Uberti walker kit

[ian45662]

Hey just kicking an idea around and I thought I would run it by you guys first. How hard are uberit's walker kits to assemble? Would a project like this be to hard for my first time and would I be saving any money? How about the color case hardening how hard is it to do that? Thank you

Ian

 

[Sham66]

Howdy!

I put a Walker kit together (not Uberti) as my first black powder project. And the result looked like it. It worked, but resembled nothing like a finished product.

If you have the tools, bluing, knowledge already, you would probably save money.

I wish I had the talent.

James

 

[Gunny69]

Sometimes its better to just buy the finished gun. If this is your first time working with revolver kits, you might wanna start with a brass framed gun. They usually have all the steel parts blued & just need the grips to be finished & the brass frame sanded & polished. Mind you, a Dremel is a BIG help in this dept. Be ready for a GOOD BIT of file, sandpaper & buffing work.

I have a DGW 1858 Rem. bison kit gun that I put together. Cylinder & barrel were blued (nice & dark)& the hammer & trigger color case hardened.Took me about 12-15 hours of work to finish the frame & grips. She did turn out to be a fine lookin shooter :thumbsup: !

Of course, if you just gotta have the Walker (I would totally understand!), I would compare the price of a completed gun vs. the cost of a kit + the bluing & CC hardening if you don't want to do it yourself. Might be cheaper to buy the finished gun & have more money for powder & ball!
Hope this helps .. :hatsoff:

 

[Bubba45]

Who carries the Walker kits? I havent seen them in kit form in a long time.That would be a fun project :thumbsup:

 

[Gunny69]

DGW carries the kit for $265.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I put together a little Uberti .36 1862 New Model Police kit back in the late 70's. Internal workings were excellent, was an easy kit to finish and it turned out great. With a full load, it seemed overly loud and being a light pistol recoil was sharp, but it was very accurate.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Case-hardening might be a bit much, but other than that the Uberti Walker is a fine first project. Just go slow and enjoy the work. And be sure to get the Uberti kit, not the other one Dixie offers. If you just have to have the frame, rammer and hammer color cased, someone like Doug Turnbull can do it for you with beautiful results.

 

[44-henry]

I bought one years ago and spent a lot of time finishing it, in fact, it is still sitting on my shelf to this day in need of the final stages of finishing. I rust blued the barrel and backstrap, honed the action, and made a new set of grips from burl walnut. I just never got around to having the balance of the pistol color case hardened. Now that I have been playing around with the bone and charcoal casehardening method I will probably finish it, but it has taken a long time to do. Is it worth it, sure it was fun, but I won't be making any money on the deal. By the time I finished adding up all my time I could have bought a 2nd generation Colt for a fraction of the cost in labor. If you can't do the metal finishing yourself and have to send it out to Turnbull you can pretty much bet on that. In the end you will have an Italian replica of a Colt walker with very nice fit and finish, but it will still be an Italian replica of a Colt Walker.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Another option is to finish the metal to the point where you would blue and case-harden it, but instead give it an aged finish. Anything from mild wear to a nicely patinated finish is possible. It may be an Italian copy, but it is still a Walker, and that is a fine thing indeed. Don't forget that we are supposed to be having fun here.