ASM Walker

[Professor Marvel]

"....To Those of us who are cheap barstiches frugal fellows, bargaing is a major hobby all by itself "


WORD !

Bargaing? Bargering.  Badgering. Bargargining.

Bargaining!

Damn you autoconnect. Correct where are you when i need you?

Prf mumbles

[litl rooster]

We had a name for it at the horse sale barn... it wasn?t Frugal

[riflee]

 I've worked old ASM big guns. Uberti cylinders fit right up. 
I always use a pen light to shine down the barrels to see if the chambers are in line. Even a black cylinder face will shine that way and the shine is the show of misalignment. I call it the "silver moon" of misalignment.  No real biggy unless the chambers don't show all the same. Sometimes a chamber or two are out of wack.

There's ways to work the bolt to move a cylinder into proper battery. Ways to work the bolt window also. Been there done that. Makes fer some satisfaction for a job well done.
Anywho?.. since the guns shoot balls the chambers can be off a bit and still shoot real well. Whittling the forcing cone at the breech wider and longer can direct the ball right into the center of the bore. Never do this with a conical bullet shooter though.  Brownells sells a nice forcing cone reamer at a reasonable cost.

Found out that arbors can get to much carbon when casehardening and get brittle. Best to remove the arbors when casehardening a frame. Even tempering the arbor after casehardening doesn't always work well.  They can be carbonized clean through.

There was someone saying they would like to charcoal blue the parts. There are multiple renditions of what people call charcoal bluing. Which method was mentioned?

Some folks simply cook the metal in a wood fire for hours with the pieces buried in a container of wood and bone charcoal. Parts can come out black or blue.  It's been shown that carbon   steel will turn blue if cooked in a charcoal fire for a period of 3.5 hours at 800 degrees.  A bit of bone charcoal makes fer more carbon dioxide which acts like shielding gas from oxygen.  The best way is to have the parts buried in wood charcoal and a little bone charcoal in a closed but not sealed container with a little paper on top (under the lid).   The paper helps eliminate the oxygen.

Having an oven to hold at 800 degrees is the hard part. Cooling then carding the parts and then reheating in the crucible can help getting the right color and less blemishes. What I know about how Colt did this is bury the parts in red coals and pull them out and card with burlap rags and powdered lime.  I read somewhere that rags with a little fish oil on them were used to rub the parts too. Puts on a coat of carbon.

I did an experiment once long ago and threw pistol barrels and cylinders in a wood fire where some were rubbed with a lime rag and some with a fish oil rag and tossed back on the fire and covered with red coals.  Periodically pulled out and re-rubbed.The fish oiled parts came out "black" and the limed parts turned a slightly grey black mostly black.  I over heated the parts but.....the color was not blemished and they were oiled with a thin oil and left for over two years and even after the oil was gone they did not rust and that finish was durable. I rubbed the parts when they were HOT using the rags and some fireman gloves from when I was a fireman. Leather gloves with clean white cotton over them would be better.  In essence what I did was burn a coating of organic carbon onto/into the low carbon steel the parts.  If I try it again I'll remove the parts more often from the fire so they aren't getting too hot.  I did like the nice ink black the over heating with the fish oil produced. 

Anywhooo? I do like the nitre blue I do with the salts. BEAUTIFUL but  not super durable but  easily redone.  More controllable fer a poor (on a fixed income person) person without a controllable  gunsmith oven. Maybe some day. Helps a lot with casehardening and nitre bluing.  I caseharden cap&ball pistol parts in the crucible(parts in wood and bone charcoal) and a simple wood fire making red hot coals to reach the critical temp of about 1,400 degrees red hot. Fun to do and learning more along the way.

Anywhooo to get back on the subject I would grap that mentioned old ASM Walker and make it a gem of a gun. If it were basically fixable which to me is most anything. I did a ASM Dragoon I got fer $25 and that was me being robbed since the gun was TRASH. Wood screws jammed in the barrel around the wedge....the arbor and frame where there were once threads were drilled and peened and wood screws jammed in. The arbor had no threads and the frame had no thread fer the arbor.  The gun was man handled, chewed on and beat with hammers and drilled to death and the wood grips checkered with a dull screw drive(really) and ruined by monkeys from hell with no brains or mechanical aptitude.

That Dragoon called to me.....Rifle take me home.....Rifle take me home ...I love you...and you love me.... please fix me.....please fix me. It sits in a place of honor next to the TV I use mostly to watch FOX news and cuss a lot.
It was welded on all over and reshaped and refinished and all that with the arbor welded in too with new curly maple grips and Belgian blued parts. All well fit and sturdy and accurized and shoots like a laser beam.

The satisfaction of a job well done is priceless ( if you get the old gun cheap enough). 

[wildman1]

Rifle it is always good to read your posts and your "take" on things. Thanks for coming around once in a while.
wM1

[Professor Marvel]

Thanks Rifle, great reading!

Yhs
Prf mumbles

[LonesomePigeon]

That Walker looks like it has the "fat Colt 2nd Gen" style grip frame. That's the same style grip frame that was used on most of the Colt 2nd Gen Walker's. I wonder if it also has Colt markings on the cylinder and/or barrel? That would be a good find, IMHO.

[Navy Six]

Yes, Riflee it was good to see you post again! I always enjoyed your comprehensive posts and have learned more than a few things from them. Funny sense of humor as well. Keep posting as I can't get enough info on these Open Top Colts!
Good Luck with the ASM, Kent Shootwell!

[Oldgold]

OP, I have two ASM Walkers that are GTG. Got them fairly cheap.