1847 walker new owner question.

[RugerBob]

  Hey pards and pardettes, I received a sweet 1847 Uberti walker from my loving wife for christmas.   I own and shoot a pair of 1851 navy 36 cal. When I shoot the 1851s I get the standard fouling and what nots. All good and happy there. With the walker I shot 3 full rounds and it seemed to need a little help towards the end to get the cylinder to  come to full cock. At the point where the barrel and cylinder meet it was awful cruddy and it was a ashy crud that wiped out easy with no cleaner. There was no fouling in the barrel at all.  So what I am asking is.. 1- why did I have to help turn the cylinder towards the end of shooting?  Once I cleaned the gun It seemed to work flawlessly.  2- are my loads a issue? as I said there was no fouling at all after 18 rounds, just crud within the cylinder where the barel and cylinder meet. Just in the 1st 3/4" of barrel.. I was shooting 40 grs 3FGoex w/454 ball and had a wonder wad between the 2. I am afraid if I go any lighter I'll get a short start. I always clean my guns within an hour of returning from the range.Larger gun, is bore butter an issue here?  thanks for your time all, and if I left out any info please let me know as I have only been shootin cap and ball about 5 months.thanks a bunch, Bob

[Bull Schmitt]

Congratulations on becoming the proud owner/shooter of a Walker.

There may be a few factors that are causing your problem. The gay between the cylinder and the barrel may be too small. Seating the wedge to far can contribute to this. The 40 gr load of FFFg I feel is at the upper end of the load range. I suggest ffg. I don't think the wad is part of the problem. They don't carry much lube but do help prevent cross fires in nearby chambers. It sounds like your fouling is on the dry side and I suggest you put some lube ahead of the ball (Crisco or any good black powder lube).

Let us know if any of this helps.

[RugerBob]

  Thanks Bull, I am gonna try and hit the range this weekend,If I do I'll surely report back, Bob

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[44caliberkid]

Yes, you need to use a lube over the ball for trouble free repeat shots.  Also cut back on your charge to 30 grains or you will soon shoot that Uberti loose.  The wedge slot will stretch in no time with full house loads, and I mean in as little as 12 rounds or so.

[hellgate]

The gap I use is .007" you can get this by placing a folded piece of copy paper between the cylinder and barrel as you tap in the wedge. Remove it just as it "bites". Most copy paper is .0035" thick so doubling it is .007. A lucky number by the way. Yes, use an over ball lube. Put a TON in the first chamber and it'll blow all over the gun but will help with softening the fouling on the barrel face and cylinder pin. The other chambers get pretty well blown out but put a dab in them too.
My Walker load= 44grs FFg+lube wad+.454 ball+over ball lube+#10Remington cap. I shot one match with my two Walkers using 50grs FFFg and ended up having to buy two wedges. WOW did I have a nice cylinder gap at the end of the match. No dragging of the cylinder then but I was making all kinds of noise without as much power. Just shoot it a bit and it'll loosen up but I suspect the wedge is driven in too deep and the cylinder is dragging. Don't tap the wedge in so far and you'll be a happy camper.

[will52100]

I've got a pair I used to shoot till they changed the rules about seating caps with the hammer.  My standard load is 50 grains Graf's 3F, it used to be 60 grains but I realy wasn't getting any more velocity for the extra 10 grains.  Both guns I had trouble with at first.  One gun kept backing the locking pin for the cylinder arbor out and making the arbor loose, took the arbor out and locktighted it and put a new locking pin in and everythings holding together now.  The other gun would go two or three rounds before fouling to a stop.  Finaly figured out what was the problem after shooting enough rounds to get a flame cut on the arbor.  The first gun would go all day without fouling to a stop, the flame cut on it was just on the necked down area in front of the cylinder and kept the flame from blowing back into the cylinder/arbor interface.  The gun with the fouling issues the flame cut was just on the edge of the arbor upset, I followed the flame cut with a needle file down both sides a bit and the fouling issue was solved.  Aparently the arbor needed to be turned down just a hair further back if that makes sence.  After that I got tired of flipping the loading leaver back up and filed half the cam on the spring away so that it hooks the leaver instead of caming into it.  I need a screw driver to drop the leaver now, but that's OK as I need to check the screws after shooting anyway!

My standard load is 50 grains 3F, though I may change to 2f now that I've switched to using 2f in shot shells, a .454 cast roundball and crisco over the chambers.

One thing I don't understand, I keep hearing of battered wedges and shooting loose within only a few rounds, I've got several thousand rounds through mine with little or no stretch and still the orginal wedges?  Did I just luck out?  I figured when I bought them that a steady diet of heavy loads would wear them out quickly, but so far there holding together.

