JiminTexas
New member
Well, tonight I bought a new toy. It's going to take some work, but I think that I'll have fun with it, both in refinishing it and in shooting it. The second model was made between 1882 and 1884. I bought this on line, so obviously I don't have a complete picture of what it is going to need. The internal workings seem to be in working condition. It cycles, indexes and times up as it should. The bore has "light pitting throughout" and the nickelplating is worn through in several spots. I'm thinking that I can just replace the barrel, pretty easy to do in a top break pistol, the cylander gap can be set with a flat file. I did a little research on replating the thing, but it seems that this is a very complex and dangerous (at least at home) process. So, I'll probably just strip the nickel plating off and blue it. It appears that it comes off with a lot less technology thanit goes on with. But still, it is the part that I'm unsure of. Brownells has a room temperature nickel stripping solution that is suposed to work in 30 minutes to 4 hours without killing you and all of the neighbors and not dammaging the steel. Unfortunately these old guns weren't made of steel. At least not steel as we know it today. Many were made of iron. That's why you can't shoot smokeless powder in them. If any of you out there have any any experience with this or similar strippers, I certainly would appreciate your input.