucked up. Some spit on a rag took care of that, and it fired fine. I think the bolt was also starting to stick as well.. cylinder didn't want to release on a couple shots. I ended up having to pull the wedge & barrel off, and give the cylinder a yank.
After this, I was done.

It was a fun afternoon, and had met up with ErikO and a couple other locals (not sure if they're on the forum?) and we enjoyed some BBQ afterwards, as is tradition.

Hope I can get back out there before the deadline!
Brian in StL

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Re: Setting up my Colt 1860

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valen wrote:Good shooting. These pistols are surprisingly accurate.
Thanks! I'm improving with rimfire pistol shooting, but anything center-fire sized I'm still fighting a bad flinch that sets in on me. It mostly seems to express with revolvers for some reason. Maybe part is the way the grips tend to fit (or not fit, as it were) in my hand vs say, my 1911 or Tokarev.
Both with my BP revolvers, and my Uberti Cattleman in .357 I have a hard time with.

Note that even here while rested, I was starting to string my shots..
Brian in StL

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