Howdy! I noticed ole Doc Hoy on here. Howdy Doc. Didn't I ,sort of,rebuild yer old Belgian 1860 Army Centaure Centennial Colt once? One of those loose arbored,barrel needs set back and all innard parts replaced and timed,tuned,aligned,and all?
I consider myself a gunsmith in regards to cap&ballers. How did I get there? I went from knowing nothing to being called "The Master" by self taught and by reading gunsmith books and gun mag articles and "trial and error". Doing the work isn't that difficult once you get over being afraid to dive into it. Just define the problem and define the proper mechanical purpose and struggle to get there and after time....do your own work and forget spending big bucks on professional gunsmiths that want you to pay to send the kids to college and feed Momma and all the dogs and the rent.
All you have to do is read and do trial and error. I wish I had the internet when I strted out all alone with cap&baller gunsmithing. Today there are good articles on the net to learn offa. There are bad ones to and you have to learn to weed the chaff from the wheat.
Anyway...don't go anywhere till you know where you're going. Learn what the "proper working" of the gun is and then see what you have to do to get there. Ask questions and read and make a hobby of it. After a short while it'll all come to you. Tuning cap&ballers isn't rocket science. It'll come to you.
First off...learn what a decent cap&baller is and don't accept bad guns from the dealers...unless you are looking for one to learn on. You can take a good gun and get all new parts for it and fit all the new parts till the new parts work as good as the good ones that came in it.
Anyway...try to find a "Pard" that can expain things if you get stuck. You can tell the ones on the forums that know what they are doing. The "I been doing it for 30 years" doesn't mean they been doing it right either. You can pick the knowlegeable Pards from the ones that think they know it all but don't know they don't know it all.
Anyway I recommend that once you know what's a good gun then you can go from there replacing parts that break if you don't think they fit right and all. First off learn what "the perfect action" works like. Then you know where you are trying to get and then learn to get there.
You have to be a certain degree of a gunsmith to own a cap&baller since they do break once in awhile and you don't want to have to stop shooting if a part breaks. You can learn to "have extra parts" and learn how to "put them in the gun to get back to shooting".
People like Madcratebuilder and Smoking Gun and others that are here regularly can answer questions. There are no dumb questions you know.
Anywhooooo.....most all the cap&baller shooters out there that stick with it learn to replace parts and all since all the cap&ballers aren't made by Ruger in the USA.
