Young Man Afraid Of His Horses

Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
From Wikipedia...

Young-Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horses [Tȟašúŋke Kȟokípȟapi] (1836 – July 13, 1893), also translated as His-Horses-Are-Afraid and They-Fear-Even-His-Horses, was a chief of the Oglala Sioux. Commonly misinterpreted, his name means They fear his horse or His horse is feared, meaning that the bearer of the name was so feared in battle that even the sight of his horse would inspire fear. He is known for his participation in Red Cloud's War, as a negotiator for the Sioux Nation after the Wounded Knee Massacre, and for serving on delegations to Washington, D.C.

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Well, that's it. Got nothing else to show. Guess we'll all hav'ta wait. Goin Huntin....see ya!
 

Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Old ugly crappy aluminum off....new pretty stronger steel on. Done for this evening.....been workin up a shottie too.....and makin a brush blind and putting out corn and ...

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Ah, The 1860 Army Grip. Longer than the SAA grip (which was as memory serves the 1851 Navy Grip) and longer than the XR3/XR3Red ruger grip. A three finger grip. Long and slim like the Bisley but rolls proper for thumbing back the tall OM hammer. Sweet.

Last time I fitted and 1860 Army Grip it was to a NM Blackhawk. This one will be fitted to an OM Blackhawk. Some differences for the trigger return spring and no hole to drill for the cylinder lock plunger. Should be easier.

As shown in the photo, the Ruger Super Blackhawk grip panel is very close, so close I may not select it and go instead with the VA Dragoon grip panels which are long and large enough to allow fitting to the 1860 Army Grip Frame. Will have to install the frame first and set up the main spring so I can determine if the grip screw falls in the right spot to clear the main spring. Should work, I hope. We'll see.

Big thanks to Lasttombstone for the partial disassembly of his lovely VA Dragoon and mailing the tracings of the grip panels.

I believe, once things are set up and tracings compared again, I'll select the Rich Mercer Wagon Wheels with Arrow carving for the grips but the Rattler in Thorn Bush is another contender....finally, the Pinwheel Flower Carving is also very nice. We shall see....later.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Time to rough fit the front sight.

Cut off old ugly, the front blade but leave the base intact.

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Carefully file down the front base, breaking the edges, until I uncover the original solder hole. Nothing in there but some excess silver solder but its usually right close to center and a good place to check alignment for a screw hole that gets drilled and tapped down to the top surface of the barrel. There is usually a reinforcement pin in front or behind the solder hole that locks the base and barrel together and helps with shear stresses, strengthening the joint. So, I'll use the solder hole and leave the blind pin alone so the joint stays strong as ever.

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Cut a new 11 degree target crown with a piloted hand tool. The crown is 43 years old.....its time to freshen it up, even if good, theres bound to be a touch of wear on the lands from cleaning rods.....cut it back a bit to restore all the potential accuracy at the muzzle.

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Fresh. After rebluing, I'll give it another pass or three so it'll remain a silver ring within a black ring. A nice look.

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I want to carve out a brass base to go between the ramp and the horse but that's another day. Once done, soft solder will secure the screw in front sight and the brass base to the ramp making it as sturdy as can be.

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Thanks again to Lasttombstone for the turtle shell and slate turkey call. When it ain't turkey season, its lovely to look at and makes a fitting prop for some photos.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Good initial fit of the 1860 Army Grip Frame to the Old Model Blackhawk.

Difficult to show with a camera but you get some additional grip length and the grip is forward (closer to the trigger) than the factory grip. I've found it to be much more pointable than the factory ruger grip frame.

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Backstrap fit is near perfect and only needs light fitting and modification for the coil mainspring.

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Rear holes on the trigger guard will need a touch of work. Often they are closer to perfect than this. No worries.

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Front hole never lines up. It'll get plugged and redrilled. But the width of the trigger guard to the frame is nearly perfect, just a schootch wider than the frame to allow fitting.

