Bought a Howell cylinder for my 1860.

[Ian]

Been wanting one for a while and Bwana's ad rag showed up a few days ago reminding me they exist. Apparently Pietta screwed up their design in 2020 and Howell has discontinued these until, basically, Pietta gets their shtuff together (or the few left that C19 didn't wipe out figure out how things are supposed to fit).

Anyway, I got one of the last ones before it was too late and it is most excellent save it is too damned short. The notes say that 1.560" is max OAL and it's a little closer to 1.573", but I load my .45 Colt ammo to 1.600" (SAMMI maximum) because everything else I own in this chambering will handle that and more. Looks like I'll have to load some special mild and short ammo for this one, but that still beats having to boil and scrub it after every outing and trying to find #10 percussion caps in the middle of a record shortage. Had to do some work to the revolver (naturally). The bolt wouldn't release the cylinder because of manufacturing tolerances stacking the wrong way, so I had to heat and bend the left bolt tail down a little, harden it, and bring it back to a spring temper. It didn't take much bending at all to fix it.



Upside down and backwards but this angle showed it best.

The hand is a fuzz short for this cylinder, but the bolt locks in every case but very slow hammer cocking. I'll think about stretching it IF the cylinder system proves worthwhile at the range.

 

[creosote]

Nice.
I do like the grip shape and size on those.
It's got the screws for a arm brace too.


I need to do about the same. The bolt leg almost stops the hammer from falling it's so tight. I think someone just dropped it in & didn't fit it.

 

[oscarflytyer]

Lemme know how you like the conv cyl pls. I want to shoot my 1860, but almost nowhere to shoot BP.

 

[Joshua]

Cool! That looks fun.

They don’t recommend these cylinders for brass frames like my A.S.M. manufactured 1858. But I still kinda want one.

Probably wouldn’t fit anyways.

 

[fiver]

schofield brass...
unless you want to stay near the round ball weights, then I could send over some 165gr. rnfp's.
they are rather pleasant on top of some clay's or titegroup.
the kid could probably handle those loads about now.

 

[CZ93X62]

My ardor for The Holy Black that was incandescent from my teens well into my 40s has cooled considerably as maturity looms large and laziness takes hold. A couple of my cap & ball Colt replicas would have fit one of these swap cylinders, but I never got around to snagging one. All of those cranky balky contraptions got sold off some years ago. That Goex powder (AKA Dupont Flaming Dirt) does no BP arm any favors, but I just got tired of the upkeep tail that wags the dog with those arms.

 

[Ian]

I bought a .454 RB mould

Lemme know how you like the conv cyl pls. I want to shoot my 1860, but almost nowhere to shoot BP.

I got to playing with it some more last night and found the bolt was peening the bejeezus out of the edge of the cylinder notches. Sooooo, down the rabbit hole we go. Stretched the hand ten thousandths to get it locking right. Then scraped the burrs out of the cylinder notches, checked the bolt width, broke the sharp edges of the bolt, thinned the bolt spring leg with a drum sander, and tried again. Nope, the hammer drops the bolt right at the edge of the notch.

After burning up the internet trying to find free information on timing these things, I finally found some vague references to the bolt needing to drop on the leade instead of the notch. That made sense so I shortened the bolt tails little by little until going any further would begin to affect the bolt release after hammer fall. Best I got was 3/4 of the way out of the notch when the bolt drops and it is starting to peen the edge of the notch again, but not as bad. I really don't want to grind a flat on the front of the hammer cam but that might be what it takes to drop the bolt way back on the notch leade and not peen a burr on the edge of the notch. A wire bolt spring would no doubt help as well, and may actually fix the issue entirely.

Anyhow, it's timed and locks up fully and securely now with very aggressive or the most gentle working of the action and I'm going to try to shoot it tomorrow, wish me luck.

 

[RicinYakima]

Flattening the front of the hammer cam is how the factory did it 150 years ago, FWIW.

 

[Ian]

Ric, do you know where the bolt is supposed to fall on the 1860 cylinder? My 1872 Open Top drops the bolt right in the middle of the leades of the notches,with about 1/16" of leade cut showing on either side of the clean and even bolt head marks in the bluing. Also, the angle of the bolt head seems to match the leade and strikes it squarely, unlike my Pietta 1860 which has a lot more angle to the bolt and sort of hacks into the cylinder.

