Making an 1860 reliable enough to shoot SASS

[Papa Irish]

I bought my first PB gun, an 1860 Army from Uberti.  I went out to shoot it several times and am not at all satisfied that it will be reliable enough to shoot SASS.  Are there some tips, trick or things I can do to make it more reliable?.  I am using CCI #11 caps and Pyrodex P.  The problems I have experienced are:  Caps popping and powder not getting ignited, caps not popping on the first try, but working the second time.  Caps spliting and coming off to jam the gun.  All help is greatly appreciated.

[Cemetery]

I'm new to the Cap and Ball realm myself, but when you mention that the caps need a 2nd go around before they go off, are finding them hard to seat the 1st time?

My first tin of caps were CCI #10 and I was having that very problem, but I got my hand on Remington #10 and they go on, and stay on.

I also got a set of Treso nipples to help reduce the blowback through the nipple, which can kick the spent cap off the nipple.

As a little tip, I learned that caps should all be a uniform color on the inside, for example Remington's are green, and the discolored ones should get put to the side for practice, since they may go off when you need them to, and these questionable caps will only fail when the timer goes beep.

just my $0.02, your mileage may vary.

[Fingers McGee]

Treso Nipples and #10 Remingtons is the best nipple/cap combination I've found in 12 years of SASS competition.  Lubed wads, fffg real BP, and .454 balls round out the loadings.  A complete teardown and tune up using Pettifoggers how-to instructions will also help make your charcaol burner a reliable piece.

http://www.theopenrange.net/articles/Tuning_the_Pietta_Part_One.pdf

http://www.theopenrange.net/articles/Tuning_the_Pietta_Part_Two.pdf

Even though the pistol being worked over is a Pietta 1851, the same principles and procedures hold true for a Uberti 1860

FM

[Forty Rod]

Go to The Brimstone Pistoleros website and peruse the articles there.  More BP info than you'll find anywhere else without a lot more chasing around the web.

[Pettifogger]

The Uberti articles are now up.  With Uberti the biggest issue is barrel/arbor fit.

http://www.theopenrange.net/forum/index.php?topic=7988.0

[hellgate]

Rem#10 caps. PyroP needs a lot of compression to ignite reliably, BP is much more firendly. Fill in that little safety notch on the hammer face with JB Weld (solder, welding, or braising would be better) to prevent cap grabbing & dropping after firing. The Brimstone pistoleros is a great site.

[Mossyrock]

You might also want to try a stiffer main spring.  The last two Uberti's I owned had mainsprings so weak that they wouldn't pop a cap.  I replaced them with Colt factory SAA springs, and they work fine now.

[Drydock]

#10 remington caps, and roll the revolver to the right when cocking, so that any cap fragments fall out the side rather than down the hammer slot.  But the Remingtons seem to hold together better than most others, and fit tighter.  A Ted Cash "Snail" capper is a must as well.  ROLL RIGHT WHEN COCKING!  Practice until instinctive, will not slow you down.

[Bishop Creek]

#10 remington caps, and roll the revolver to the right when cocking, so that any cap fragments fall out the side rather than down the hammer slot.  But the Remingtons seem to hold together better than most others, and fit tighter.  A Ted Cash "Snail" capper is a must as well.  ROLL RIGHT WHEN COCKING!  Practice until instinctive, will not slow you down.

I concur. I don't have the cap jam problem with my .44 Remington Army, but with my 3rd Gen 1860 Colt .44 it is a real problem. The roll to right after firing your piece really helps.

If you ever get a chance, watch some really old films from around 100 years ago with real old time cowboys shooting and you will either see them roll their pieces to the right or lift them straight up in the air after firing each shot to dislodge the caps. They did this even with cartridge guns out of habit.

[Dick Dastardly]

Installing Kirst Konverter cylinders on my brace of 1860s worked for me.  I'm shooting Cowboy 45 Special ammo loaded with Big Lube®LLC bullets pushed by 1.3cc of Genuine Powder.

Yes, I did shoot the original C&B cylinders and enjoyed using them.  I did find that only Remington caps worked well for me.  The original nipples were fine.