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Over view with and without the coil mainspring.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
It doesn't look like much was done but on initial fit only 3 of 6 grip frame screws aligned between the Old Army Grip and the Old Model Frame. Now 5 of 6 grip frame screws are perfectly aligned and hold the two frames together even and tight.

Look carefully at the first photo in this post and you'll note the top ears of the backstrap are a near perfect alignment with the tail of the ruger frame. This is not always the case.

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Here's the work. The interference for the trigger guard screws was at the slot for the trigger. Guard slot rubbed trigger. Relieving the side of the slot so the trigger could move freely aligned the two rear trigger guard screws with the holes in the frame. In addition, the heads of the rear ruger trigger guard screws were slightly reduced in diameter to fit freely in the pilot holes of the trigger guard. Sufficient head diameter was retained for the screw heads to clamp the trigger guard to the frame.

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The upper back strap screws were a perfect fit, backstrap to frame. But the lower backstrap screw needed a deeper seat to place most of the screw head below the flush level of the bottom of the back strap. Here its finished to proper depth.

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The pilot holes for the rear trigger guard screws are drilled much deeper than the ruger grip frame. To reuse the Ruger trigger guard screws, a slight counterbore was made in each screw hole in the bottom of the frame. This allows the unthreaded portion of the guard screws to enter the frame and thus tightly clamp the rear of the trigger guard to the frame.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Revolver grip frames for the 1860 Army Open Top Percussion Revolver are available from a variety of sources. On Dads New Model I used Pietta parts from my first revolver and mated them to my first cartridge revolver for him. I picked up about 3/16" in length and moved the grip about 3/16" closer to the trigger. None are exactly the same in size and shape due to much hand fitting to the individual revolver, but what can be counted on is a bit more length, more forward grip and a thinner profile.

This grip frame came from S&S up in New York. A very old company. The frame is used but the price was less than half the cost of (currently out of stock parts) from Cimmaron (which incidentally are good quality parts) and I don't know what brand this one came from. But, pieta, uberti, Cimmaron, Taylors, all have what is needed in brass and steel and some even engraved steel for a fancy look.

So. Some photos with the ruger XR3-RED grip panels in place to show the advantages. It may not seem like much but handle firearms long enough and you gain an appreciation for even subtle changes making marked improvements.

With this particular grip frame I'll pick up about 1/8" in length top to bottom, enough for a solid 3 finger hold and move the grip 3/16" closer to the trigger. The undercut between guard and grip is shaped differently but does not bash the middle finger like the Ruger Super Blackhawk square guard frames.

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Here on the backstrap, the overall position of the grip frame is also forward of the XR3-Red frame by a significant margin.

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The final factor in comfort and pointability of this grip frame is its overall thickness. The 1860 Army Backstrap is thinner than the XR3-RED and depending on your finishing thickness for the grip panels can make a marked improvement for the ability of all fingers to wrap around improving grip (for that barrel parallel to the arm bone pointability) and index finger positioning on the trigger.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
The spring way in the trigger guard for the colt style flat spring has to be filled for a coil spring and plunger to activate the trigger. Easily done, acid flux to clean the metal, a bit of grease flux on all the parts then and a small scrap of steel key stock is soldered into place with lead free silver bearing solder.

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A simple jig (Thanks to Tincanbandit for the demo on how ruger drills the trigger spring and plunger hole) is made up to allow drilling the trigger spring and plunger hole. Depth of the factory hole is .680" which will break out the back of the 1860 Army trigger guard. No worries, the back end can be pinned to capture the spring and I intend to make a tapered front pin and possibly cut a new coil spring to length anyway. I can adjust the length of the parts for good function even in a shorter hole. For now, I'll drill through and out the back.

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The factory spring and plunger installed in the modified trigger guard. Note, the angle of the drilled hole. It centers in the trigger slot and angles the plunger to the side of the pistol frame that the trigger is offset towards. (The OM Trigger, like the Colt, is not centered in the frame.) The plunger face then lands in the center of the back of the trigger and acts on it without slipping off either side.

