.45-60 Walker Conversion Started...
Aug 22, 2017 23:34:12 GMT -5
needsmostuff, awp101, and 2 more like this
Post by tinkerpearce on Aug 22, 2017 23:34:12 GMT -5
I always thought a Walker Cartridge conversion in .45 Colt seemed like a lotta gun for the cartridge and I got to thinking... which is usually where the trouble starts. The original charge for these guns was a Picket Bullet with 60 grains of black powder, so why not make a cartridge that mimicked that performance? Get a Walker, a Kirst conversion chambered for a longer cartridge and have a load worthy of the gun. I broached the idea on a Facebook group and was told 'check out .45 BPM.' Well hell... of course someone else thought of it first. Then I found out about .45-60-225 and .45 Walker... OK, it wasn't the most original thought in the world. You know what they say, 'Great Minds think alike... and so do we!"
So, bad news for originality, but good news in that others have gone before and not blown themselves up. Yet. Anyway since I had let it be known that I was looking for a Walker reproduction a buddy of mine gave me a shout when he ran across an unfired CVA/Armi San Marcos for $170. I jumped on it and a week later it arrived at my door.
Hot damn, now we're cooking. The loading lever wouldn't stay up and the timing was off- if not cocked gently the cylinder would over-rotate. No worries, I won't be using the loading lever and if there is one thing I can do it's remove metal. Speaking of removing metal, muhgawd that barrel is long and heavy! Since this gun may be accompanying me into the pucker brush this fall I was not keen on the handling; kinda' slow for close-in work. I can fix that...
I'd already been researching my prospective load (which I will eventually reveal if it doesn't kill the gun... or me) and calculated how much velocity I could afford to lose. OK, a fair bit of barrel could come off without crippling the load. So I cut the barrel at 3-1/2", re-crowned it, refinished the sides to remove the Italian markings and gave it a temporary cold-blue finish. I also detail-stripped and cleaned the gun, guessed how much needed to come off the hand and reassembled it. Thank the Lord I am a good guesser- no more over-rotation. The result so far:
next up- buy a new drive-belt for the lathe because the old one just snapped. Crap. OK after that I am going a different direction than originally planned. The Kirst is a very nice unit but at $390 it's going to take awhile to slip into the budget. This cylinder is pretty beefy, and I just turned down the base and bored through a C&B cylinder for another project so why not? I'm going to go the same route with this'n and fabricate a breech-plate with a pass-through for cartridges. I have a .450 drill bit to get things started and after that I'll use a .460 S&W reamer (not quite to full depth) to do the chambers. Slightly shortened .460 Brass will be used for the cartridges. If my math works out (always a dubious proposition) the 200 gr. LRNFP will exit the 3-1/2" barrel in the neighborhood of 1200 fps. That's a pretty nice neighborhood!
Anyway if the whole thing goes pear-shaped on me I can always save up for the Kirst Konverter.
The last mod to date was not to the gun, but to the loading lever. This gun is tight, so the only good way is to remove the barrel is to use the loading lever between cylinders to pry the barrel off. I turned the screw-hole on the loading lever into a hook so I can still use it without removing the loading-lever screw every time I want to disassemble the gun.
Those grips... yeah, they gotta go. I don'[t know if they were badly fitted at the factory or if they shrank over the years. Either way I'd rather make new ones than grind the frame to fit the old ones. I have some nice curly maple, or maybe some vintage pre-blight American Chestnut. We'll see.
So now I am just waiting on the drive belt for the lathe to set my evil plan in motion. I'll keep you posted.
So, bad news for originality, but good news in that others have gone before and not blown themselves up. Yet. Anyway since I had let it be known that I was looking for a Walker reproduction a buddy of mine gave me a shout when he ran across an unfired CVA/Armi San Marcos for $170. I jumped on it and a week later it arrived at my door.
Hot damn, now we're cooking. The loading lever wouldn't stay up and the timing was off- if not cocked gently the cylinder would over-rotate. No worries, I won't be using the loading lever and if there is one thing I can do it's remove metal. Speaking of removing metal, muhgawd that barrel is long and heavy! Since this gun may be accompanying me into the pucker brush this fall I was not keen on the handling; kinda' slow for close-in work. I can fix that...
I'd already been researching my prospective load (which I will eventually reveal if it doesn't kill the gun... or me) and calculated how much velocity I could afford to lose. OK, a fair bit of barrel could come off without crippling the load. So I cut the barrel at 3-1/2", re-crowned it, refinished the sides to remove the Italian markings and gave it a temporary cold-blue finish. I also detail-stripped and cleaned the gun, guessed how much needed to come off the hand and reassembled it. Thank the Lord I am a good guesser- no more over-rotation. The result so far:
next up- buy a new drive-belt for the lathe because the old one just snapped. Crap. OK after that I am going a different direction than originally planned. The Kirst is a very nice unit but at $390 it's going to take awhile to slip into the budget. This cylinder is pretty beefy, and I just turned down the base and bored through a C&B cylinder for another project so why not? I'm going to go the same route with this'n and fabricate a breech-plate with a pass-through for cartridges. I have a .450 drill bit to get things started and after that I'll use a .460 S&W reamer (not quite to full depth) to do the chambers. Slightly shortened .460 Brass will be used for the cartridges. If my math works out (always a dubious proposition) the 200 gr. LRNFP will exit the 3-1/2" barrel in the neighborhood of 1200 fps. That's a pretty nice neighborhood!
Anyway if the whole thing goes pear-shaped on me I can always save up for the Kirst Konverter.
The last mod to date was not to the gun, but to the loading lever. This gun is tight, so the only good way is to remove the barrel is to use the loading lever between cylinders to pry the barrel off. I turned the screw-hole on the loading lever into a hook so I can still use it without removing the loading-lever screw every time I want to disassemble the gun.
Those grips... yeah, they gotta go. I don'[t know if they were badly fitted at the factory or if they shrank over the years. Either way I'd rather make new ones than grind the frame to fit the old ones. I have some nice curly maple, or maybe some vintage pre-blight American Chestnut. We'll see.
So now I am just waiting on the drive belt for the lathe to set my evil plan in motion. I'll keep you posted.
