Breaking down a Colt pattern revolver

Greetings experts:
I have long wondered about the wedge pin on these revolvers and how they were intended to work in the field. I have several revolvers of this style and I am lucky enough to have one of these in which you can break the wedge pin out of the frame by hand with no tools needed. Others I have to use a hammer and brass pins to break it free.
I can only assume that these were originally designed to work in this way for easy breaking down without the need of tools.
Has anyone had the same experience as myself with extremely stiff wedges in their pistols?
Has anyone done custom work to slightly loosen their wedge pins?

Colt built pistols of the latest design and of high quality. Today’s replicas are not built as carefully. Properly adjusted and fitted replicas can work as well but most are not treated to this work.

Phil Coffins said:

Colt built pistols of the latest design and of high quality. Today’s replicas are not built as carefully. Properly adjusted and fitted replicas can work as well but most are not treated to this work.

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Have you done this kind of work on any of your pistols in the past if so, I would be curious how you would accomplish the fitting.

Yes, the first thing is to correct the fit of the arbor to the barrel assembly. There has been many threads on this on this forum. 45D does this work professionally and you might search for his posts.

45D should weight in soon, but from his posts, you do not want to have a loose fit wedge that is finger removable. To install he recommends a pop with a plastic tip mallet.

You should need a whack to kick it back out again with a bias of the hit to the top so you compress the spring.

I am not even close to an expert, just a field user. I have my arbor length pretty close but not as precise as 45D makes them. He does fix them absolutely right to where they will take modern +P pressures and not break down (at least in 45 ACP in what we call an unmentionable cylinder because its not a BP per definition of the site rules).

Mine is not to that degree but I do shoot a 45 Colt unmentionable cylinder in my 47 Walker with 850 fps loads, aka Cowboy Action (I also shoot the BP cylinder).

I have the type of hammer 45D recommends on the way to keep in my range BP box. Right now I have a comp cast hammer or wood blocks I used (sometimes screwdriver handle)

I can set it by hand but I tap it in and then it has to be tapped out.

I hope that helps some. The Wedge should be tight not loose, otherwise you have play and it will move under pressure of firing and hammer metal leading to failure (how soon? that would be a guess).

Danda0624, the job of the wedge is to "marry" two assemblies so that they operate as one harmonious assembly using great tension. The wedge PULLS the barrel assy against the end of the arbor and the length of the arbor is what determines the barrel / cylinder clearance (what we call "endshake" today). As @Smokerr posted, when set up correctly and with close tolerances, one can have a rather extreme revolver capable of firing +p ammo (45acp in 1860's and 45C in Dragoons) which I did yesterday.
I have posted "how to's" and "how to makes" as well as "why's".
Got grandkids tonight and tomorrow so can't go into a lot of detail but if you have questions, I'm sure we can help you.

Mike

45D said:

Danda0624, the job of the wedge is to "marry" two assemblies so that they operate as one harmonious assembly using great tension. The wedge PULLS the barrel assy against the end of the arbor and the length of the arbor is what determines the barrel / cylinder clearance (what we call "endshake" today). As @Smokerr posted, when set up correctly and with close tolerances, one can have a rather extreme revolver capable of firing +p ammo (45acp in 1860's and 45C in Dragoons) which I did yesterday.
I have posted "how to's" and "how to makes" as well as "why's".
Got grandkids tonight and tomorrow so can't go into a lot of detail but if you have questions, I'm sure we can help you.

Mike

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Let your wife handle the grandkids Mike. We need you here!

The wedge PULLS the barrel assy against the end of the arbor and the length of the arbor is what determines the barrel / cylinder clearance (what we call "endshake" today).

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In that sentence 45D has given me the mental picture I had been trying to get of the arbor/barrel relationship.

I know he has explained it but the way he phrased it this time clicked.

Its an absolutely amazing design. Until I got one I thought it was crude early design stuff. I got the 47 Walker because it was the biggest darned BP revolver made and that appealed to me (well that and I can at least shoot long sight radius pistols somewhat ok at 25 yards still)

The more I have owned the 47 Walker and worked to understand what Mike has been saying about them, the more I am into, this truly was an Elegant Design.