The only bullets I had cast up with a short enough nose to fit the Howell cylinder were 452664s from the nice old mould I bought from John Goins many years ago, so I sized and lubed up a bunch with SL-71B and loaded a couple boxes over 5.7 grains of Titegroup for tomorrow.

 

[RicinYakima]

From what I have read, the bolt is suppose to fall into the ramp before the notch. The hand is suppose to turn the cylinder up enough for the bolt to drop into the notch. Being the "gun guy" for the museum, I have looked at 20 plus original Colts and it appears that the bolt dropped into the ramp. And the bolts were not square on top, but angled so that there is not a ding from a bolt edge. The bolt and hand of the originals are harder than the hubs of hell and appear to be hand fitted before hardened. I don't now enough about 19th century machining to be sure. Ric

 

[Ian]

Well, got almost two cylinders through it and two locking notches got beat up enough the bolt wouldn't lock. Not sure what's beating them up but can only assume it's the bolt head until I get a strong lens on it and see how the metal moved.

Shoots high with the 250s (no surprise for a revolver presumably regulated for round balls) and shot well what little I got to try it.

 

[RBHarter]

Having dabbled in the 1858 a bunch . Mine has .448 chambers and a .426 × .440 groove . A 141 .454 is nothing to be triffled with at 980 fps with 25 gr of T7 , 940 with 25 gr of FFFg Goes , 910 on FFg , and 880 on my screened Ownself filled full and compressed . I did get 900 out of it but it was pretty unscientific to fill tamp fill and seat the ball .

It is my understanding that they were sighted for 75 yd with a 210 gr "Pickett" ball , basically a flat based pointedish bullet resembling a stemless brandy snifter , at 900 fps .

 

[Fiddler]

My Uberti 1858 has a bore size of .4395 x .4595. Haven't shot a round ball, doubt that I'll even try, probably poor accuracy.
With a Taylor 45 Colt cylinder I've got a decent group with a hollow base Lyman 45468.

 

[fiver]

the hand coming up would be where I'd look, I'm not familiar with the inner workings, but maybe a spring?

 

[Ian]

Didn't take any photos but I reshaped and polished the hammer cam with a flat on the front which allows the bolt tail to fall sooner, got it about right (could use a little more but the bolt isn't hitting the very edge of the cylinder notches now). Re-scraped the notches and got the thing cleaned and back together. We chronographed the 5.7 Titegroup/452664 load and it was cooking along about 730 fps which is too hot. I got a .454 round ball mould from Brad so I'm going to give those a go either powder coated or tumble lubed and sized .452" with an even lighter charge of Titegroup.

 

[fiver]

5.1 is what I normally shoot in the ACP, never bothered chrono-graphing it but it always worked the slide with plenty of oomph.

 

[Ian]

Straight out of Lyman #49, starting load. Shoulda known better for wanting an ultralight load. The .45 colt has perpetually been loaded too hot anyway.

I use 4.8 in the ACP under a 230 at near max OAL, plenty snappy.

 

[fiver]

I have taken it down to 4 grs in the 44 special and 41 mag..... jus sayin,,,, you got plenty of room to go down.
airc I was shooting right about what you had there under some 165's, and barked up to 6 for the heavy 15-K loads with the 200-250gr stuff.
that put the bullets right on top of the front sight in the USFA's.

 

[Ian]

The saga continues.

So I ran two cylinders of BLL'd round balls through it a few days ago and it was jumping the bolt again.

So apart it came and more diamond filing on the hammer cam and FINALLY got the bolt dropping at the origin of the leade to the cylinder notches. Unfortunately a lot of metal was beaten down at the edge of the notches so I had to go grind and sharpen a hand scraper out of a HSS 5/8" parting blade and painstakingly carve all the notches deeper.

4.0 grains of TG wasn't nearly enough for the round balls so I upped it to 5.0 and repeated the ten-round test. It seems to be holding up now, finally. Shoots 4" high at ten yards and cases are still a little sooty so I may go up to 6.0 grains. No leading whatsoever so far with the sift round balls.

 

[fiver]

6 is right at the 15-K mark in the colt cases, it shoots clean though with a 250.
you probably have a smidge more room with the lighter round ball.