Another silly question on "used" BP pistols

[okiefarmer]

I have picked up several from auction sites, and have yet to be displeased with one. One new one, the '51 Navy in 36 from Cabela's when we were traveling in Nebraska, just had to go in their original store. ANYWAY, all these sellers, most anyway, always advertise as never fired, or fired only once, new in box, nearly new. Some will say rest of kit is gone, only pistol for sale. What in the sam hill do these people buy the dang thing for. These repros don't go up in value that much to hold for profit. I buy them to shoot and have fun. I know most on here do too, but who out there is buying them to put back up for sale on the auction houses. Surely they don't buy them for the free flask and various little pieces in the kits, then dump the pistol.

go figger.

just sayin'

[Fingers McGee]

It's usually a case of someone buying the C&B or getting one for a present with the intention of shooting it in competition, or for general plinking; without having a complete understanding of what it takes to use one on a regular basis. They find out that there is more to shooting one than just loading a cartridge and blasting away; so, they decide that it is more trouble than they are willing to go through just to make some noise and plink at cans, or use them in CAS competition

Then there are the collectors that amass a number of C&Bs for the sheer joy of collecting. C&Bs from these collections end up on the auction sites or classifieds when the owner decides to downsize, collect something else, needs the money, or dies.

I've bought most of my C&Bs from individuals and dealers that reflect all of these reasons. The best deals have been from people that didn't realize what it took to shoot C&Bs, and were selling just to get rid of them.

FM

[Doc Hoy]

Okie,

I am of the opinion (and have said as much) that many pistols are bought with only a casual intention of firing them. They represent a visual treasure that, as you say, is difficult to explain. Very few see them who do not fall in love with them intantly. I think this is why the brass frame pistols seem to be so much more numerous in the hands of folks do don't shoot them much or not at all. In the words of Bos'n Frank Street, USN, Ret., "They shine like a ruby in a goats a_ _.

I personally own more pistols than I could ever shoot, and I own some which I have made the conscious decision never to shoot. I think there are several others on the forum who are in the same situation. Yet I haunt the hauls of Gunbroker and frequent the pointless (at least to a black powder shooter) gunshows looking for something I just can't pass up. When I bought my fifth 1960 Army, I completely forgot that I already had four others. All good condition, good shooters, each this its own story. Why did I buy number 5? Like Everest, I bought it because it was there.

These pistols seem to have a magnetism. Colt or its cousins or the wide family of Remington style pistols, it doesn't matter. I was discussing the purchase of my 15th revolver with my wife. Her response was to inquire how many pistols I need. I told her it has nothing to do with need. She seemed to understand. She is afraid of guns but I caught her looking at an 1861 Colt the other day almost like a person would read a book. These pistols are magic.

Go into Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop and you see lookers crowded around the handgun counter. The are handling the semi autos and other modern handguns. But just ask the sales person to drag out a Colt or Remington and watch the reaction. Draw the hammer back and everyone looks over. It is as though the pistol was designed to announce its presence before it is fired. Like the sound of the action is the sentence and the discharge of the pistol is the exclamation point at the end of that sentence. That pistol, like a faithful dog would tear its heart out just to serve its master. Click..click..click.click..Bang!

Nothing about these pistols is abrupt, or offensive. Nothing seems out of place. Show me a million photos of 1851 Colts, and when I see the million and first photo, I will still say.., "Dang..That is a pretty pistol."

[Tom2]

ONe that I have never seen used and fired is a second gen. Colt repro C&B receiver. They are always in their original box, perfect, and priced pretty high. Would you not love to find a great deal on a nice unfired Navy second gen? Well I had one once, it was like 150$. But the catch was, it was fully polished, in the white, and no markings of any sort at all. Was intended to be sent out for engraving or limited edition or something I was told. Sat around for years here and I finally sold it off. I just did not have the jack to send it out to be fancy engraved and finished. Some guy with big bucks probably did that. Was in a plain white box.

[starbuck125]

Doc hoy........well said

[Fingers McGee]

Doc hoy........well said

+1

Tom2 - there are some of us that shoot 2nd Gens - I have a pair of 1851 Navies and a pair of 1861 Navies that have seen thousands of rounds go through them................of course, I also have a bunch of 2nd Gens that have barely seen the light of day; muchless powder, cap & ball.

