Silly Rabbit!

G

gasmandave

New member
So a silly question I know has probably been answered before but I searched and found everything I wanted to know except what I was searching for.

So this silly rabbit needs to find out how to keep caps from dropping into the trigger area and jamming up my 1851 Colt? I had to disassemble the pistol and pry out a spent cap. Now the half cock doesn't work. I'll fix it later, but anyway how can I keep the caps out of the works?
 
Coupla ways

1. There is a technique for filling the slot in the hammer with JB weld. People who use it say it works very well. I never tried it.

2. Then there is the "Colt wave". After the revolver discharges and while you are pulling the hammer back to cock the revolver for your next shot, gracefully raise the revolver such the that muzzle is pointed straight up. You should see the cap fragments drop out of the revolver. This action should not add more than about one or two seconds to your firing sequence.

3. I have developed a habit of holding my Colts with the top of the revolver at about the ten or eleven o'clock position when I fire the revolver. I haven't really analyzed this technique but I don't get a lot of cap jams. It probly isn't helping and I probly should stop doing it, but I can't seem to break the habit.

Not uncommon to pull a Colt apart for cleaning and dump several cap fragments out of the works.

Bought several "failed" revolvers for a song, only to find that the failure was corrected by removing cap fragments.

You raised a good topic and others will likely join in..... Including the Wiseakers who will advise you to hang up the Colt and buy a Remington. ;o)
 
Doc Hoy said' "You raised a good topic and others will likely join in..... Including the Wiseakers who will advise you to hang up the Colt and buy a Remington. ;o)"

Actually I have 4 Remington's and one Colt and I like them all. I just ordered a 1851 Navy Colt snubnose from DGWs.

When I fire the Colt I raise the barrel up and tilt it to the right, not sure how the cap got into the works. I bought the pistol used so who knows. I have read on FLF that this can happen so I'm trying to figure what works for me.

Back in the day (1970ish) I had bought a 1851 Colt and a 1858 Remmie and shot them a lot. Never had the cap fall into the works back then, at least I never fouled up the works. (Never measure the powder either just stuffed it full until I had to trim lead to get the cylinder to turn. :0)

Thanks for the info and I'll be awaiting other suggestions to try.
 
I've done the J-B Weld fix on my '51 Navy and I can attest to it working. I still get cap jams occasionally, but it's been reduced from 1 to 2 every cylinder to one over the course of the entire range session (4-5 cylinders).

Before I did the fix I held the gun to the side while cocking instead of straight up. This video demonstrates it well http://youtu.be/yfzfwPpi_Rc?t=9m6s

Anyway, the reasoning behind the J-B Weld is when the gun goes off, there's a bit of pressure that forces itself back through the flash hole of the nipple.
This can force the spent cap to be pushed into the safety slot in the hammer face, and then when you cock the hammer it pulls it off like a pair of pliers and drops it right down into the action.
By dabbing the slot with J-B Weld and filing it down you're creating a smooth hammer face that won't stick to caps.
The J-B Weld can erode over time though, and needs refilling. A more permanent fix involves drilling and tapping the hammer face for a screw, then cutting and filing it down until it's flush with the hammer face so it's all metal.

You can go a step further by getting aftermarket nipples like from Track of the Wolf. duelist1954 swears by a brand called "Slix Shot".
These nipples typically have smaller flash holes than the stock ones, or in the case of Slix Shots, have two additional holes drilled in the side of the nipple to allow some of that pressure to vent.
 
The hammer fix supposedly prevents the hammer from pulling the cap off of the nipple. But I find that frequently the cap is blown to smithereens and not likely to hang onto the nipple no matter what.

I do as the fellow in that video did - I give my colt a twist to the right while cocking the hammer to allow any cap fragments to fall out the side.

Of course some cap fragments are wedged around the nipple and don't seem to want to drop free until they reach the 6 o'clock position and then they conveniently freely drop loose and down into the action.

But generally if the cap pieces are loose you can get rid of them by twisting the gun over onto it's right side while cocking.

Steve
 
Ach so! It's a shame I'm still using that slot. I don't think I'm the Lone Ranger on this. I recon I'm stuck doing the Colt wave.
 
Raise, tip to side while cocking . . . it worked for many years with many Colts. I've owned and shot a lot of different '51s . . . once you get it down, it's second nature . . and it works. :)
 
.

AFAIK, it was originally preferred to have caps blow clear/off the nipple(s), to facilitate a faster reload - remember all these pistols were originally designed to be combat arms.

The only C&B revolvers I've ever had were a stainless Ruger Old Army, two Pietta M1860 Army's, and a Pietta/Remington new Model Pocket M1863 - none of which ever had a cap hang up in the TG/etc - so my experience is somewhat limited to those.


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Cap Jams

I found this solution on the web a while back and haven't been able to find it since.

To prevent cap jams on my Pietta 1851's, I disassembled them and did two things. The first was the deepen the hammer's safety groove further into the hammer with a red Dremel cut-off wheel... maintaining the height, but following the pre-made cut just to take the curvature a bit deeper.

The second modification was to drill a tiny hole in the hammer slot of the frame, about 3/32 back from the recoil ring (front edge) and pressure fit a piece of piano wire, dead center of the frame's hammer slot and the hammer's safety slot. I cut off the piano wire to clear the cylinder ratchet (inside the frame's recoil ring) and cut the height just shy of the safety slot's height.

Any caps lodging in the hammer safety slot catches the piano wire pin and is forced to cycle clockwise out of the frame's ejection slot... without raising and rotating the revolver with each shot.

It's a bit more complicated than the J-B Weld solution, yet keeps the safety function of the hammer viable (albeit untrustworthy) and works like a charm.
 
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