Stuck nipples in 1851 cylinder. Unknown maker.

[n.h.schmidt]

I have a cylinder with rusted and stuck nipples. I have been soaking it for a week with Kroil. My wrench is I'll fitting and poor. I have heard of getting a 1/4" drive 1/4" socket and cutting it to fit. Is there a extra strong brand to do this with? Many sockets seem to be cast. I think a forging would be best.
Thanks n.h.schmidt

 

[hawkeye2]

Kobalt or Craftsman from Lowes. I've never heard of a socket being cast but I'm not a big fan of Harbor Freight sockets. Take the cylinder with you and pick a socket that has an opening just large enough for the nipple.

 

[F.G. Ford]

Kobalt or Craftsman from Lowes. I've never heard of a socket being cast but I'm not a big fan of Harbor Freight sockets. Take the cylinder with you and pick a socket that has an opening just large enough for the nipple.

A little hard to find in that size, but impact sockets work well.
They won't strip or break.
Try and get a six sided socket of course.
If you take a long 1/4" bolt, pass it through the cylinder pin hole, tighten a washer and nut to the bolt, then take a car battery and booster cables, attach the ground to the 1/4" bolt, then take a solid copper wire about 3/16 to 1/4" diameter, about three ( 3 ) inches long attach the wire to the positive side of the booster cable.
Carefully touch the nipple and hold it until the nipple starts to turn red, it will heat the nipple, and not really the cylinder. This will break the rust bond between the nipple and cylinder.
Caution! You should not hold the copper wire to the nipple any more that thirty ( 30 ) seconds. It must be a copper wire.
If you use steel it will weld to the nipple, then you will have fun!

 

[n.h.schmidt]

Hey Thanks guys. I'm suspecting that many cheaper brand sockets are cast. I have seen many cracked ones. I will check out the brands mentioned. Mr Ford
Wow just Wow.. I have never heard of a car battery being used for this . A small torch to heat things yes. If a guy did this ,I'm guessing that the nipples are toast. Something to try if the socket idea fails. Up date I have one nipple out using my old crappy wrench. .Five more to go.
n.h.schmidt

 

[appalichian hunter]

Soak the cylinder in kerosene for about a week. I have loosened some pretty rusty things this way.

 

[Grenadier1758]

As @hawkeye2 said, get a 1/4" or 6mm 1/4" drive hex socket of a quality brand such as Lowe's Kobolt or Craftsman.

You need a workshop with a sturdy vise, files, 2 dowel rods about the diameter of the cylinder mouth and a good hex drive handle.

I have made a nipple wrench from a 6mm socket with 1/4" drive as the 6mm is slightly smaller in external diameter than the 1/4". For a pistol you need the smaller size to fully cover the nipple. This is one of the few times that I retrieved my Dremel Tool from the safe deposit box to work on something.

Measure the distance between the flats of the nipple. Carefully scribe lines on the face of the hex drive socket wrench to give you the most of the internal flats to engage the flats of the nipple. Measure the maximum diameter of the nipple. Measure the length of the cone of the nipple. Using the disc shaped cutting wheel of your Dremel Tool or a hacksaw to carefully cut grooves just inside the scribed lines to the depth of the cone length. Keep cutting away the material until you have a slot that is beginning to look like a nipple wrench slot. Use needle files or a narrow file to remove the remaining metal from the groove. You may need to drill a hole in the center of the socket to accommodate the cone. Fit the wrench to a nipple to verify that you have full engagement. Once you have full engagement, you can prepare to remove the nipples.

Use the dowels in the cylinder to support the cylinder in the vise. One dowel in opposite cylinders. Put the tool over the nipple and with a small ball pein hammer tap and turn the nipple wrench. The impact should break loose the remaining corrosion and the nipples should back out.

I had found a long time ago this little impact tool at Harbor Freight to use. Its no longer listed, but similar tools can be found on Ebay.

You can see my modified 6mm drive socket at the top of the picture.

My tool worked very well in removing extra tight nipples in a revolver I purchased.

If you have the cylinder supported in a vise, you may be able to use your light weight tool and tap and turn to get the nipples to back out.

 

[PM]

I can't say I've had to remove a rusted nipple from a cylinder but I've done many similar things working on cars so take this post for the grease monkey methods they are. My go-to for small bolts are these, listed in order from least amount of damage possible to guaranteed success.

A long soak with liquid wrench followed by an impact driver like Grenadier1758 shows or pneumatic if have the option. It's the rare stuck bolt that wont give way to this.

Heat followed by an impact driver. I wouldn't have put this on the list because applying heat using even a small torch would be more than I'd want to do to my gun but that was before I read what F.G. Ford posted. That looks pretty good and I'm going look for an excuse to give that a try.