That in turn went to pondering the Unmentionable Cylinders and that has been fun as well. Any range session I shoot it Unmentionable the most (I can pre load many rounds) but I always take the BP cylinder down pre loaded and I load up at least 3 BP cylinders while there to make sure I am BP grounded. Cap availability was an issue but no longer is and I have lots of Pistol Large Primers not to mention a plethroa of powders from back in the 70s and 80s.

I like the ROA for other reasons, but I like shooting the 47 Walker the most. I mean what other Hand Cannon can you get for that price? let alone the starnge looks you get.

Smokerr said:

45D should weight in soon, but from his posts, you do not want to have a loose fit wedge that is finger removable. To install he recommends a pop with a plastic tip mallet.

You should need a whack to kick it back out again with a bias of the hit to the top so you compress the spring.

I am not even close to an expert, just a field user. I have my arbor length pretty close but not as precise as 45D makes them. He does fix them absolutely right to where they will take modern +P pressures and not break down (at least in 45 ACP in what we call an unmentionable cylinder because its not a BP per definition of the site rules).

Mine is not to that degree but I do shoot a 45 Colt unmentionable cylinder in my 47 Walker with 850 fps loads, aka Cowboy Action (I also shoot the BP cylinder).

I have the type of hammer 45D recommends on the way to keep in my range BP box. Right now I have a comp cast hammer or wood blocks I used (sometimes screwdriver handle)

I can set it by hand but I tap it in and then it has to be tapped out.

I hope that helps some. The Wedge should be tight not loose, otherwise you have play and it will move under pressure of firing and hammer metal leading to failure (how soon? that would be a guess).

Click to expand...

Ok, this makes sense so I now understanding that a quick cylinder change in the field (as would be thought of in the Civil War) would not be possible. Only reloading the already in-place cylinder. Is this accurate?

In the civil war the government issued a packet that had consumable cartridges with some caps for revolvers. These were placed into the front of the chambers and pressed down with the loading lever then caps were placed on the nipples. Very fast loading in its day but wouldn’t be anywhere near what we do with modern guns. You could easily carry a couple of reloads in your pocket much easier than one cylinder pre-loaded.

Ok, this makes sense so I now understanding that a quick cylinder change in the field (as would be thought of in the Civil War) would not be possible. Only reloading the already in-place cylinder. Is this accurate?

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Yes.

Most of this is from reading, its not original researched material other than from people I respect for valid information. Clearly a Colt Open top would be impossible to swap a cylinder on and a top strap type extremely difficult to impossible as well.

Unfeasible to swap cylinders standing or on a horse. Standing you would normally carry a rifle of some kind. Sans law and bandits revolver was last resort (if you even had that)

Filling in a bit more, if your position was such you depended on revolvers, you carried two or more revolvers to give you the ability to keep shooting if you are down to revolver range. Standing would have been law or bandits. military not intended to need to reload, more the last resort thing.

Now, more or less, what started with the 47 Walker was as a Horse Pistol. Two per passenger on the horse, in holsters on the horse.

Enlisted Infantry were not issued pistols. Sgts and on up? I don't know anyone has researched that. If you brought your own pistol and what latitude enlisted were given and keeping in mind there were a variety of infantry formation. Militia, State Organized entities, regular army.

If not an issue weapon then you would not have access to supply, so on your own for caps and ball.

I have seen some accounts of people carrying 3 or more pistols.

And keeping in mind by the Civil War, Cavalry was getting armed with multi shot carbines and the shift was from a Dragoon to a backup (and again its probably complicated by what origins of the unit they were organized from)

So, all in all, you wanted or needed more than 6 shots, another pistol.

A magazine, which is now defunct I believe, called CIVIL WAR TIMES had an article on revolver shooting during the ACW. Specifically they compiled filed reports which specifically mention the use of revolvers. One of the interesting things in the article was several field reports mentioned which hand the shooter was using firing their revolver. Revolvers were intended to be fired left handed, so someone firing right handed was worth noting. One section I specifically remember was an Ohio Arty Battery who would give all of the revolvers they had accumulated to their two best pistol shooters. They were stationed IN FRONT of the guns during action as anti cavalry defense. Kinda reminded me of my days manning an unmentionable gun designed by Browning for ADA activity when I was in the US Army Field Artillery back in the last century.

Makes for some interesting reading.

I am having a hard time with left handed shooting of anything let alone a revolver. They are agnostic but you surely are not going to hit something with the non dominant hand.

I am quasi ambidextrous and I can shoot left handed but slower and more focus.