Bob Hatfield wrote: ↑Fri Feb 27, 2026 10:43 amAs beautiful and well-made as they are, it always scares me that they may or may not cap jam on you. The last Uberti 51 Navy I bought did not cap jam. The last 1849 I bought in .31 caliber; cap jammed every time and needed work as every cap would blow down into the action.
The "Everything Black Powder" guy on YouTube bought a new Uberti 51 and 61. The 51, cap jammed to high heaven. His 61 never cap jammed.
My first '51 was an ASM assembled gun from surplus Uberti parts for the 2nd Gen Colts and date coded to 1985; ( I semi-confirmed this as all Colt 2nd gen parts will interchange with this gun, with the exception of it barrel to frame pin spacing. . I purchased it from EMF in 1986 and it cap jammed on me ALL THE TIME. After nearly a year of shooting in cowboy action, I'd learned to just carry a small pick with me to clear them off the back of the recoil shield before they stacked high enough to prevent the hammer from striking the seated cap. Just about the time the hand spring broke.... a week before the big match of the year, EOT, '87. A friend took it to a gunsmith he knew who replaced the flat Colt spring with a Ruger plunger & coil spring. 39 years later and that same spring is still going strong. It still had the cap sucking problem however. A year or so later that gunsmith asked if he could do a mod on that revolver to cure the cap sucking issue. I said sure, and glad I did. He installed what he termed a "Manhattan Conversion". Basically installing a "gate" across the hammer channel at the recoil shield fact and trimming the nose of the hammer down to about the width of the cap it was to strike.
capshield 012.jpg
capshield 007.jpg
He also fills the safety pin slot in the hammer to further keep it from grabbing a cap and pulling it back. Upon firing, the Remington #10s I use split and open up on at least two sides, wider than that "gate," and usually come off as that nipple passes the capping notch, as the revolver is cocked to fire the next round. I haven't had a cap get into the action for many, many years. I can fire a C&B revolver with this mod as fast as I can shoot my SAAs. As long as my thumb remembers to reach all the way up there and pull the hammer ALL the way back! But... wait, that's the same with the SAA. I now have 8 1851s, and all have been converted. That original gunsmith has since retired, but I had my last 4 converted by a local gunsmith, who did an excellent job. He actually built a jig to precisely place the hole for the Ruger plunger & spring in either an 1851 or SAA, whose dimensions are the same for this purpose.
Some cowboy action shooters use what they term a "cap rake"... essentially a piece of rod inserted in the top of the hammer slot near the recoil shield, then deepen the safety pin slot in the hammer to clear the rake, which prevents the fired cap access to the gun's internals.
Probably way more information than anyone needs...
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