xtriggerman

One note of caution when buying a P35. The safety to seer contact point is very small and the fact that the safety lever is not an easy "snap to on" motion due to its small size, The factory assemblers had a tendency to cut more rather than less off the safety side of that to seer contact so as to not have a friction fit of the safety to seer to hammer. A tiny bit of friction fit could make the gun come back with the complaint the safety is to hard to engauged. So, you are likely to find a number of guns where if you put the safety on, and pull on the trigger, the trigger will move the seer a tiny bit. To check for this "over cut", you simply put the safety on and put pressure against the back of the cocked hammer while you then pull on the trigger. Then let up on the trigger while still pushing the hammer forward. then, stop the forward pressure and pull the hammer back. If you hear the seer reset to full cock position, you have seer creep because the safety is over cut. I'v fixed a few of these by putting a small dab of weld on that safety cut area and then hand file the weld down to the very slightest friction fit when moving the safety to on. Mind you, there is not a hell of alot of seer to hammer full cock notch to begin with, so any seer movement forward while the safety is engauged is certainly not an optimal condition on a single action auto that many think condition 1 is a safe carry on a BHP. I personaly would much rather carry a loaded chamber with half cock notch engauged rather than on a over cut safety. Half cock notch carry on this particular design is rather under rated to begin with IMO. The extended safety I put on my FEG is a casting unit and needed alot of fitting to work perfectly. Now I wouldn't hesitate to carry it in condition 1. It has a clean medium pressure "snap" on and off.

Heres my HP lineage pistols. A FEG made FN stamped impostor that I put a real FN barrel in (shoots better). The DA Arcus has HP DNA buried in a bit more steel covering. If I find some time, I may whittle a bunch of that metal off to mimic what Gf54 has there in that Detective. Finally bought a pair of Mec Gar 15 round mags for these pop guns. You need 2 men and a boy to fit #15 in em but they will run them out with no problem. Back when I first got my carry permit at the legal 21 age, I bought a Browning HP from Numrich Arms where I worked across the street at Auto Ordnance. Carried that thing everywhere I went.... One night I was watching Cher dancing around on TV while I was leading her with my HP sights, Just as she stopped moving around, I dropped the hammer on her, thinking i had ejected the round earlier......Bang goes the HP and Cher was gone! Those 9mm FMJ rounds dont go threw an old style TV, I can tell you that for sure! That was one of 3 times a round got away from me back when I was young, dump and full of.... you know... LOL. Sold that HP to a buddy of mine when he wanted it for the PD job he had. The Feg was not polished very well when it was parkerized but it satisfies the HP desires as far as shooting holes in things.....

I had 2 at different times. last one with the extra mag cylinder. The 22's seem to be relatively reliable but watch out for too large cylinder to barrel gap. They can get ridiculous there with way too much cylinder blast if your gun is much past .005 especially with the mag. The one with the mag was pretty used and had a loose barrel. The zamak frames arn't really good in the durability department for a steady diet of magnums. I'v read others with the same issue.

I do the same as you with a 1800 rpm 8Kw single cylinder diesel. I get 24hrs of summer time whole house on just 5 gallons of fuel. Back feeding is fine as long as you do it right like you have there. Between the 220 outlet wire size and REMEMBER to all ways flip the panel main to off before back feeding takes place, its the cheapest way to power up your home.

My Brother had one back in 74. It was a green fast back 4 speed with tan interior. It was actualy pretty snappy for a 4 banger. His blew a hole in one of the cylinders and didn't have the cash to fix it. He bought a Gremlin after the Vega. I think GM was hard chroming the aluminum cylinders at first but they didnt last and then started steel sleeve lining them like they should have in the first place. But by then, you couldn't give them away. I could be wrong about that but thats how I remember it.

Green Mountain made their name known first in muzzle loading barrel blanks of all sorts and sizes. Alot of competition BP shooters used them. They were inexpensive yet would shoot with any of the more expensive barrels. Then they started making octagon barrels for cartridge cals and the quality was not lost in the transition. I still have a tapered octagon .429 groove barrel waiting for a Marlin 1894 receiver to drop in my lap some day. The quality of it is as good as any eye can tell. They are all air gauged to standard industry specs. For the money, you can't go wrong.

If you dont want the sight, band saw threw most of it to the slide and then push it out. Piece of cake.

In a high adrenaline HD situation, a carbine is way, way better than any handgun. Like the old sayin goes, when it comes to stoping some one cold, you use a hand gun to get to the long gun to use. No brainer really.

