I was visiting my mother in February this year and chanced across the above revolver in an old chest full of things from my great grandfather, George Francis (Frank) Crawforth. I posted this photo to Facebook asking if anyone could identify it and two of my mission companions, Gary Mackelprang and Glen Leewright informed me that it is an
1861 Colt Navy cap and ball revolver. This one has a serial number of 12101, which the
Colt serial number website says was manufactured in 1863.
I contacted several gunsmiths about restoring it and they all informed me that the gun is too far gone for full restoration and would not be worth the cost. The cylinder is rust welded to the cylinder pin and will not rotate. I tried several methods of loosening the weld, but none worked. In the end, I have decided to clean it up and put a trigger guard and grip back on the gun. The plunger is also missing, and that will need to be replaced and the trigger is broken and needs replacement as well. Since the cylinder does not turn, I can't fully repair the action, but I can get the trigger and hammer to work.
I'm documenting the repair process below.
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| Serial numbers on the gun |
The first step after identifying the gun was to see if I could loosen any of the parts. The rust was pretty strong and the screws were on tight. I tried some WD-40 and that did very little. Looking online I found that one of the best recipes for loosening rusted screws and bolts is a concoction of equal parts acetone and automatic transmission fluid. I was still in Idaho Falls at this point, so I went to Lowe's and got the acetone. I got the ATF at Autozone. When they asked me what the make and model of the car I said I was just going to use it as a solvent, so I guess I got the generic stuff.
I let things soak for three or four days and tested the parts every day. The screws holding the trigger and the hammer came loose first. The screw for the bolt took a bit longer, but eventually came loose. The cylinder never did come loose from the cylinder pin that it is supposed to spin around.
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| Gun soaking in ATF / acetone mix |
The first mistake I made was trying to hard to get the cylinder off the pin. I tried hitting it vigorously with a wooden axe handle and when I hit it from the side the pin broke. This left me the cylinder with most of the broken pin inside it. The the action with a stub of a pin left.
It turns out the pin is screwed into the action and then a locking pin is inserted to keep it oriented. It is not meant to be removed, but might be removable by drilling out the pin and then somehow extracting the stub. Given how solidly the pin is attached to the cylinder, this seems like a long shot. So I've opted to repair the gun in appearance only.
I did get the barrel detached from the action. So this left me with three main pieces: the barrel, the cylinder and attached long pin piecer, and the action with the pin stub. The action came apart nicely and cleaned up well. The hand, which rotates the cylinder when the gun is cocked, was missing. Given the non-rotating cylinder this is not surprizing in retrospect.
Step two was to clean off all the parts and the soak them for about 36 hours in some rust remover. This came from Lowe's also and it did a great job.
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| The major parts after removing the rust, with the action reassmbled |
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Schematic for gun parts for the Uberti replic
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At this point I had to pack up everything and head back from Idaho Falls to Arlington, VA. So the gun got wrapped up and I didn't touch it again until mid-May.
The first thing I did when I got back to work on the project was to order a replacement trigger. The old one was broken off outside the action. I got one on Ebay from
jwcchris. It worked perfectly. The second set of parts I needed was the hand, as I was hoping I might get the broken cylinder pin removed. I got this from
VTI Gun Parts. This is a part for an Italian-made Uberti replica, but it worked fine when I installed it.
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| Original hammer and replacement hand assembly |
Lastly, I need the plunger and ratchet assembly that was used to push the lead ball into the firing cylinder on top of a black powder charge. Ironically, when we were cleaning out the box where we found the gun, this assembly was there. But none of us had any idea what it was and it got tossed out or donated to Goodwill. I got those parts from Cimmaron Firearms online. The ratchet and plunger came just fine, but they had problems getting the correct screw to attach them. They tried twice and then I just ordered another screw from VTI Gun Parts. That should arrive soon. If theirs doesn't fit, I may need to jury-rig something from one of the incorrect screws they sent.
With the parts on order, the next step was to clean the rust remover residue from the gun. I did this with some soft brass brush attachments on a Dremel tool and with some 0000 steel wool.
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| Parts disassembled, cleaned and ready for bluing |
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| Serial number on cylinder pin matches that on other gun parts |
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Wedge is noticably deformed. Also has a different serial number.
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When all the trigger and plunger parts arrived, they were already blued. So I got some cold bluing formula (
Birchwood Casey Perma Blue from Amazon.com). I applied this as per the directions and brushed in between coats with 0000 steel wool. It took three coats to match the burnishing on the replacement parts.
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| This is how it looks with the bluing and mostly assembled |
Because the cylinder pin is broken and somewhat deformed, the barrel is going to be permanetly attached to the rest of the gun. I used some metal expoxy to reattach the two cylinder pin pieces and to attach the bottom of the barrel to the action.
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| Blue arrows show where the glue was applied |
The plunger screw arrived on the morning of May 25th from VTI, so I installed the ratchet and plunger assembly. This screw was the correct one. Now I need to get the trigger guard and grip and put them on.
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| With the plunger and ratchet assembly installed |
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| With the plunger deployed. It pushes a lead ball into the lowest chamber of the cylinder. |
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