For the times that I want to experience the Frontiersman category I now use my brace of ROAs.  They are utterly reliable.

DD-DLoS

[Fox Creek Kid]

1.  Get some Treso nipples & Rem. #10 caps.

2.  Get some real BP and give the Pyrodex to your mother in law.

[Papa Irish]

Thanks, loads of good info.

[Noz]

The pistols are made to allow the caps to fall off to the right as the cylinder turns.  The people at SASS matches that roll the guns to the right or stick them over their heads to clear caps are easy to find on the score sheet.  The only possible reason to do the wild manipulations is because you have a poorly set up gun or poorly fitted caps.
Read the Pettifogger articles. They are the current state of the art in cap and ball tuning.
If you recall the people that lifted or rolled the pistols are the same ones that "threw" the bullets at the target by swinging the gun in the direction they wanted to shoot.

[Mako]

...If you recall the people that lifted or rolled the pistols are the same ones that "threw" the bullets at the target by swinging the gun in the direction they wanted to shoot.

So true...All a creation of the stage and screen.  Watch a silent film if you really want to see it in its most exaggerated form.  They added flourish to everything to exaggerate the intent and action for the viewers.

It still happens today.  I watched the last hour of Open Range last night.  It is one of my all time favorites, especially the gun fight at the end.  It was almost spot on until Robert Duval shoots the guy through the wall of the building he was hiding in with his double gun.  As usual Hollywood had the shotgun blast throw the man across the alley and against the wall of the other building.  

Movies have everyone convinced shotguns are the most powerful thing there is, even cops and military personnel who should know better believe it.  They'll argue with you about it even when presented with the physics of the situation.

I also saw the original True Grit again and once again Mattie is knocked down shooting the Dragoon (a Walker mistakenly called a Dragoon in the John Wayne version).  In the new one, once again Mattie is knocked down.  And in the end was thrown into the hole by the recoil.  Where did this come from?  From the mind of the author Charles Portiis.  Where did he get it from?  That's easy to explain, he got it from watching cartoons, movies and TV, not reality.

Most of what people think they "know" about firearms comes from TV, movies and novels.

~Mako

[Pettifogger]

So true...All a creation of the stage and screen.  Watch a silent film if you really want to see it in its most exaggerated form.  They added flourish to everything to exaggerate the intent and action for the viewers.

It still happens today.  I watched the last hour of Open Range last night.  It is one of my all time favorites, especially the gun fight at the end.  It was almost spot on until Robert Duval shoots the guy through the wall of the building he was hiding in with his double gun.  As usual Hollywood had the shotgun blast throw the man across the alley and against the wall of the other building.  

Movies have everyone convinced shotguns are the most powerful thing there is, even cops and military personnel who should know better believe it.  They'll argue with you about it even when presented with the physics of the situation.

I also saw the original True Grit again and once again Mattie is knocked down shooting the Dragoon (a Walker mistakenly called a Dragoon in the John Wayne version).  In the new one, once again Mattie is knocked down.  And in the end was thrown into the hole by the recoil.  Where did this come from?  From the mind of the author Charles Portiis.  Where did he get it from?  That's easy to explain, he got it from watching cartoons, movies and TV, not reality.

Most of what people think they "know" about firearms comes from TV, movies and novels.

~Mako

Yeah, but in the sequel Mattie was a squirt and shooting a Sharps when she got knocked into the hole. 

[Pettifogger]

This ain't Mattie, but it is a dude wearing a skirt so it's close.

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[Drydock]

It helps to clean your hammer nose between stages.  Despite all, caps and fragments will either adhere to the hammer or fall back into the slot.  And remember, there are no absolutes, and no one knows everything, so steer clear of general assumptions and all knowing. 

[Mako]

This ain't Mattie, but it is a dude wearing a skirt so it's close.

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Sorry Pettifogger, it's not anywhere to being close, it's not even on the same planet.

