Ian
Notorious member
Well, maybe. I think so, anyway.
Story is my FIL bought a used one for my birthday a couple of years before he died, and if it weren't for that the rifle would have vacated my premises a long time ago. I wanted one badly for years, which is why he got it, but it's a .45 Colt (also what I thought I wanted) and the basic design is just terrible, little did I know. The chamber is elliptical, a requirement for getting them to feed, and the bolt ways have been filed on so much that the bolt dives forward at an angle to the chamber. The combination of grossly oversized chamber, unsupported feed ramp area, and angled bolt face ruins brass in one firing and spits buckets of fire in my face because there's virtually no chamber obturation taking place even with full loads. A little reading on the 'net revealed a common fix was to rebarrel in .38-40, not much else required to make them work well after that.
But I don't want a .38-40.
Tonight I stuffed the magazine with half a dozen .45 ACP cartridges (it will probably hold about 1400 of them in that 26" tube) and guess what? They shuffle and shuck just fine, only issue is I'll have to make a new extractor with a longer hook and maybe build up a tiny bit of metal on the bottom of the bolt head. The bolt tilt issue can be fixed by moving some metal around at the back of the receiver and making a couple of new bolt guide plates to the correct thickness, but that needed done anyway.
Further study revealed I can turn the barrel tenon, thread it, and cut the shoulder in my mini-lathe. I'll have to do it between chuck and tailstock center because only about 8" of the barrel will fit into the spindle (due to OD and the rate of taper) which means cutting and facing the breech end square by hand, but I've done more difficult things. Got a .45 ACP barrel chamber reamer on the way. Pretty sure my lathe can cut the thread pitch (metric, 1.0mm). All I load for the ACP is powder-coated TC bullets, so no worries about chain firing in the tube. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
I intend to find out. Anyone see anything magnificently stupid about this plan before I start chopping on this fine Brazilian wall ornament?
Story is my FIL bought a used one for my birthday a couple of years before he died, and if it weren't for that the rifle would have vacated my premises a long time ago. I wanted one badly for years, which is why he got it, but it's a .45 Colt (also what I thought I wanted) and the basic design is just terrible, little did I know. The chamber is elliptical, a requirement for getting them to feed, and the bolt ways have been filed on so much that the bolt dives forward at an angle to the chamber. The combination of grossly oversized chamber, unsupported feed ramp area, and angled bolt face ruins brass in one firing and spits buckets of fire in my face because there's virtually no chamber obturation taking place even with full loads. A little reading on the 'net revealed a common fix was to rebarrel in .38-40, not much else required to make them work well after that.
But I don't want a .38-40.
Tonight I stuffed the magazine with half a dozen .45 ACP cartridges (it will probably hold about 1400 of them in that 26" tube) and guess what? They shuffle and shuck just fine, only issue is I'll have to make a new extractor with a longer hook and maybe build up a tiny bit of metal on the bottom of the bolt head. The bolt tilt issue can be fixed by moving some metal around at the back of the receiver and making a couple of new bolt guide plates to the correct thickness, but that needed done anyway.
Further study revealed I can turn the barrel tenon, thread it, and cut the shoulder in my mini-lathe. I'll have to do it between chuck and tailstock center because only about 8" of the barrel will fit into the spindle (due to OD and the rate of taper) which means cutting and facing the breech end square by hand, but I've done more difficult things. Got a .45 ACP barrel chamber reamer on the way. Pretty sure my lathe can cut the thread pitch (metric, 1.0mm). All I load for the ACP is powder-coated TC bullets, so no worries about chain firing in the tube. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
I intend to find out. Anyone see anything magnificently stupid about this plan before I start chopping on this fine Brazilian wall ornament?