Colt 1877 Lightning Resurrection

[xtriggerman]

 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. 

[leroy]

This is way cool stuff Brother..!  Well done..!!! I love these old lightnings.

Admirin leroy...

[Jamie Jackson]

Thank you for the detailed explanation @xtriggerman.

Wow! What a challenge this must have been! Looks great.

I admire your knowledge and skill Sir. And I love old wheelguns, so there's that.

I'm impressed that a .38 spl round was made to work. Pretty darn cool. 

[gregintenn]

You interested in getting another one running? I got close, but never could get that mulit fingered spring into the correct position, and think I bent one of the fingers. I think mine might work if I could get that worked out.

I thought they were a black powder only proposition. Guess I was wrong.

Kudos to you for figuring it out! I’m told there are very few people left who  have the skill and knowledge to repair them. They are a unique design for sure.

Edited February 15, 2021 by gregintenn

[xtriggerman]

5 hours ago, gregintenn said:

You interested in getting another one running? I got close, but never could get that mulit fingered spring into the correct position, and think I bent one of the fingers. I think mine might work if I could get that worked out.

I thought they were a black powder only proposition. Guess I was wrong.

Kudos to you for figuring it out! I’m told there are very few people left who  have the skill and knowledge to repair them. They are a unique design for sure.

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. 

Edited February 15, 2021 by xtriggerman

[Whisper]

I've always been interested in the old 1877s but have never read anything from someone who has figured out how to work on them.  Thanks for sharing your insights, xtriggerman.

Cheers,

Whisper