Paco Kelly's Leverguns.com

Driftwood Johnson

I read somewhere that the 44-40 round has its limitations for accuracy at about 50 yds. Can anyone comment on that? Howdy Again Whoever said that simply did not know what they were talking about. I have four rifles chambered for 44-40, an original Winchester Model 1892 manufactured in 1894, a Marli...

Driftwood Johnson

I HAVE A UBERTI '73 RIFLE IN 357MAG. IT SHOOTS GREAT AND HANDLES THE 357MAG CARTRIDGES JUST FINE. REMEMBER THIS, THOSE UBERTI '73 GUNS IN 357MAG HAVE TO PASS CIP PROOF IN EUROPE AND THAT IS A BIT HIGHER THAN OUR 357MAG PROOF PRESSURES. NOW, THIS DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE OPPORTUNITY OF LOADING THE '73 ...

Driftwood Johnson

I have a Uberti Model 1866 in .44-40. That would not have been my first choice in caliber, but I love the rifle. (The only reason .44-40 would not have been first choice is that I already have a brace of SAA's in .45 LC, and would have preferred the rifle to have the same caliber. But, .44-40 is mo...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I have an old EuroArms Remmie that I bought way back around 1975 or so. In those days EuroArms was an outfit that did not actually make anything, they sold guns made by other companies under their own name. My old EuroArms Remmie has the old Army San Paolo stamp on it, DGG inside a circle. I a...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy

44-40, hands down. I own four of them.

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy The 'half cock' position on the Italian replica Sharpses is a bit further back than on the originals. On the originals, the hammer only moved back a little bit to engage the 'half cock' or 'safety cock' position. On the Italian replicas, the postion is almost half way back. In either case, as ...

Driftwood Johnson

Please point to exactly where on the 44-40 round in my photo this 'bottleneck' is that is doing all this sealing.

Driftwood Johnson

I have measured numerous Starline .44-40 and .38-40 cases, and find them to be at least .010" thick at the neck, which compares to many makes of .45 Colt cases, especially some of the Winchester .45s I have. Try measuring some Winchester 44-40. .007 thick at the neck. I've got hundreds of them...

Driftwood Johnson

Case neck thickness plays a much smaller role in eliminating blowby than the fact the .44 WCF is a bottlenecked case. Pressure pushes against the shoulder of the case (small, but still there...) effectively sealing the chamber. The .45 Colt is straight as the road to Hell... Howdy Again I have hear...

Driftwood Johnson

Driftwood... Curious as to why you say you'd never own a rifle chambered to .45 Colt? No, they weren't "original" but then neither was the .357 or .44 mag, and they're both very popular cartridges. Just ornery I guess. I bought my first 44-40 rifle, an old Marlin Model 1894, back around 1...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy My '73 is the straight stocked 24" model in 44-40. I love the 44-40, would not own a rifle chambered for 45 Colt. That said, I would love to have a 24" deluxe model with pistol grip and checkering, also in 44-40. But I use mine for CAS, and frankly, I have been a bit hard on my '73. ...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Again

I'll see your 1926 38-40 Model 1892 and raise you with my 1894 44-40 Model 1892. One of several reasons I like 44-40.

