Keeping Walker cylinder turning freely

[D Yager]

I am fairly certain especially after Bad Karma found the documentation on bedding the arbor, that Colt would have made sure the arbor was properly seated. I can state from repairing Walkers that full house loads fired on a short arbor will stretch things to the point of the wedge becoming so loose that it falls out when the pistol is turned sideways. The only ones that demolish wedges are the ones that aren't set up properly. When the wedge is tapped in firmly and everything is held tight it's not going to destroy the wedge. I own an ASM Walker that stretched the frame and bent the wedge into a slight crescent shape. This was before the arbor correction. I made a wedge after all the work was done to get the pistol back to shootable shape, It hasn't shown any signs of becoming loose, no changes to the barrel/cylinder gap. I shoot full house loads with both ball and conical. Another thing that eases the pressure on the barrel assembly is to cut a proper forcing cone in the barrel.

 

[Dude]

I guess I'll have to find what Bad Karma posted.

 

[Zapadach]

You most definitely need to check the arbor length. The wedge needs to seat firmly. Other things that help are addition of a cap post and action shield. Once the arbor is properly seating the barrel/cylinder gap can be set around.002 to .004. This will keep the fouling going down the barrel rather than all over the cylinder and building up where it doesn't need to be. The other issue with the Walker and the Dragoons is the frame stretch from the short arbor. This can happen from shooting full house loads on a short arbor. Symptoms are a loose wedge that won't tighten and a huge barrel/cylinder gap. It gets a lot more labor intensive to fix it when the whole problem was an easy to fix with a simple shim.

I just fixed my short arbor on my 3rd model Colt dragoon a few days ago, with a hand fitted and filed shim. It was a little labor intensive, but definitely worth the effort. It solved all those problems that a short arbor causes.

 

[Butch Martin]

Back in the 70s I bought a Walker copy and shot the heck out of it. The gun was fairly accurate and fun to shoot. I usually shot round balls with maximum charges. I was and still am an obsessive cleaner, thanks to my drill sergeant, and I thoroughly cleaned the revolver after loading it four times. After a few years, I noticed that the studs on the front of the frame were bending down. I figured that the steel was a bit weak, so I threw the gun away at a pawn shop. I forgot who manufactured the gun, but it was Italian in origin. I recall tapping the wedge in and back out with a small block of walnut.
Why was the frame walking away like that?

 

[D Yager]

The frame was stretching. With the short arbor and full house loads it was just a matter of time. I know I sound like a broken record on the arbor issue. Having seen a number of these big pistols wrecked because of the short arbor I feel the need to give a heads up on the problem. One of the 2 I own had to have extensive work done to get it shooting again.

 

[Smokerr]

Maybe add in a bit that might help the visual pictures. A lot of use grew up with valves and at least the mantra that loose valves were bad.

Ok, a bit of full stop. Its not a direct comparison as adjustable valves did need a bit of clearance. All tied up in force, mechanics and the various heat stages a valve train goes through. No clearance at all burns valves as does too little and too much is bad in a different way.

My best example was doing the valve checks on a new Diesel engine (they kept with adjustable valves until recently, some may still have them).

Back story is the manual says check a new engine (no longer new) at 250 hours. But if someone made a mistake, well its got 250 hours to burn it or pound it if too loose. And that is what a gun that is loose does, it pounds. Its not just one shot and fatal, its hundreds of shots and the more it beats itself and bends, the more clearance it gets and accelerates toward the end.

Now I am going from a not great memory for numbers, but a normal clearance was .010 for a valve. What I found was one that was .045, the feeler came out from under with brown goo on it. That is pounded iron mixed with oil. Ungh.

At that point its, did I catch it soon enough or is this terminal and its gone through the hardening and its a pulled head to fix it (and it was a 6 cylinder head on a V (two, aka 12) and pulling a 1000 CI head off (one side) take rigging, heavy and awkward. And for one valve.

Ok, like an Open Top, if you fix it, you will stop the damage if not gone too far. As it was low hours, there was a good chance of that but that was offset by the brown goo as that means steel wear. If it had been clean but bad set, good to go and keep an eye on it.

