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article by Captain Baylor on R & D cylinders


Trigger Mike

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I read his article in the Chronicle and came away with the following questions.

 

!. He mentions the need to oil the plate so the pins will not stick. How much oil and is it all over or targeted?

 

2. He had to have his cylinders tuned to work in his Rugers, will Walkers, Remingtons and 1860 armies have the same need?

 

3. I want a cylinder with 6 holes to fit a Pietta 1860 Army, does that exist?

 

4. He mentioned the hammer is too heavy for the cylinder verses cap and ball, will that be true for the Pietta and Uberti pistols?

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TM,

 

In answer, You will want a drop of oil in each firing pin hole and a drop on the locating pin to the back plate.

 

2. Maybe. On some guns the R&D cylinders drop in and work, on some they don't. It can't be predicted.

 

3. No. The cylinder diameter is too small for 6 chambers. The case rim is too large. I also feel the cylinder walls would be to thin to be safe. This applies to the 1860. Ruger Old Army, and Remington are a different frame size and will accept a cylinder with 6 holes. 5 round cylinders have "lock" notches to make them acceptable for CAS with 5 rounds loaded.

 

4. Yes. The firing pins in the R&D cylinders are fairly soft and will peen over and begin sticking with an OEM main spring. There are hardened firing pins available, but I forget who makes them. Either way, with an R&D cylinder reducing the main spring is a good idea.

 

None of the original Colt conversion guns were converted to any case larger than .44 because of the cylinder diameter. The rear section of the cylinder is smaller than the front and will become too thin to be save with anything larger than a .44

The original Colt BP chambers were actually tapered front to back because of this design.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Coffinmaker

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1. Lightly oil the firing pins, perhaps a drop per pin and wipe off excess.

 

2. Some do and some don't, depends on the actual dimensions of the particular gun and cylinder. some need the frame relieved, usually on a Remington where the cylinder window starts turning up, may hit a corner of the cylinder. Sometimes thye overall length.

 

When I got a cylinder for the Uberti 1860 Army, I tried it in all my (6) Armies and one didn't overtravel, so I installed it there.

 

3. A 6-hole may exist for 44Colt, but not 45 Colt. 44Colt would need a heeled or hollow base bullet or a bore reline.

 

4. Install a lighter Mainspring in the converted gun. I used a Wolff, but you could also narrow the original. If you switchback to cap & ball for a shooting session, switch the mainspring as well.

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I will still work toward a cylinder for my pietta 1860, in the mean time I went and put the conversion cylinder I just bought for my walker and put it in and pulled a bullett and put the unfired brass in it and cycled the walker and it fired the primer so it must be working fine. Does Wolff make different springs for the walker? Who sells them?

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TM,

 

In answer, You will want a drop of oil in each firing pin hole and a drop on the locating pin to the back plate.

 

2. Maybe. On some guns the R&D cylinders drop in and work, on some they don't. It can't be predicted.

 

3. No. The cylinder diameter is too small for 6 chambers. The case rim is too large. I also feel the cylinder walls would be to thin to be safe. This applies to the 1860. Ruger Old Army, and Remington are a different frame size and will accept a cylinder with 6 holes. 5 round cylinders have "lock" notches to make them acceptable for CAS with 5 rounds loaded.

 

4. Yes. The firing pins in the R&D cylinders are fairly soft and will peen over and begin sticking with an OEM main spring. There are hardened firing pins available, but I forget who makes them. Either way, with an R&D cylinder reducing the main spring is a good idea.

 

None of the original Colt conversion guns were converted to any case larger than .44 because of the cylinder diameter. The rear section of the cylinder is smaller than the front and will become too thin to be save with anything larger than a .44

The original Colt BP chambers were actually tapered front to back because of this design.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Coffinmaker

Coffinmaker I had Happy Trails make them up, hardened R&D firing pins. http://www.thesmithshop.com/aboutus.html Hap doesn't have them listed on the site but I would give him a call and I'm sure he could fix up any one that needed them with them. Adios Sgt. Jake
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Howdy

 

I have two 1858 Remmies that I shoot with R&D cylinders. One is a stainless Uberti, the other is an old EuroArms Remmie that I bought new in 1975, actually made by Armi San Palo. I don't shoot them a whole lot, they are not my main match guns, I only shoot them every once in a while when I want to do something different. So bear that in mind with my answers. If I shot them all the time, things might be different.