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I prefer a Marbles Semi-Buckhorn sight on all my lever guns. I shoot a lot of Cowboy, and we have to aquire the target quickly, but pinpoint accuracy is not needed. I find that with a Full Buckhorn too much or the target is obscured by the horns of the sight. A Semi-Buckhorn does not obscure a...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I just checked my books and you are right, there were only 98 Bisley targets made in 38-40. What a fantastic old revolver, I would love to own it. By the way, what is the SN? I hope you are aware that any Colts made before 1900 should only be fired with Black Powder. Colt did not factory warra...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I have an original Marlin Model 1894, chambered for 44-40, made in 1895, that I bought as a lark back around 1975. I didn't even know what 44-40 was at the time. It is pretty banged up on the outside, there is no blue left, just a little bit of varnish on the wood, and the bore is old and pitt...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Swimming against the stream here, my vote is for 44-40. I have four of them, an original Winchester Model 1892 made in 1894, a Marlin Model 1894 made in 1895, an Uberti '73 made sometime in the 1980s, and an Uberti 1860 Henry I bought new a couple of years ago. I don't own any 38-40 guns. The ...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy One cannot have a discussion of guns hitting point of aim unless one specifies the distance. Obviously, when gravity starts to take over, the bullet begins to drop. The farther away the target is, the more time there is for the bullet to drop, so the lower it will hit. So to talk about a gun h...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy With all due respect, what is the big deal about a 'clean burning' load? I could understand it if we were talking about a finicky semi-auto, that might tend to jam if too much gunk works its way into the mechanism. But you're talking about a single shot rifle, for Pete's sake. There is no feed...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Up until recently, the only manufacturer of replicas of the Winchester Model 1866, as well as the Model 1873 and the 1860 Henry was Uberti. Cimarron, Taylors, EMF, and a few others are importers. They do not manufacture anything, they import Uberti manufactured firearms. Different importers ma...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy ALL ammo and components are hard to find now. So are a lot of types of guns. It is panic buying and hoarding. And it does not help much when somebody who already has 20,000 primers on hand decides to buy another 30,000. That's called hoarding and it means that there is less to go around for ev...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I have over two dozen S&W double action revolvers. While I own a bunch of Ruger single actions, I don't own a single Ruger double action, so that's my answer. No, there is no significance to counterbored chambers anymore, at least not for conventional cartridges, it is pretty much just cos...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Interesting discussion. I am an active Cowboy Action Shooter and the question of the strength of the '73 comes up often. A good friend of mine bought a used '73 chambered for 357 Magnum a few years ago. My friend's father in law is a gunsmith, and as he examined my friend's new rifle he discov...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Water consumption, not fuel consumption, was often the limiting factor determining how far a steam locomotive could travel. After the steam had performed the work of driving the pistons in the cylinders it was exhausted out of the smoke stack. More water needed to be continually introduced int...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy George Madis wrote The Winchester Book, which is often considered the definitive work on Winchesters. 640 pages and 1800 photos. It ain't cheap, but it is THE book. I have a copy of The Winchester Handbook, also written by Madis. About 280 pages. Not as many photos either, but still a good lit...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy The Henry rifle, the direct ancester of the Winchester, was not available in many options. You pretty much got one barrel length and that was it. Just about the only options available on the Henry were sling swivels, silver plating, gold plating, and engraving. That was it. They all had 24&quo...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy For what it's worth, I have a Marlin Model 1894 manufactured in 1895. This one is chambered for 44-40. I bought this rifle way back around 1975, and had not even heard of 44-40 back then. This old rifle has some erosion of the bore near the chamber, which is fairly common with old rifles, prob...

Driftwood Johnson

I'm not a Lever Rifle historian, so, isn't the Henry Big Boy a copy of the Henry 1860 Brass Frame Repeating Rifle? Is the reproduction correct or close to the original? If not please correct me. Howdy About the only similarity the Henry Big Boy has to the original 1860 Henry is that they both have ...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I have a Marlin Model 1894, made in 1895. It has a crescent shaped but plate, so the measurement may be slightly different than with a modern shotgun style buttplate. The length of pull on my old Marlin is 13 1/8" to the center of the crescent. This is the shortest dimension, to other poi...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy

I prefer a semi-buckhorn sight myself. I put a Marbles semi-buckhorn on my Uberti Model 1873 a number of years ago. Have always been very pleased with it. They make a very nice full buckhorn too.

http://www.marblearms.com/rearSights.html

Driftwood Johnson

And also, how can I go looking for accuracy in the load when the cartridge is burning a different amount of powder each time? Howdy Again How do you really know you are burning a different amount of powder each time? I would suspect the opposite, you are burning the same amount of powder each time,...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I used to use the hot soapy water routine with my cap & ball pistols when I was a kid in the 1960s. I used to get flash rust too, so I was never happy using plain water to clean BP residue. The water always seemed to find nooks and crannies to hide in without evaporating. Of course a singl...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Let's see. Let's go through these one by one. 1. Superior Ballistics and Unbeatable Accuracy Better than Swiss? I doubt it. 2. Noncorrosive and Low Residue Real Black Powder is nowhere near as corrosive as most shooters think 3. No Swabbing Between Shots Using good bullets with plenty of BP co...

Driftwood Johnson

Good Grief! Powder mills used to blow up regularly, and these were the guys who knew what they were doing. As a matter of fact Goex had an explosion just a few years ago. The US Cartridge Company in Lowell, Mass, near where I live, had an explosion that destroyed an entire neighborhood. My Dad worke...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Most of my 44-40 loads are full of Black Powder. You want to talk about fouling? However, in my foolish early years of reloading I used to load the cartridge with Unique. Frankly, there was always some unburnt grains of Unique left in the bore and the action too. I never worried about it too m...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I clean my '73, '92, and Henry from the muzzle with a bore protector. You can't clean any Winchester design from the breech with a straight rod, the bolt and hammer are in the way, unless you take them down. My Marlins I pop out the bolt and clean them from the chamber. The Henry and '73 only ...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I prefer the standard 'plow handle' grip on all my single action revolvers. When I first started shooting cowboy action I was using a pair of 'original model' Vaqueros chambered for 45 Colt. When I decided to change over to Black Powder I was convinced I needed the bisley grip to handle the he...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I never practice for CAS. Just don't care enough about the score. I also avoid dry firing all my guns as much as possible. Rugers plainly say in the owner's manual that they can be dry fired without snap caps. However transfer bars do occaissionally break, and if you smack them thousands of ti...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I bought a used Marlin Model 1894 CS a few years ago. As far as I can tell, this is the same gun as the currently offered 1894C. 18 1/2" round barrel, chambered for 357 Magnum/38 Special, with checkering on the wrist of the stock and the fore stock. I bought it for my wife to use in Cowbo...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Griff Thanks for posting this here. Most of the opinions over on the SASS wire are that this blow up was a result of two bullets accidentally being stuffed into a round, not a powder overcharge, and not a bullet lodged up in the bore. At least that is my opinion. We have had several discussion...

