Cut the loading ports on my 1860 Colt conversion today!

[rbertalotto]

So today I decided to cut out the receiver for the loading gate. With these conversions, quite a bit of material must be removed to facilitate loading cartridges like an 1873 Colt SAA.

I started with a rat tail file, progressed to grinding stones in my Dremel and finished it off with fine sanding discs. It took over three hours! The second one will go much faster as now I know how much material must be removed, and it's a lot!

BEFORE:




AFTER:

[Dick Dastardly]

Yup, you have to remove that much metal in order to be able to load and unload easily.  Looks like you did a nice job.  How did you color the cut?

DD-MDA

[rbertalotto]

I heated the area to be blued with a very fine flame on my OX torch. Then I "dabbed" on a bit of Brownells Gel blueing. Heated it again and dabbed on more until it was covered. Wiped it off and Vola! Looks pretty good!

But if you don't have the patience or the familiarity with a file and a Dremel grinder, I'd let Hoof do it. It took about three hours for the first one and 20 minutes for the second........

If I was to do many of them I'd build a set-up for my milling machine and simply mill the slot. But for just two revolvers, it wasn't worth it.

Lots of filing! Now I have a right arm like Popeye............

[Hoof Hearted]

Looking mighty fine!

Let's see the other one (so we can see if you have talent ).

[rbertalotto]

Let's see the other one (so we can see if you have talent

You couldn't tell them apart. They are identical!.........

[Wagon Box Willy]

Roy,

what do you use for the red background?  A light tent?

Willy

[rbertalotto]

They are simply sitting on an old red T-shirt. I use a Nikon D90 with a Nikor 28-105mm Macro lens with a "light ring" that fits on the end of the lens. Makes photography like this "child's play"...........