I did some reading on this a while back and wanted CB/10 meter capable mobile and for a home base unit. Best for the money is the Anytone AT 6666. Its a real power house with 12-45 watts. 11 meter CB convertable with button selectable CB or HF band. Hammers hate this for its way over 4 watt legal limit abilities. I want the thing for SHTF days so who gives a rats butt about power when the Gov is broke. Side band is good to have just to listen in on 10m ham any way. Having the extra power in CB for local communication is imperative IMO. 4 watts is not worth having in hilly country. I'v not set this up as a base yet but have most of the stuff to do it. Heres how they work. Alot on you tube on the AT 6666 (11) Anytone 6666 overview and first contact on 38LSB - YouTube

First, Thanks for all the interest & comments on this Colt project. I didn't think there were that many folks interested in these old guns here! So, I thought a better insight into what makes these gun run would also be of interest. Also, I dont know if any one else ever fixed the weak locking lug problem like what I did but its a worthy mod for the shooter rat rods that are just waiting to be we awakened! Incidently As you saw, I neded an ejector rod housing and every make Tom Dick n Harry made units are 4" long. This particular gun uses a 3 3/8ths long housing instead. The ONLY gun out there today that uses one in that size is the Ruger Bearcat. So, for 20 bucks I got one with a spring from Numrich and fit a Uberti rod to it that I had. Problem solved! In this shot you can see the goofy ass hand spring that wants to twist the hand in its now loose pivot pin hole. Good Grief ! .... Right at the tip of my thumb, you can see a little black hole I drilled in the frame and milled a relief straight away from it. Thats for a .042" spring wire taken from a 12g mag tube spring. Hey Greg, the bends on the dual finger spring is about the best configuration I could get out of them. Without the added wire spring, its flat out inadaquite for a working lug with the ware level in these parts. A huge difference between this and a 1873 is that DBL action strut arm you see there rides inside the hammer. The hammer seer edges have the centers gone due to the large milled out track for that strut to fit in threw the hammer center. You can really see how much they hollowed the hammer 's center out by looking up at the last picture and see the hammer seer edges in the frame right under where it says "hammer seer" This design has far less hammer to seer contact area compaired to the 73 yet still has the same hammer tension to deal with at the contact areas. = faster ware down and a very abbreviated half cock notch. The upper most notch on the hammer is suppose to be a "firing pin off the primer setting" but mine is pretty much wiped out but the half cock setting was able to be deepened enough as to get it to hold and be loading functional. This as far as the ejector rod will push out 38 spl cases. I suppose trimming then down to 38LC length is the right thing to do if you really want a play toy that walks n talks the way it should. Thanks again for all the inspiring comments. Despite the not so "73" duty design work, its still a cool piece to play with.

From the looks of the safety, isn't that a Sears M70?

Hard to find nice full coverage checkering like that ($$$). It Really tops off the final product big time. You have good taste in fine rifles!

I feel for yah..... for 38 years I voted the NRA pro gun line in NY and in the end, didn't mean jack... The big cities are like cancerous sores that bleed the liberal infection into their burbs at first then the state its self falls to its stench. Its a certain form of depression that you can't explain unless you actually lived in it. I pray TN never, ever lets its guard down but even here, its brewing. Its small things like the state contracting NPR to provide school programming of sorts. There's naive politicians about every where these days. That said, Welcome. Retiring here was the best move of my life and hope it may be yours as well!

Bring it by if your in Crossville some day and I'll let you pop a few rounds threw mine. Smokeless rnds are fine in reduced loads. The CCI Blazers are not top loads to begin with but still too stout for any continued use. I dont have my dillion put together yet to load so I'll cut the nose off the 158g & make wad cutters out of a few. Taking a 158g down to like 110 should take a notable percentage of chamber pressure down. The hand/ lock spring in mine were not holding spring very well. I heated that dual leaf up untill purple and quick quenched. That helped alot but not enough for the lock lug. So I milled out some extra space and put in the second spring and bingo, works pretty snappy now. Other wise, the cylinders flew right past the lock up nearly every DA pull. PS, a bit more on the loads. The original 38LC BP load was a 150g stepping out at about 700 fps. The CCI's are 158g at 755 fps. Now the big difference is in how pressure is built between BP and nitro cellulose powders. Modern powder "makes" oxygen when it burns so its pressure gradient spikes very quickly while BP builds pressure much slower over the length of bore. Thats why nickle steel was introduced as a smokeless steel since its tensile strength so to speak could with hold the greater shock impulse of smokeless. That said, its written pre 1900 made colts should be kept to BP to be on the safe side of pressures but mine is a 1904 model. Also, the post 1890 38LC has a groove diameter in the range of .370 + (mine measures at about .367) for use of 357 diameter hollow base slugs that blow into the larger groove diam. So here again, a solid lead 357 diam bullet in a 367 grooved bore is certainly not going to give max pressures from the git go.