Unfortunately in my case, this was a standby generator set and we got all of 26 hours a year on it. So I had to tag it, log it and let management know I would check it after a year but don't be surprised if we have to get the dealer in with all the right tools (and a critial backup engine down for a day or two). It was one of two engines that backed up an entire facility (600KW aso 1200KW and during sort, 600 KW was only workable if we shut a lot of fans off which was a bad thing as well. The intent was the sort did not stop as the cost was into the tens of millions of dollars.

A year latter? No brown goo, set checked out as still good with the same go/no go readings on the feeler gauge (I love those, sadly they did not make them small enough for chamber to cone work!)

On an Open Top, the sooner you stop the movement, the better the odds are that its not an issue. This diverges of course in you want no gap but the idea is the same. BP is a hard smack so it propagates worse per each shot. A valve does not get hit that hard. If you can't do the work then get it to a tuner that can.

This has been a learning experience for me (thank you 45D). He was patient, it makes no sense Uberti would not fix this but we have all seen businesses that ignore stuff until it bites them and so far, it has not bit Uberti (because they sell to unknowing BP shooters that do not join a forum!)

45D and D Yager are two you can count on to believe vs others with opinions. They do the work, they know the guns.

 

[M. De Land]

So much for instruction from Colt. Supposedly many of the cylinder failures were due to recommended powder charges being exceeded and the conical bullets being loaded in backwards.

I'd like to see it in Colt offered print as well. I can't remember if what I read on this was original Colt instruction but think is was from the recipients which would have been what the

Maybe add in a bit that might help the visual pictures. A lot of use grew up with valves and at least the mantra that loose valves were bad.

Ok, a bit of full stop. Its not a direct comparison as adjustable valves did need a bit of clearance. All tied up in force, mechanics and the various heat stages a valve train goes through. No clearance at all burns valves as does too little and too much is bad in a different way.

My best example was doing the valve checks on a new Diesel engine (they kept with adjustable valves until recently, some may still have them).

Back story is the manual says check a new engine (no longer new) at 250 hours. But if someone made a mistake, well its got 250 hours to burn it or pound it if too loose. And that is what a gun that is loose does, it pounds. Its not just one shot and fatal, its hundreds of shots and the more it beats itself and bends, the more clearance it gets and accelerates toward the end.

Now I am going from a not great memory for numbers, but a normal clearance was .010 for a valve. What I found was one that was .045, the feeler came out from under with brown goo on it. That is pounded iron mixed with oil. Ungh.

At that point its, did I catch it soon enough or is this terminal and its gone through the hardening and its a pulled head to fix it (and it was a 6 cylinder head on a V (two, aka 12) and pulling a 1000 CI head off (one side) take rigging, heavy and awkward. And for one valve.

Ok, like an Open Top, if you fix it, you will stop the damage if not gone too far. As it was low hours, there was a good chance of that but that was offset by the brown goo as that means steel wear. If it had been clean but bad set, good to go and keep an eye on it.

Unfortunately in my case, this was a standby generator set and we got all of 26 hours a year on it. So I had to tag it, log it and let management know I would check it after a year but don't be surprised if we have to get the dealer in with all the right tools (and a critial backup engine down for a day or two). It was one of two engines that backed up an entire facility (600KW aso 1200KW and during sort, 600 KW was only workable if we shut a lot of fans off which was a bad thing as well. The intent was the sort did not stop as the cost was into the tens of millions of dollars.

A year latter? No brown goo, set checked out as still good with the same go/no go readings on the feeler gauge (I love those, sadly they did not make them small enough for chamber to cone work!)

On an Open Top, the sooner you stop the movement, the better the odds are that its not an issue. This diverges of course in you want no gap but the idea is the same. BP is a hard smack so it propagates worse per each shot. A valve does not get hit that hard. If you can't do the work then get it to a tuner that can.

This has been a learning experience for me (thank you 45D). He was patient, it makes no sense Uberti would not fix this but we have all seen businesses that ignore stuff until it bites them and so far, it has not bit Uberti (because they sell to unknowing BP shooters that do not join a forum!)

45D and D Yager are two you can count on to believe vs others with opinions. They do the work, they know the guns.