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Installed and initial function checks, cycling the hammer back and forth to move the trigger through its arc.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Broke the threaded spud off the horse sight. 8x32 was too fine. Redrilled to a #12 pilot hole and will solder the back up horse sight onto the ramp....well, that's the plan.

Meantime....

A threaded hole was placed behind the trigger plunger hole. A 6x48 run in tight, staked and the head cut off flush. Spring is now secure against coming out the back. Also made up a new larger diameter trigger plunger to eliminate some of the wobble the factory part has. Put it all in and it works lickety split spanky right.

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Every part needs fitting to work and look best, doesn't matter if its a Ruger Factory part or the Story ERH below. Fortunatly, its large and easy enough to mate to the EHR loop on the frame. A few minutes draw filing to keep the top line straight and then some boot strap with 120 paper to smooth it up. Left it a whisker large for now. It'll polish into place later.

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The Story EHR is a touch too long. Its face should fall at or behind the line of the radius edge of the muzzle.

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Simply plugged in my hand powered piloted muzzle squaring and crowning tools to shorten it the right amount and crowned it 11 degrees for a nice look. I also broke the outer edge of the EHR with a hand file to eliminate the razor edge that scrapes up hands and the inside of holsters. (Not an ugly half fugly melt, just a broken edge by a kiss of a fine swiss pattern file)

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
A new in box/unfired 9mm Ruger Blackhawk OM cylinder was acquired. Its lovely. And its over size to allow for proper fitting. Yes, it has the large throats and it won't cut clover leaves at 50 yards. But, with the price and availability of ammo, 9mm being more available and often less expensive than even 22 lr....it will provide hours of full power practice on steel to 25 yards, tin cans, paper targets, golf balls, orange polymer rolly on the groundie thingies....etc. And....I suspect we'll post a 15 yard target later with factory and handloaded 9mm ammo that shows pretty significantly good grouping with no key holes.

Later I'll check all the headspace, but after tonights install, timing is perfect and all cylinders clear a range rod in the bore.

To it then.

The New Old Stock cylinder. Its pristine. It'll stay that way. No need for bluing. Just a good cleaning, fit checks and then get it dirty on the range.

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Buy a good tool once, this one over 25 years ago for facing muzzles square and find millions of jobs for it around the shop from making gauges to sort 22 LR by rim thickness to facing muzzles to facing Ejector rod housings to facing off Blackhawk cylinders for a purrfact fit. If I only has $1 for each time I used it with purrfact success.....

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Here the cylinder after a few dozen turns with very light pressure....a tight thumb push fit into place that is very stiff to rotate.

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Taking off another .001" (about 4 to 6 turns with my light pressure) and it slides into place, almost zero endshake (probably less than half of the endshake of the tight original 357 mag cylinder). I'll get all the headspace measurements later. This gun has a generous barrel cylinder gap with the original cylinder and the new 9mm cylinder seems about the same. No reason to change the BC gap if it shoots well and I suspect it will, its been generous since about 1973 on this specimen. BC gaps are bragged about a lot but in the long run, most folks don't care cause they don't know they might pick up a dozen foot seconds with a super small gap. Any way, both cylinders fit well, line up with the bore and spin like loonie birds on hot snot bearings with out any wobble or clatter.

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Finally, to the rear sight. OM rear sight blades are all black and itty bitty. This one is missing its return spring and was loctighted into place all the way left to prevent loss. Lets fix it.

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I file the lower tab off a white outline NM rear sight blade, transfer the spring (using a wee bitty screw driver to compress the spring for the blade installation), replace the screw and center it up. Neat-O....A touch taller for findin it fast and a bit of white line for a crisp outline. Should work great and the left right adjustability has been restored.