[okiefarmer]

Thanks guys.

I had to go get cultured tonight. Wife took me to the local symphony. Now let me say this, the symphony stuff just don't melt my butter, but I have to also say I was in awe of the passion and talent on that stage. It was "request" night tonight, and the ending piece was the 1812 Overture with all the sparklers and bangs. We support it here financially, would hate to lose it, just don't have that much time to fit events between planting, fertilizing, spraying, harvesting, and fixing chit. I don't go to tractor pulls or monster truck races, don't do it for me either. If I have free time, I would rather be puttering in the garden or shooting turtles, snakes, or beer cans down at the pond. Now,ain't that a match.

Only got the disease the last few years. Started mainly as a way to conserve my stash of smokeless ammo. Bought a boatload of all the surplus ammo before it started drying up and skyrocketig in price. Just worked out that way. BP shooting can be nearly as expensive as some smokeless rounds, but the fact that half the fun is in loading and readying the piece, I shoot far less rounds and have just as much fun. I mould all my own RB and conicals now. Had my first chainfire recently, just one adjacent cylinder on an 1860 Army 44 I just got. Started using wander wads, but those dang things are almost 10 cents a piece. A piece of felt, holy cow.

BTW, can ya tell I'm a mizer, another name for cheapskate. Safety conscious, but money conscious too. I may try the Cream of wheat filler, but my cylinders are already pretty full, not much room in there for filler.

Didn't get much shooting in today. Rifle group was there and using a 10 minute- 10 round timed shoot on M-1 Garand open sight 100 yards targets. Rules are while range is safe, firearms must be laid on table. By the time range was hot again, and they went to shooting, it took me nearly the whole time to load and empty one pistol one time, then range safe again. Oh well. Still had fun and we solved some world political issues again while there.

Dunno if wife would let me continue to live with her Doc, if I had 15 BP pistols, but I did bring the 5 in just one or two at a time today to clean in the utility room basin. She is nearly like most of the public and everything is an AK-47. Thankfully she can't tell a '51 from a '60 or a '58, much less the caliber.

Thanks for all the help on here guys. It's a great habit.

Okie out

[Doc Hoy]

Starbuck and Fingers,

Got carried away.

Okie,

You can make your own wads by soaking some felt (Has to be very high wool content) in bore lube and then punching them out with a punch that you can get for about six bucks a set from Harbor Freight. http://search.harborfreight.com/cpis...?keyword=punch Top of page on left or second from top on left.

I think some on the forum will tell you to use cornmeal rather than cream of wheat. I haven't got that far yet.

[mykeal]

Get your felt here: http://www.durofelt.com/ Click on Felt Material in left hand column.
Small company run by a woman, great product at very reasonable price. Very popular with bp crowd over at The Muzzleloading Forum, and they're not the easiest people to please.

If your chambers are already pretty full, you don't need Cream of Wheat.

[Doc Hoy]

I just read "cream of wheat" for the second time.

Am I wrong in thinking that corn meal is the desired filler?

[Fingers McGee]

Okie,

I prefer the term Thrifty. The Scotsman in me refuses to pay the exhorbitant prices that retailers want for lubed wads; so I go here http://www.buffaloarms.com/browse.cfm/2,249.html to get mine. They're $.02 each for dry wads and $.03 each for lubed wads. It saves me the trouble of punching out my own - I've gotten lazy since I retired.

I've got 15 '51 Navies, as well as numerous other models, and SWMBO still lets me in the house. She keeps asking how many I have & I just answer 'not as many as I want'.

Doc,

While I don't generally advocate abusing foodstuffs; and don't use filler very much; Cream of Wheat is my preferred filler. I also use it for C&B blanks. It compresses and compacts better in the cylinder than corn meal. I save the corn meal for muffins & such.

FM

[Sabot]

I recently received my Gunbroker purchase, Baby Dragoon "looks new and unfired". The gun is so worn out the cylinder won't lock, $220.00 paper weight. E-mails go unanswered, phone call is next. I payed with a MO so it looks like this is the biggest burn i've gotten off of Gunbroker.

[Doc Hoy]

That is a dag gone shame.

It'd be nice to know who the seller is.

Maybe it is not appropriate to ask.

