New Chaparral Owner with First Look Review

[Dalion]

Well, after reading this forum for a while I rolled the dice and bought a Chaparral 1876 rifle with a 26 inch barrel in 45-75 from CDNN.   I just finished taking it apart cleaning and re-greasing it.  I am throughly impressed.  Wood to metal fit is above average.  No wood protruding above the adjoining metal.  Nice even wood and metal finish.

The interior of the action had very few machining marks, at least a lot less than my Pedersoli Sharps rifle or my Uberti 73'.  I function tested it with a couple of dummies I made and everything works as it is supposed to and the interior of the barrel is amazingly well finished. The trigger was at 4lb 12oz average for 10 pulls on my Lyman trigger gauge. And its nice and crisp.  This was the most surprising thing of all to me.

On the down side, the front sight was ill fitted.  It just fell out of the dovetail slot And the stock was not walnut.  I call it Presto-log wood. No knots or irregularities just kind of plain.  I will fire it tomorrow.

One question I have is how do I lighten the carrier and lever springs?  They are a bit stiff.  I might be a little spoiled because my Uberti 73' was match tuned when I got it. But it sure would be nice to lighten them a little. 

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience without which I would not have made this purchase.  I am very happy with this rifle and am almost giddy about shooting it tomorrow.  I plan to hunt with it and shoot a some Cowboy silhouette.  I will post my results from the range.

[Joe Lansing]

    Congratulations, good wishes and the best of luck with your new Chappy. I hope you'll be as happy with it as I am with mine.
Looking forward to hearing about your '76 adventures.

                                                                                    J.L.

[evodude]

Good luck with your Chappie- I own both a .40-60 and a .50-95 and can tell ya I have no regrets. An outfit called 'The Smith Shop' has easy to install spring kits for them. Reasonably priced as well. I was going to pick up a set for the .50, but after using it for a while, either it broke in or I got used to it, or both- didnt get the kit! The  front site falling off doesnt make sense- try peening the bottom of the sight and re install it should make it more snug. Good luck, and do keep us posted!

[Dalion]

Well, I took the rifle out today to test fire it using the following:

Jamison brass

WLR or CCI 200 primers

Goex Pinnacle 3f powder

Trail Boss powder.

350 grain BACO bullet using SPG lube

First of all, I could not get Trail Boss powder to work at all.  I tried loads from 14.0 to 16.0 grains and none of them would group at all at 100 yards. Hitting well below  the target frame.  When I did get on paper I could barely keep the groups inside the target frame.  Very unexpected results as I have had great result with it in other cartridges.  Oh well, I had much better results with Pinnacle.

Using 49.0 grains of Pinnacle 3f powder, by weight, I used a .030 card wad under the bullet.  This load was magic.  Printing 1 ½ to 2 ½  inch groups at hundred yards.  The smaller groups were shot with the WLR primer.  This load did not like the CCI primer as much.  I determined this load by measuring the bullet from crimp groove to bullet base and then filling the case with powder and topping it off with a card wad.  I did this until the powder column with the card wad met the base of the bullet.  I filled the case through a 30 inch drop tube.  When I got the right combination I weighed the charge and it came to 49.0 grains of Pinnacle.

This load was very accurate but it gave me a good rap on the shoulder.  I didn't expect that with such a heavy rifle.  I replaced the original front sight, which just slid out of the dovetail, with a copy of the Lyman 21A front sight. With this front sight the rifle shot well below the point of aim at the 100 yard setting and I had to use 200 yard sight setting holding the front post at the bottom of the target frame to hit the center.

The only mechanical problem I ran into was in the first cartridge from the magazine would not load. The cartridge in the tube would jam the carrier and keep it from rising.  I would push the cartridge into the tube while rasing the carrier and it would work for the rest of the shells in the magazine tube.  Can someone give me an idea as to how I can fix this? 

Thanks very much.

Shootist Dan

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

Your last round in, is your first round up, it's getting stuck, try using a push stick, I use a piece of 7/16" dowel, I put the dowel in a 45 casing and carry it in my gun belt / bullet loops, by pushing the last round in far enough, it shouldn't get stuck, and will move freely up.

                         Here's a picture of one I made

                              Regards

                           tEN wOLVES 

[Dalion]

Well, I've been tooling around with the new rifle and found out a couple of interesting things.  First this rifle is so easy to take apart.  It is a easier than the Uberti 73'.  Second, I found a thread about the problem with the last cartridge loaded jamming and it was an easy fix.  The rear wall of the carrier bay needed to beveled and polished a bit and now she feeds real slick.  So far as the springs from the Smith Shop they are for the 73' and do not fit the 76'.  I am going to contact Chaparral to see if I can get a set of springs for me to whittle on.  Thanks for the input Pards.

[44colt]

Try Uberti springs if you have a problem getting parts from Chaparral.