[44caliberkid]

The first Walker I wrecked was an ASM, and it didn't batter the wedge, but rather the wedge slot in the barrel shroud.  The steel was too soft and the rear of the slot stretched, alowing the barrel to walk forward 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch.  The steel behind the slot was actually mushrooming out.  It's because the pistol is trying to shoot the barrel assembly off with every shot, just inherant to the Colt design.
  Yes, I'd say you got a good one.  Consistancy of Italian steel is kinda hit or miss.   I don't think they figure most of their guns will be shot alot, certainly not the amount one sees in CAS.   Consider what their recommended loading is, 18 to 22 grains for a 44 caliber, 11 grains for 36 cals, and you can see they didn't mean these pistols to be fed a steady diet of maximum charges.

[hellgate]

Will,
I'd figure the arbor coming loose would be a sign of the gun shooting loose from heavy loads. The other gun sounds like a peach. Few of us are up to reseating an arbor (repinning & epoxying) so if that happened to one of my guns I'd figure it was "totaled".
I know of one fellow who sent the barrel assembly down range with a full load of 777. The arbor gave at the wedge cutout.

[will52100]

Actualy removing the arbor isn't hard at all, especialy when the locking pin is easing back.  I consider that a factory defect where they put a slightly undersized pin in or a slightly oversized hole.  So far I've got no sign of damage on the barrel slot, I figure if the head space ever opens up too much I'll order new arbors and keep going, but since they changed the rules on CAS I don't shoot them as much.

Both guns came from differant sources, one from cabela's and had charcoal blueing, the other from midway and standard blue.  I took the blue off and did a rust blue/cold blue and aged them, not quite 160 years but enough to make them look like they've been riding in holsters for 30 years.

I had one about 15 years ago that eigther the nipples battered enough that it wouldn't fire or the arbor stretched one, I can't remember and no long have it.

[hellgate]

Hey Will,
What rule changes in SASS would have you not shoot the Walkers? Surely it can't be them making you use at least 15 grs of powder!

I've been shooting Frontiersman since before it was a category (1992) and no rule has slowed me down. I do say they have a lot more rules than before and I can't keep up with them but they still let me shoot (for comic relief I suppose).

[will52100]

My problem is that they no longer allow hammer seating the caps.  If you seat out of battery and have a cap detonate you send a ball down beside the barrel at best, at worst the ball goes who knows where, posibly into an observer on the side or your fingers.  The barrel is the only piece of hardware on the gun designed to have a projectile going down it, the hammer the only piece of hardware designed to withstand the blowback from the nipple.  I feel this is leaving them open to lawsuits, but it's there rules.  Now I shoot conversions.

[hellgate]

Will,
Here's a nice study with lots of pictures of an investigation into the effects of a cap cooking off in the out of battery normal capping position. I use a wooden dowel to cap with and am not worried about it if a ball goes sailing awry. I'm more worried about losing a thumbnail from a cap touching off a chamber and peeling the nail back or a full power load blamming. I'm not a proponent of hammer seating as I have seen some sharp burrs develop on the hammer safety cutout from the nipples and they could develop a pinpoint pressure and set off a cap or cold slippery thumbs letting the hammer slip. That's my idee anyhow. I hate to see you deprive yourself and others of the joy of Walkers booming over a fairly minor change. The AD may never happen to you but there might be others that are not so careful. It's safe to load all six chambers and put the hammer down betwixt the nipples but I accept the "load 5 with hammer on the empty chamber" as an OK safety measure. Nuff said by me.

[will52100]

Lets' just say that we'll agree to disagree.  I won't say that it isn't posible to have a discharge, only that the barrel and hammer were designed to withstand the pressure, not a seating dowl or thumbnail, or finger for that matter!  I normaly use a snail capper and I've tried a push stick, but hammer seating gives me the best reliability and I feel it's safer as long as you take into acount that the gun could fire and keep the muzzel down range.  At the house I normaly load six rounds in just about everything I got as long as there is provision to set the hammer or firing pin on a safety notch.  Since a lot of guns don't have that option and the rule was in effect before I started shooting CAS I won't argue much about it.  I will say that some 5 shot revolvers are legal to use with the hammer down between rounds, the 60' army conversion in 45 colt is a good example.  As for cold and wet, it's a hazard with even cartrige guns.  I saw a very experianced shooter drop a loaded gun in the middle of a stage due to frezzing rain.  They looked at me like I was crazy for shooting cap and ball in the rain, but not a single missfire.