 

!. He mentions the need to oil the plate so the pins will not stick. How much oil and is it all over or targeted?

 

I have never oiled the pins. Never even thought about it. The trick is to not drop a hammer on them with an empty chamber. If you do that, I'm sure they will get wedged in place. What happens is they can get stuck in the forward position and get wedged in place. Sometimes I will notice that one is stuck forward. I can always shove it back again with some thumb pressure. Frankly, not to doubt the good Captain, I doubt if a drop of oil is going to prevent them from getting wedged in the forward position.

 

2. He had to have his cylinders tuned to work in his Rugers, will Walkers, Remingtons and 1860 armies have the same need?

 

Bear in mind, it is actually astounding that these cylinders drop in to place at all and do fit properly most of the time. Most revolvers have their cylinders fitted to them at the factory. There are enough manufacturing tolerances involved in making a revolver that there will be some minor dimensional differences from gun to gun, even guns made the same day. So getting a cylinder made by a third party to drop right in and function properly is a very tall order. It goes to the very high quality of the R&D cylinders. They have very tight tolerances.

 

I bought my Uberti used, it already had the R&D cylinder with it. I am going to assume it dropped right in without any fitting. My old EuroArms Remmie was a different story. I sent it to Taylors to have a cylinder fitted to it. Keep that in mind. Taylors will fit a cylinder to your gun FOR NO EXTRA CHARGE. At least they used to, I dunno if they still do. It turned out my EuroArms Remmie was close enough dimensionally to a Pietta that the smith there took a raw Pietta cylinder and fitted it to my gun. When I say 'raw' what I mean is it did not yet have the locking notches that the bolt pops into cut into it yet. He has a fixture that somehow transfers the actual location of the gun's original locking notches to the raw cylinder. So he cut the notches, customizing the cylinder to my gun. Then he trimmed a little bit off the front of the cylinder, so it would fit with the proper barrel/cylinder gap, and finally he reblued it the next time he had to blue up a batch of stuff. ALL OF THIS FOR NO EXTRA CHARGE! I simply paid to send the gun to him, and paid the retail price for the cylinder. He did the fitting AND sent the gun back to me for no extra charge.

 

Pretty darn good service if you ask me. My point is, sometimes some custom fitting is needed, but my case was probably a bit unusual. I would make a rough guess that probably 80% of the time they drop right in and work fine. Maybe 20% of the time I little bit has to be ground off the frame for clearance. Still nothing as radical as I needed.

 

I can't sing Taylor's praises high enough. They are the main distributor for the R&D cylinders, everybody else buys them from Taylors. At least they used to be. That's why they offered this service.

 

3. I want a cylinder with 6 holes to fit a Pietta 1860 Army, does that exist?

 

Somebody else already answered this.

 

4. He mentioned the hammer is too heavy for the cylinder verses cap and ball, will that be true for the Pietta and Uberti pistols?

 

As I said before, I only shoot my Remmies sporadically. I have not lightened the hammer springs. I have not had any appreciable peening of the faces of the pins. I left the springs original in case I ever wanted to shoot them C&B again, but so far have not done so for all the years that I have had them.

 

I have had my 'convertable' Remmies for probably about five years now. I only shoot them a few times a year. Perhaps if I shot them more often I would need to do those other things.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have had about half a dozen Remmies with R&D cylinders in them over the last 10 years (still have one) and all dropped in without any fitting necessary. What surprised the stuffing out of me was a couple of months ago when I picked up an R&D cylinder for my Colt Signature model Dragoon. It dropped in too, with out a glitch and functioned perfectly. Best of all, the same cylinder did the same thing with the old Western Arms Uberti Dragoon I've had for about 25 years. I can't think this is coincidence. IMHO R&D and Taylor's are outstanding companies to deal with, and I give them my highest recommendation.

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  • 1 month later...

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