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That's it. I'm off for the hunt. Packing this week. Dad is on his way. Sis is on her way. Pal from CA is on his way. We are headin to the much flooded swamps and slews south east of Raleigh along the Neuse River (hope the water is down just a bit so we can get all the way into Sherwood Forest!) with visions of buck, doe, boar, bobcat and coyote in our heads. See ya in a week or two.
 

nchunt101

Ten Pointer
Nice work. Please post if y'all see any hogs. I don't want them up here but would love to shoot a small one for the cooker.
 

Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Hardest part about packing for a hunt is predicting what Dad and Sis won't bring. We're old school and orange ain't usually high on the priority list but I packed extra. Also a box of ammo for all the selected rifles, just in case. Don't need another year of trying to hunt with Sis's 3030 and a pocket full of 22-250 shells.

I needed one more project with the hands to clear the head. So, on with the front sight.

Brass, tinned with soft solder. Hole in the ramp tinned and packed with wax based flux. Hole in the bottom of the ramp allows me to flow solder from upper right to lower left, when the window gets some solder in it, I know the spud is surrounded and soldered in to stay. I'll fill that little hole later.

For now, some cold blue tells me I've cleaned off the excess solder from where I don't want it to be since cold blue blackens steel and brass but not solder.

On and secure and next weekend I can get back to finishing conversion of the flat mainspring grip frame to the coil spring action and get some grips on it so it can go to the range for some shooting before the final finishing.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Back half of the ramp is a bit long and plain. I started to rib it. 16 lines per inch. An expensive checkering file is not needed. A simple bolt threading file works fine to start the grooves and nearly finish them. The final touches come later, pointing up the tops of the ramps and the bottom of the grooves with a simple triangle file. Enough for now. Much more draw filing to do on the barrel to remove some or all of the pits and there's still that pesky grip frame conversion....

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Grip frame almost completed. Fit is wonderful.....function is perfect with a good clean break at 4 lbs not having touched any of the internal parts. Just a touch of take up before the break. Last item on the grip frame is to plug the trigger guard front screw hole and redrill it to match position of the front screw hole in the ruger frame. Other option is to plug the ruger frame and redrill and tap to match the grip frame hole pattern out front.

The frame in place and an insert to convert it from flat mainspring to coil mainspring. A bit of metal removed from the tang of the trigger guard and a new L bracket made up and screwed into place to retain the coil mainspring.

Here, hammer forward and back....fine function.

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The clearances to be refined for better fit but here at 90%, good fit and function with hammer forward and back.

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Hammer forward and back, a small notch in the underside of the backstrap clearances the mainspring strut.

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And here, hammer forward and back, a groove in the underside of the trigger guard clearances the mainspring as it travels up and down through compression and release.

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Blackwater

Twelve Pointer
Sharps, the old boy from the TV show Have Gun Will Travel named Paladin would be proud to have a sight like that.
 
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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Just playing with grips tonight. May still use the Mercers, or try to use them.....I havn't decided. For now, checking size, and the VA Dragoon grip panels for the mercer grips might be just large enough to pare down to a fit on the 1860 army grip frame.

The 1860 Army template over the VA Dragoon tracings. A good bit of fitting would be needed. But no more than fitting up that last pare of horrible bear paw grips in amboynia burl. In any event, I can leave the grips a touch long over the bottom of the frame as needed for even more length for big hands. I'll play with the burl walnut for a bit though too.

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Here, the tracing shows the closest Ruger factory grip panel fit is the Super Blackhawk and even it is not enough. There is enough on the back strap to fit but the 1860 army grip is closer to the trigger and about 3/16 or more of the triggerguard bow is left uncovered by the super Blackhawk panels.

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So....off to the burl....too thin at 1/4" but if I get really industrious, I might back them in bloodwood. Very stable, gives a red brown line and much stronger/stiffer than the crispy grained burl wood, so, a possibility of a neat look and reinforcement.