***Disclaimer - This last thing shouldn't be done by any right thinking person who's not a gunsmith. Again, it's a grease monkey method that I've used on guns successfully. I'm not usually considered to be right thinking and I've had a lot of practice doing this on things that I could replace if things go wrong.***

Drill out the center of the nipple using the smallest bit / screw extractor set you can find. If that fails tap on the edges of the nipple with a punch pushing it inward and try the extractor again. If that fails too drill to edges of the threads and using thread chaser and / or pick to clean out the threads on the cylinder. It's a chore with hardened steel but can be done.

 

[SDSmlf]

I'm suspecting that many cheaper brand sockets are cast.

You must be using sockets from a children’s play set. While there are short cuts taken with materials and processes that impact quality, the socket manufacturing process includes forging, machining, heat treatments, etc. Casting is not one of the processes.

 

[hawkeye2]

I had one of the little Harbor Freight impact drivers and it failed on the first application. I bought a replacement but haven't had occasion to use it yet.

F. G. Ford I hadn't thought of that method for far too many years. Back in the 60s and old timer told me of freeing up frozen drain plugs in boat motors where you couldn't use a flame down in the bilges. 6 volt battery on the dock and make the final connection at the battery so as not to have any sparks where they could ignite any fumes. A wet rag over the fill caps took care of any danger of blowing up the battery. A friend's father had worked for a Chevy dealership before WW2 and he told me of having to convert (Pre 37) Chevys to sealed beam headlights. It required a hole in the housing for a ground screw. A jumper cable from the + post to a nail, touch the nail to the sheet metal and you had a screw hole.

 

[bang]

I use a heat gun on about 600 degrees. Wrap it in a very tough rubber and put it in a vice. Heat it from cylinder side.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I had 51 colt replica with badly stuck nipples. I finally was able to get them loose by cutting a six sided sock as others above have mentioned . I think it was 1/4 inch. I actually picked up three or four at a pawn shop for $.25 each because a figured I might bugger a one or two and for a buck I couldn't justify another trip to town. I still have a couple of them in my shooting box. The key for me was a drill press. I held the cylinder face down in a drill press vice on a couple of short dowels. I loaded the socket on a 1/4" drive extension in the drill press chuck. By pressing down hard on the drill press to prevent slipping, I turned the chuck by hand and the nipples finally came loose. 3 or 6 of them were real tough to get out. If you don't have a drill press, it might be worth checking with a buddy who has one. I won't take long to get them out. Again, you don't use the motor on the press for power, but just turn the drill by hand.

 

[hawkeye2]

Kansas Jake that's a great trick for removing stubborn screws too. Use screwdriver bits that fit the slot tightly.

 

[AZbpBurner]

And a fellow shooter at my range called me silly for removing nipples everytime I cleaned my C&B revolvers - he said it wasn't necessary to do so except for maybe once a year.

 

[n.h.schmidt]

Thanks for all the help. The nipples on this cylinder are part way counter sunk. Only about half of the nipple flats are above that. A 1/4" socket has a od that is too big to go into the counter sink and therefore would not make a good contact on the nipple. I did buy a 3/16" socket and that will fit into that space. I hope to give all this a try today. On my old Euroarms 1851 that I bought new in the 70s for $32,I always remove the nipples each time it gets cleaned.
n.h.schmidt

 

[jeff b]

I made one out of a 5mm deep socket for a 1860 and it works fine

 

[SAJones]

Ted Cash sells nipple wrenchs that are basically Apex bits cut for different types of nipples, paired with a small racheting wrench. As an Apex pit, it can be used on a number of screwdriver type tools; I have one with a cross handle that can exert quite a bit of force.
I have removed nipples from a variety of old firearms, mostly with Kroil, but had an 1853 Enfield the stymied me: had to drill it out & clean out the threads. Evidently someone, probably some kid, "dry fired" it until the nipple was smashed completely down and probably impact welded to the bolster.

 

[Eutycus]

I don't own a torch so heat doesn't work for me but I have had some luck in the opposite direction. Shrink instead of expand, put the cylinder in the freezer for a few days.The shrinkage should also cause the rust bond "to give a little".

 

[bang]

I don't own a torch so heat doesn't work for me but I have had some luck in the opposite direction. Shrink instead of expand, put the cylinder in the freezer for a few days.The shrinkage should also cause the rust bond "to give a little".

Toaster oven

 

[sawyer04]

you don't use the motor on the press for power, but just turn the drill by hand.

And it doesn't need to be a big whopping expensive drill press, excellent advice Kansas Jake.

 

[HandyAndy]

An old school gunsmith I know soaks stuck items like that in a crock pot full of oil. Not sure what oil he uses or the heat setting. I think he soaks them for at least a few days before trying to remove anything that's stuck.