BP revolver with the best longevity

I haven't seen that Colts are more prone to jamming than Remingtons. I have a Colt Signature Series 1861 .36 that spits out spent caps like a semi-auto. The Remingtons I've had tend to jam more due to fouling on the ungrooved cylinder pin (I use the spray PAM and it works wonders on those guns).
The Ruger Old Army is a great cold weather gun due to the larger ball and chamber size (easier for cold fingers to load), and the fact that they (well, mine) just do not jam.
 
BP cap/ball are fun to shoot- but the Colts seem to be jam-prone. A small hammer/drift is a must shooting a Colt, when a spent cap falls in behind the cylinder and jams the gun, it has to be taken apart to unjam it.

The Remington has a little more tolerance to spent caps/jams, the caps seem to fall off the the right onto the ground when recocking the gun.

The key is, get stainless hardened nipples and use caps that fit snugly, so the caps don't fall into the action of the gun.
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Colts arent any more jam prone than Remingtons. They just need to be set up so they are reliable. Treso Nipples and number 10 Remington caps have served me very well. Shot 15 stages last weekend with a pair of 2nd Gen 1861 Navies. Had only one cap jam, that was cleared without tools or taking the gun apart. Have already taken care of what caused the cap jam so they won't happen anymore. Filled the safety notch in the hammer with JB Weld. Dang slot grabs the caps & pulls em off the nipples.
 
Filled the safety notch in the hammer with JB Weld. Dang slot grabs the caps & pulls em off the nipples.
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Your talking about the small slot on the face of the hammer?
I saw a mod for the open tops that involved drilling and inserting a small pin, like the safety pins on the end of the cylinder, in the hammer channel area of the frame, under the hammer. Meant to stop caps from falling into the lock works. Have you tried that on any of your open tops?

I have had caps jam up open top and even my ROA, but not often. I guess one time in competition would be one time to many.
 
+1 Ruger Old Army

But if you want really historicly accurate, rather than good accuracy :D there is absolutely nothing wrong with a nice blue 1858 Remington clone (Pietta, Euroarms of America) are very accurate (both meanings) :D

If you like the old nostalgic, beautiful guns that shoot great, the Colt .45 clones are great too (heavy tho) like Uberti Colt .45, or .36

Or do what I did.... I got 2 x .44 ROA's (in stainless) :cool: 2 x blued Pietta .44 Remington New Army's, 1 x blued Euroarms .44 New Army (Rem 1858) & a Uberti Colt .45 Dragoon, blued in .45 :D

I couldnt decide, so I got all the good ones :D

All quality made revolvers will last a long, long time if you look after them correctly, keep them maintained & dont massively over load them IMO

Muzza
 
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Quote MCB
I saw a mod for the open tops that involved drilling and inserting a small pin, like the safety pins on the end of the cylinder, in the hammer channel area of the frame, under the hammer. Meant to stop caps from falling into the lock works. Have you tried that on any of your open tops?
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There have been a couple of other shooters that have tried that mod (Pettifogger being one IIRC) and have not been overly impressed by it's effectiveness. Opening the slot lessens the area of the cap that the hammer hits; the pin itself can catch the caps & jam up; the pin can get bent. If I was going to modify my guns, I'd have a Manhattan Conversion done; but even that isn't perfect.
 
With an open top if you raise the muzzle slightly and tilt the gun to the right while you cock it you won't have cap jams.
 
Also,

A good way of getting caps to stay on, is to give them a bit of a squeeze between thumb and fore finger to make the base a little 'out of round' (but not too much) before you put them on the nipple. :D

Nothing falls off my nipples if I squeeze them :eek: :D

Hehehehehe

Muzza
 
Quote HH:
With an open top if you raise the muzzle slightly and tilt the gun to the right while you cock it you won't have cap jams.
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Tilting the gun doesnt work when the hammer is grabbing the caps & pulling them off. When I cleaned the Navy that is doing this, there were 8 slivers of cap material in the slot. I'm guessing from 8 differeent caps.