[okiefarmer]

OK,, guys, it was late last night, slip of the tongue. I knew it was one of those ground grain items. Corn meal looks about like cream of wheat, just a different grain. OH well.

I was just wanting something under the ball for better seal against chainfires. LIke I said, had my first one the other day. Not a real biggie, I thought it was a delay fire between the cap and powder, when I realized I just shot 5 times and all cylinders were empty. 30 grain in a 36 leaves no room for even a wad, much less corn meal.

Wife's biggest complaint on the cleaning of BP is the "black chit" everywhere. I'm not to tide sometimes in her perfect little kitchen.

No specials at Cabela's right now on any short barell pistol. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Thanks again all,
Okie out

[Doc Hoy]

....It is far more fattening than cornmeal and not nearly as high in fiber. So the little critters that come by after a day of shooting get real fat on the ranges where people use cream of wheat as filler. They get to grazing on that mixture of cream of wheat and black powder. Then the PETA folks show up with another reason to demonstrate at the range. They hate to see those gophers getting unhealthy and shooting off their mouth about it.

We all know that it is far better to let the gophers go to the gopher retirement home.

I checked with PETA and this is all absolute fact.




No it ain't.

[Smokin_Gun]

Doc I don't feel the need for fillers myself so therefore I must have tried a few. This one Enyaw turned me on to and did give me better results than cereals.
Here's the link to Puff-Lon... http://www.pufflon.com/

[madcratebuilder]

Originally Posted by Sabot

I recently received my Gunbroker purchase, Baby Dragoon "looks new and unfired". The gun is so worn out the cylinder won't lock, $220.00 paper weight. E-mails go unanswered, phone call is next. I payed with a MO so it looks like this is the biggest burn i've gotten off of Gunbroker.

That is unfortunate. If the seller refuses to address you I would leave appropriate feedback so others are warned.

One thing to keep in mind, many of the replica revolvers well need work even when NIB. Think of them as a kit gun that is 95% finished. Post a description of the problem with pic's and I'm sure the members here can help.

[Noz]

Sabot, That may be as simple as a new trigger/bolt spring. They break with some regularity.

[Buzzcook]

I just started accumulating ingredients a couple weeks ago. Luckily I had this site for information. I was able to cut my own patches from felt weather stripping, beeswax and crisco. Only had to buy a .457 mold as I have plenty of lead.

I certainly can see that a few extra cylinders would help out.

Unfortunately actually shooting the thing will have to wait.

[Doc Hoy]

Be careful using that weather stipping. I looked and looked for weather stripping that was wool rather than polyester and I could not find any. The package will tell you what it is made of. If it is polyester, you might wind up with a nasty deposit in the bore.

Others in the group care to wade in here? Has anyone had any luck finding recently manufactured weather stripping that is actually wool?

Tnx,

[mykeal]

I don't get it.

Why look for antique weatherstripping when you could just buy sheets of wool felt at a very reasonable price from Durofelt?

[Fingers McGee]

Precut wool felt wads can be gotten from Buffalo Arms. Lubed $.03 each in bags of 500 & dry $.02 each in bags of 1000. That for .36 and .44 cal sizes. Save a lot of wear and tear on the arm.

FM

[robhof]

Thanks Smokin Gun for the pufflon info. Awhile back I was at the range and someone near me was shooting one of those fancy benchrest rifles with sub MOA. We got to talking and he was telling me that he uses puffon as filler in all his ammo and it has improved the groups in all his guns. I didn't get his name, but wrote down the puffon and looked online and only found puffins!!! I got a great deal on GB looking through b/p revolvers; someone was selling a stainless 44 with fuzzy pics. I got it for $200 including shipping. It was an unfired ROA. Even with the fuzzy pic's, I knew what it was and waited to bid on the last minute. The seller said that it was his dad's and he knew nothing about it. He could have got $200 from a pawn shop, but he made a long time ROA admirer very happy.

[Buzzcook]

Thanks for the warning Doc. The key word is recent. The weather stripping I'm using is from many years ago. I had read the sticky about the danger of synthetic fibers, so I lite a sample and it smolders but doesn't melt.

The reason I don't buy pre-made is because I have a wealth of junk around the house which I might as well use for something.

[James K]

A brief warning about buying a kit gun that someone has tried to put together. Don't.

Jim