45 cowboy 73 conversion

[Cohagen]

Howdy Pards,

Love to shoot the .45 Cowboy load in the Holy Black.  Works great in my pistola's and now I would like to convert a 73 or 66 to shoot this load.  Aside from sending to a gunsmith, is there anyway to safely do this for the basement gunsmith?

Thanks in advance

Cohagen

[Pettifogger]

Nope.  The round is too short to function without a modified carrier.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Happy Trails was working on a special drop in carrier for toggle link rifles and the the 45 Cowboy Special. I talked to him a few days ago and what with having to move his shop and try to catch up with his smithing work he has had to 'back burner' that project for a little while. Adirondack Jack has just started a post over on the SASS Wire about a brand new design he dreamed up. Don't know where that one will go.

[Hell-Er High Water]

I have one of the carriers from Happy Trails at The Smith Shop that he installed in an Uberti, 44 Special, M'73 while he was doing an action job on it so that I can shoot 44 Russian cartridges in it.  As it turns out, this appears to be one of the few that were produced before Hap had his surgery and then had to pack up and move his shop.

The 44 Russian and the Cowboy 45 Special cartridges can be loaded to the same overall length and have rim diameters that are so close that for all practical purposes they are the same.  The same carrier design works for both cartridges.

This carrier has worked as advertised and when Hap gets back in production I would recommend it.  You can switch back and forth between the original and the new carriers in a few minutes of disassembly and reassembly thereby being able to shoot two different calibers from the same rifle as need arises.

Hap is a good man to deal with and all his services are listed on his web site, www.thesmithshop.com.

HHW

[Adirondack Jack]

Hold the presses. The prototypes worked OK, but the new carrier is coming, using a totally new cartridge stop of my own design.  I described it to Hap and sent him a sketch yesterday, and he roughed out a prototype in a few hours.  It looks like it's gonna be a winner, giving very positive cartridge control with NO noticable friction added to the lever throw.  It's just an entirely different design.  Once the production model is "frozen" (might get a few minor tweaks in testing), we'll be offering more technical detail, but suffice to say, I went at this cat with a whole new skinnin knife that has never been used before.

I'll report back after hap has had a chance to finish and install the prototype and shoot it.  This IS coming soon, and will beat the pants off prior types.

[Cohagen]

Thanks Pards,

As usual you are the kost helpjul bunch a pards a man could have.   I'll wait for the new carier, if it is a drop in design....Wow.

Thanks again...

Cohagen

[Adirondack Jack]

Thanks Pards,

As usual you are the kost helpjul bunch a pards a man could have.   I'll wait for the new carier, if it is a drop in design....Wow.

Thanks again...

Cohagen

Looks like it will be an "almost" drop-in design, requiring just a little bit of work to the gun.  Nothing earth shattering, and nothing that would prevent swapping the original carrier back in should that be desired, but a little "sculpting" any reasonably competent gunsmith ought to be able to do in two shakes.  Hap's getting the prototype finalized, and expects to have a few samples made so we can field test em before we go to a full run.  This is coming together very quickly, as the new design got us away from some issues that proved sticky with the more traditional method.

I'll report back when I know more, probably a few weeks down the road.

[Pettifogger]

Can't wait to see it.  The one I built and put pictures of on the wire a few months ago works OK, but does have one minor glitch it sounds like you have fixed.

[Adirondack Jack]

Can't wait to see it.  The one I built and put pictures of on the wire a few months ago works OK, but does have one minor glitch it sounds like you have fixed.

Howdy Pettifogger,

I'm holding off on photos until Hap gets the prototype "good housekeeping ready".  His proof of concept model is a little rough looking, as it was a very quick test piece made up in a matter of a couple of hours or less (that worked like gangbusters first try).  It fixes the two glitches inherent with the traditional method.  It does not suffer the issue of a case potentially slipping sideways into the cut for the loading gate that has plagued some, nor the potential cartridge pass by of the stop or the potential that the stop is so stiff as to retard a smooth lever stroke.

Hap tells me his "positive stop" test involved a carrier set nose up on the bench, a dummy round inserted, and a brass drift and hammer applied to the bullet.  The bullet drifted into the case with no slippage of the stop!  Yet in use in the gun, there is zero noticeable spring tension, as the majority of the power to hold the round in place and keep the stop engaged is derived from the mag tube spring, which of course is "out of play" as soon as the carrier begins to lift.  The only exremely minor tension left after that is a very light return spring that insures that the stop engages into the passage as the bolt withdraws.

The mechanism is most closely described as a "dog clutch", something all of us old enough to remember bumper jacks are familiar with.