Quote Dingoboyx:
A good way of getting caps to stay on, is to give them a bit of a squeeze between thumb and fore finger to make the base a little 'out of round' (but not too much) before you put them on the nipple
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Pinching caps only works if you're placing them on the nipples by hand. Slow and cumbersome. When you are using a revolver or straight line capper, that is not an option. If you have to pinch caps so they'll stay on the nipples, you're using the wrong caps.
 
A capper is only designed to place caps not seat them. Mine need more pressure to seat than a capper can stand.
 
Fingers

My ROA has size 11 nipples and size 11 caps fit nice (most of the time). I cap by hand and after just one or two going AWAL once in a while, I just got in the habit of squeezing them a bit which actually serves two purposes. One, it stops them ever jumping off on recoil (30gr Black) and the second benefeit (to me) is that when one gets stuck on (hard to get off) the slight out of round gives me a little ledge (the copper is not hard up against the nipple) to hook it off with a small screw driver. It works for me :D

Have tried those 10.75 caps (thats all I could get one time) but they were too tight and real hard to remove. When I can get 11's I do, and they work well :D

Muzza
 
If you have to pinch caps so they'll stay on the nipples, you're using the wrong caps.
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Hmmmm....check this out.
From an old Colt Industries pamphlet:
"Percussion caps are now made in sizes from nine to thirteen. Ten and eleven are the best numbers for the small and medium-sized arms, and twelve for the larger sizes, although, as different-sized nipples are sometimes met in specimens of the same model, no hard and fast rule can be given. It is better to have caps slightly too large than too small, as large caps can be pinched together at the bottom enough so they will stay on the nipples, but small ones must be driven down on the nipple by the blow of the hammer, and this process frequently cushions the blow to the extent of producing a misfire."
 
Thanks Pohill

The old cranky bugga's I shoot with showed me the 'down under nipple squeeze' and told me it was the done thing, nice to know it is written in the past by Colt as the best and correct way to do it. Very true how they worded it too. I guess it is like shoes/boots. If you were bare foot in a padock full of thorns, you take a size 10 boot, you would be happier to find a pair of size 12 boots and have no thorns, than find a pair of size 7 boots you cant squeeze into :eek:

I have a Uberti Colt .45 Dragoon, size 11's, A pair of SS Roh's size 11's, but my Pietta .44 (Rem 1858) take size 10...... will have to get some size 11 nipples for them, so they all take the same size 11's :D

Muzza
 
I recently acquired an original Colt 1851 .36 Navy, and I brought it out and shot it a few weeks ago. I used .380 roundballs that were a little too small - they did not shave any lead (I don't think the chamber mouths are chamferred). I used #11 caps but they were too small (maybe too long). A shorter #11 or a #12 would have been fine. I also fired my Savage & North last year, and again the .380 balls were way too small - I "bumped" them up with a hammer a (flattened them out a little) for a better fit. The #11 caps fit that gun just fine. I have a Whitney that takes .380 balls and #11 caps perfectly. What does this all mean? Just that even back "in the day" there were differences in guns, caps, ball size, etc.
 
Quote Pohill
Hmmmm....check this out.
From an old Colt Industries pamphlet:
"Percussion caps are now made in sizes from nine to thirteen. Ten and eleven are the best numbers for the small and medium-sized arms, and twelve for the larger sizes, although, as different-sized nipples are sometimes met in specimens of the same model, no hard and fast rule can be given. It is better to have caps slightly too large than too small, as large caps can be pinched together at the bottom enough so they will stay on the nipples, but small ones must be driven down on the nipple by the blow of the hammer, and this process frequently cushions the blow to the extent of producing a misfire."
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Which just goes to prove the point that correct cap/nipple matching is preferred; but over sized caps will do in a pinch :rolleyes:
 
I use Remington #10's on my 60 Colt because I can't find CCI 10's locally. They seat easily enough with thumb pressure but a capper won't do it. One of my 58 Remingtons takes CCI #11's and again they seat easily with thumb pressure but we all know how well cappers work on a Remington. The other Remington takes #9's so pinch fit 10's are what it gets.
 
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