After about 20 hours of head scratching, welding, machining and alot of space drifting on just how this non conventional action functions, I finally got this in shooting condition. Its a GB "parts" gun i bought recently but some guy got my top dollar in the final tally of just over 3 bones. A bit much for a gun that was missing the ejector assembly and cylinder pin, cracked grips and with rough bore but it was one of those oldie challenges I'v never had in front of me before. The good part is the 38 Long Colt uses a 357 bullet and to my surprise, 38 spl brass chambered right up. So thats off to a good start. These guns are know as the Billy the Kid guns since he was killed with the 41 cal version of this frame as his own EDC. The DA action is a unique design but a some really bad design work is what gives these guns a bad rep in the reliability category. It all revolves around a cylinder lock up lug that engages the cylinders at the chambers face rather than the out side barrel of the cylinder. This rather stupid location puts the frame lock up lug side by side with the cylinder ratchet hand. And the hand is one of the weakest designs I'v ever seen, more akin to a early H&R DA...if that. The hand spring is a delicate little leaf along with the DA hammer link spring that rides sandwich style inside the trigger. Its no wonder a little ware and tear will take place sooner rather than latter with the internals so weakly sprung. In this particular case, the original springs were still in the gun except for the trigger rebound leaf. It was some ones creation that cracked after about 30 or so cyclings. I made up a new one and added a second spring wire into the frame to help out the cylinder lock up lug. The cylinder had about .010 too much end shake so I welded up the front spindle and recut it to fix that issue and made a new cylinder pin. The hand also needed a dot of weld to get the cylinder up in time. The bore looked pretty bad. So I did my ultimate clean up job by wrapping a bristle brush with course steel wool and scrubbed the hell out of it. That action actually put the lands back into view by scrapping the rust off their surface's. The grooves were still frosted dark but no serious pits. I figured I had a 50/50 of key holes out of this pipe. The CCI aluminum cased 158g LRN rounds I have needed to have about 1/8th" of lead ground off the tip so they would comfortably fit the chambers. The CCI rounds are a bit hot for this 1904 made gun, but with a little less lead, that helped it along. I was pleasantly surprised to print this 2" group off a rest at 12 yards! And the bore didn't have any visible lead captured! Getting this action to time on both single and double action movements was alot of fun since being a parts gun, they wern't even close. . A really good learn on these historic guns. The second shot is a size comparo with the big 44 and a Uberti Stallion. Oddly, the Stallion is a near perfect frame size replica of the Lightning.

Iconic Connecticut gun maker Colt sold to Czech company (stamfordadvocate.com)

This level of pain born out of frustration has to be a hammer blow to any good man's hart.... I feel for you & family. Its been 46 years since I watched my 19 year old brother die in a horrific motorcycle accident. All I can feebly say is its a chosen path of life lain before us. Pain full as it may be, especially when being born by children. After my incident way back then, my prayers brought me into a vision with JC and we had an in depth mind to mind conversation. Trust in that he feels your Daughter's and your families pain. His plan is to raise us up to the next level beyond the temp home we have in these cells. Your Daughter, God Bless her golden hart..... set out to do Gods plan for people. Raise them up to "feel" beyond their own skin despite what she was knowingly in for. Saints will walk in her shadow. You my friend, are learning in one fell swoop what others take eons to learn. Even tho it feels like you are as useless as trying to weld water...... We all have God's love (knowingly or not) but its folks like you that earn his respect big time. Mam Oh man, wisdom IS coveting that heavenly jewel. Just one more thing from my vision.... When our eyes met each other's gaze, no words can describe.... Imagine seeing our universe on the head of a pin and yet feeling/knowing every molecular movement within it all at once. Each breath we exhale is a Hi Fidelity sound wave permeating God's living room. Trust in him..... cuz the power I saw in him will blow up your brain cells..... big time. Sorry for the rant... but its what I learned to keep a bullet out of my head. Prayers your way.....