I know those rifles, that is a .577 T-Rex made by A-Square.  The rifle weighs 13.6 lbs fires a 750 gr bullet at 2460fps.  That gives you a muzzle energy of over 10,000 ft-lbs and a recoil moment over 105 ft-lbs.  A Texas Sharps carbine weighs 8.3 lbs and the .50-70-450 cartridge has a muzzle energy of only 1.587 ft-lbs and a recoil moment of only 28 ft-lbs.  That's barely more than an '06 out of a sporting rifle (on mine they're more because I have lightweights).

This is the T-Rex:
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Odds%20and%20Ends/577TyrannosaurDummy.jpg  http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt358/Mako_CAS/Odds%20and%20Ends/577T-Rexand762x51jpg.jpg

So comparing T-Rex to a Sharps is ludicrous...  

As far as the Dragoon (as in the book or the new movie) or the Walker in the John Wayne movie goes the Dragoon weighs 4.4 lbs, shoot a 141 grain ball at 1,100 fps with a full load.  That gives you a muzzle energy of 376 ft-lbs and a recoil moment of only 9 ft-lbs (not much in a heavy revolver).  As a contrast the 5 1/2" SAA which only weighs 2.4 lbs shooting a 250 gr .45 Colt at 890fps has 440  ft-lbs of muzzle energy and a whopping 17.3 ft-lbs of recoil moment.

Sooooooooooo...once again Hollywood misses the mark they make a large pistol look like it has massive recoil when in fact a "common" .45 is just a regular recoiling pistol.  The first pistol I ever fired was a 5 1/2" SAA when I was nine years old.  It just recoiled up, didn't come close to knocking me down and it has almost twice the recoil of a Dragoon.

Over Christmas we took all of the nephews and nieces out to shoot, we let them shoot about 20 different types of guns.  I have an eight year old niece that was shooting that same pistol (it's a family heirloom) I shot at nine.  She's literally a runt, she shot it two handed three times and said she liked my girls USFA .38s better, but she shot everything her brother and male cousins shot including my daughter's 12 ga coach gun, a Kalashnikov, an M4 and a bunch of others.  We didn't shoot Walkers or Dragoons we shot an 1860 instead and except for the big grip she shot it well.  I did let her shoot a '49 which I brought for the smaller hand crowd to shoot.  She even shot the '49 duelist style after her cousin showed her how to do it.

It's all Hollywood hype, I've seen some incredible things with some very large caliber weapons sometimes too close for comfort.  But every time my buddies and I sat in front of a TV or in a movie and watched people, vehicles and sometimes entire buildings being blown up and thrown through the air with a standard M67 grenade we'd declare, "where can we get some of those!!!???"  Add to that the cars that explode when you shoot the gas tank, or tires that get shot out with handguns, or the ultimate which are the cars that explode (as if an impact would cause them to explode) in mid air.

It's all a writer's fabrication.  And the majority of the public (even the shooting public) believes a large percentage of it.

~Mako

[Mako]

... And remember, there are no absolutes, and no one knows everything, so steer clear of general assumptions and all knowing. 

Those are wise words Drydock...

...and roll the revolver to the right when cocking, so that any cap fragments fall out the side rather than down the hammer slot...  ROLL RIGHT WHEN COCKING!...

Oops...

[Mako]

Papa Irish,
I kept waiting for someone to mention it but I have another thread running on the 1860s (or any percussion model for that mater).

http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,35696.0.html

Check it out, I think it has a little bit of information you might find useful.

I pretty much exclusively shoot '60s and shoot them gunfighter style which requires rock solid reliability.  There are several of us on this forum who shoot '60s in competition.

There were four items you should take note of and of the people who brought them to your attention:

• Filling the hammer notch
• Replacing the current wimpy Uberti spring (they used to be stiffer) with a Colt or USFA spring.  They will have to be shortened slightly. Also check out Pettifogger's post on springs and his solution to adding a stiffening member to a spring
  http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,32236.msg422413.html#msg422413
  
• Get Treso Cones.  No "ifs and or buts..."
• Correct your cylinder gap inconsistency, Fingers Magee pointed you to some useful info. There is also a thread on STORM about using split washers as a temporary fix to the arbor to arbor hole fit.
  http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,35698.0.html
  

As I said, take note of which individuals brought these up.

Have fun, and be sure to read old posts on this forum and on STORM.
~Mako