Driftwood Johnson

That makes sense. I've always wondered about what series of bizarre events could send a normal '73 one piece firing pin out the back, but the thin cross pin of the older Uberti sounds less strong than their newere design, or the original Winchester design. Howdy It's not really all that bizarre, or...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Wild Bill shot Dave Tutt through the heart at 75 yards. That has been well documented. I have read many different accounts of the shooting. None of them claim Wild Bill held his pistol with two hands, although some accounts say he rested his pistol on his left arm to steady it for the shot. No...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy I would suggest buying the manual first, then don't spend another penny on equipment until you have read the chapters on the actual reloading process. Keep an open mind on what type of equipment you want to buy, there are a lot of choices; single stage, turret, and progressive. Like many other...

Driftwood Johnson

ursavus.elemensis There are a couple of ways to hold a Henry. Most just grab the magazine with the left hand. There are a couple of problems with that. First, the follower has a tab that extends down through a slot in the underside of the magazine. You can see the tab on the underside of the frame i...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy

You did fine. Like everything else, Model 10s have been going up in the last few years. Used to be you could find them for $200 of less around here. Best I did a few years ago was $125 for one. These days $250 is a good price.

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Nate I have not been inside nearly as many guns as you have, but to me there are two entirely different components to fit and finish. The first component is the easy stuff, the cosmetics than are visible from the outside. How well does the wood fit the metal, how well polished is the metal, ar...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Nate Kiowa Jones is one of the best cowboy gunsmiths in the country. Notice he said he is not keen on bending front sights. Your front sight is silver soldered on. If it has already been bent once, the joint has already been stressed once. Try to bend it again and you will probably snap it off...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Most, but not all, serious competitors today shoot 38 Specials. Griff is right. Captain Baylor's website is a very good source of information. For a more indepth discussion on specific equipment, go over to the SASS Wire. We could argue about it for hours here. http://sassnet.com/forums/index....

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy If you still want a book, David Chicoine's Gunsmithing Guns of the Old West covers the Marlin 1894, among many, other old guns. He has another book, Antique Firearms, Assembly/Disassembly which actually has a bit more information about the 1894 and good photographs. The smithing gun is useful ...

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy Just out of curiosity is it an 'original model' Vaquero or a New Vaquero. The name will be on the frame. If it just says Vaquero it is the original model. If it says New Vaquero it is the more recent, smaller model. Judging from the shape of the hammer spur, I'm guessing it is the New Vaquero....

Driftwood Johnson

Howdy again Colt may have drastically reduced their civillian offerings, but the company is not a licensee. Colt is still doing business as Colt in West Hartford Ct. And despite what you may have heard, they still make all their parts and assemble their guns in Hartford. They moved out from under th...

Search found 157 matches

Re: Uberti Model 1866

Re: Uberti Model 1866

Re: Uberti Model 1866

Re: OT Which repo Remington ?

Re: What is your favorite Cartridge - lever gun

Re: OT Half-cock on Sharps

Re: Got an itch for a 73 Uberti-What caliber?

Re: Got an itch for a 73 Uberti-What caliber?

Re: Got an itch for a 73 Uberti-What caliber?

Re: Got an itch for a 73 Uberti-What caliber?

Re: Got an itch for a 73 Uberti-What caliber?

Re: 38-40, 44-40 or ?

Re: Best Rear Open Sight?

Re: OT--Colt Bisley 38-40 Flat Top Target

Re: original or replica ????

Re: 38-40, 44-40 or ?

Re: Shooting the SAA clones

Re: 45 Colt loading question

Re: 1866: Who is the best manufacturer/importer?

Re: WHAT !!!!!! No primers................

Re: OT Which would you choose? S&W or Ruger

Re: 73 Winchester in 357

Re: OT for Sixgun JR or railroad experts

Re: fancy Winchesters

Re: fancy Winchesters

Re: Marlin '93 Black Powder barrel loading

Re: Hate the Henry?

Re: Marlin Length of PUll - Original vs Current

Re: Buckhorn sights..

Re: .44/40 and unburnt powder problem

Re: New BP substitute - Blackhorn; anybody try it yet?

Re: New BP substitute - Blackhorn; anybody try it yet?

Re: Home made BP

Re: .44/40 and unburnt powder problem

Re: How do you clean your lever action?

Re: OT - Bisley grip or Std. SA grip ??????

Re: CAS Practice ?

Re: Opinions on the 1894C 357 Magnum

Re: Blown 1892 Winchester .38WCF