The style of stock & checkering is a real sweet combo on that rifle. Looks like one of those that you just want to pick up and play with it for a few minutes. Hope the spoon handle turns out nice. I made a couple up from hot forging the original, adding some weld to the end and then pear shaping the spoon. This was the last one I did about 9 years ago. Adds a really nice touch!

I was there about noon time and CS is pretty accurate about the show. All tho by that time, the ticket line was about 15 people. A real cluster in the front of the show but thinned out to not bad further back. One guy had some 15-20, cases of PMC TAC 5.56 going for 18.95 per box. I was hunting for a SAA in 357 and found only one Uberti for 700, while there were a number of 45's in the upper 400 range. I passed on any buy there. I did however get a deal on a barreled action TC 22 classic for 80 bucks off a private table. I'm going to fit that into a M1 carbine stock I have laying around. All in all a pretty good show with a clear showing of bizaro pricing on the most wanted items list. And I saw that white Tesla also, My son pointed it out. If your a bit concerned about catching Covid, don't go. Masks dont do much any way. If its in the air, its on the items tabled. I didnt go there to keep my hands in my pockets if I see something I might want.

Talk about beating this horse to death how many times over.... Plan on everyone getting this at some point, Vaccinated or not. It will spread threw out just like the rest of the social viruses. Look up Ivermectine and vitamins to start and be done with it. Now that the Evil orange guy is out, its safe for the lefty states to open up...... give me a break. Sheep will all ways need a herder.

OK, well maybe your right about re-cutting receiver threads. I'v never heard about it. From the way I was told in Gunsmith school, is the threads on the receivers are bored and cut in line with the bolt body bore. So when we built custom guns, a receiver would be chucked up on a bolt bore mandrel and turned on centers to only have the receiver's shoulder face trued up with the bolt bore. Re-cutting the threads to match bolt bore would be extremely tricky without a special set up on machined receivers like a M70. Thats one reason builders like those 700 Rem round stock receivers, They spin nice in a lathe .

Why in the world would you think someone had its 1" x 16 TPI threads changed.... Maybe I just dont understand what you mean. Never heard of such a thing. The only difference between a pre 64 and newer control feeder is the rough finish and some dimensional changes for the bolt anti bind lump of the pre. If your ever by Crossville, I can take it loose as long as I have a bushing for that barrel, freebe. Different story if I have to cut a bushing for that barrel diam or taper.

Just one more tip on keeping the barrel. Badly Pitted bores need a level of extra aggression when the pitting has bubbled up and into bore diameter in addition to creating course lipped pockets threw out the bore. Those raise hell with lead bullets as you might imagine. A method I have used quit alot to squeeze what ever can be had as far as group-abilities is this. Take a bristled bore brush and wind a strip of 00 steel wool tightly into the brush untill it fits as tight as you can get it in the chamber end yet still thin enough to force it threw the bore. Do it dry. You dont want anything to lube its path. Rack it straight threw and in the really bad patches go past that area and pull back and forth several times in the rough spots. The idea is to cut the rust completely free of whats left of the bore steel and it will do just that. In a good barrel, you could very well damage portions of rifling with that method but this is for the basket cases that are other wise not shootable. The most important part of the barrel is the last couple of inches. If you have fairly good rifling with little pitting at the end, you may have a bore that will still spin a bullet without key hole-ing. I'v taken sewer pipe bores that at first looked un shootable but the method described did one hell of a job in making them look not bad as to you wont feel like shooting it is a waste of good components. Hopefully, the ol girl can still poke some kissin cousin circles in the card board! Good Luck.

My pair of Lovelies , well, the AR is 5.56 so maybe not a sub. But non the less ..... A sub should have a hunger like no other...... By the way, the 120 rd AR drum was a china import in early 90's. Absolutely the best Mil spec drum with harden shell & parts. It will satisfy any cycle rate of fire. Last time I saw one on GB many years ago, it sold well over $300. I used to sell them for $120. God knows what they sell for these days.

I learned to drive on a 73 CJ and had a couple YJ's. Really fun vehicles if you have good mountain trails around. The last Jeep I had was a 2005 Diesel Liberty. It was a far better road vehicle yet still not bad in the woods but needs a lift if woods is a regular exerciser. I would have kept the Liberty but the Italian motorini engines started having head gasket and valve stem failures. Since I was coming up a 200K, I got rid of it. Too bad, I had a program in the PCM and a number of upgrades, that little Jeep had alot of git up n go. Those Liberties were good vehicles. High milage 3.7's were bad for head gaskets and the 4 bangers were light on power. Hard choice.