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I cut out 8 grip panels. One broke on the twisted grain, these are the panels I picked out as potential grip panels for this or another revolver with an 1860 grip frame. They are a bit muddy here with one coat of urethane rubbed in to see how the patterns look. They'll clarify with finish and sanding and polishing.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Went ahead and ordered the Rich Mercer Wagon grip panels for the VA Dragoon. If these are long enough and can be made to fit well, I'm wondering if I'll be able to extend that Longer Colt 1860 grip just a bit more for meatier hands.....time will tell.
 

Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
The fit is pretty good. The VA Dragoon grip panels are big and long enough to fit up. Even some extra to extend the length of the grip a touch more. Mainspring and grip screw lay very close together. Playing with that for now in the fitting, but as installed, function is perfect.

Got a bit happy with the right panel and removed the forward edge first and went to far....so...not sure if I've ruined it or if I can fix it with a black, brass or wood line between grip and frame. May have to buy a new panel. But for now, I think I'll finish up fitting.....after deer season.

Busted a doe walking to my shop.....gotta get her....she vexes me.....busts me out regular.....then after the season, I can sit down and focus on my projects!

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
While I await my 1500 deer stand appointment......and now that Pixie is free of intake manifold coolant leaks......a bit of work on fitting the Rich Mercer Wagon Wheel grips. As indicated, these are large for the 1860 Army Grip Frame as they are cast of urethane for the VA Dragoon.

Made of a softish urethane (which is sposed to yellow like ivory, who knows) I decided it was necessary to move them up and forward by about 1/8" in each direction to get coverage on the trigger guard and the back strap.

Being for the larger VA Dragoon revolver, I'll also extend the blackstrap down as discussed for a much longer grip....good for larger diameter fingers/bigger hands. It'll remain slim and closer to the trigger than the Ruger grip frame but even longer than the extra length the 1860 Colt Army grip provides over the original Ruger grip.

With the movement up and forward, it'll be necessary to relocate the grip screw bushings about 1/2 screw diameter further back, so I'll fill the original bushing holes with black tinted epoxy and redrill/counterbore later.

Fitting up and forward, pretty simple but tedious. Prussian blue, find the high spots, knock them off, fit, file, try until the panels are about where I want them.

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Once both are about right, some wax to prevent epoxy mess on the outside of the grip, some tape to mark off the edges and fill the bushing holes with black tinted epoxy. Later, I'll slightly relocate the brass bushings for the grip screw, giving the mainspring clearance from the screw.

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Since the tinted epoxy will take more than a day in these cooler temps to kick over, time to do a bit of draw filing on the barrel and remove most of the pits on the left and right side. Not all the pits will come out without dishing the barrel too much for a good look but the majority come out and it'll look good with a rust blue finish over a 120g polish.

Here above the ejector rod housing, a very visible area.

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And here, immediately above the Ruger Lettering, another visible area. Can't really go much more and stay off the lettering. But 90% of the pitting is gone.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Sat in the back yard last night and put old Ingwe on a Buck 4 times in an hour. Just wasn't comfortable with the shot in the thick, so he walked, for now.

But tonight, home late from work so played grip fitting instead.

Drilled the backstrap at the butt for a cross pin to keep the grips from rotating and moved the grip screw bushings slightly aft. I'll have some more clean up to do in the crescents where they used to sit but the grips are on and secure.

Still a bit large and here in the first photo, the flash washes out the slight yellow color these have. Not bad for first fitting. So far, I'm happy enough with them to keep going.

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And on the off side, after a good scrubbing with hoppes 9 to clean them up I grunged up the panel with a very dirty soft plastic glock cleaning brush. Not a bad look as shown below....but then cleaned it off and went over the panel with wet coffee grounds. I like the effect with coffee a bit better. Perhaps after fitting and shaping I'll burry them in wet grounds for a day or so and see what happens.....photos of that when and if it happens. For now, without flash, the dirty glock brushed side....the carving shows a bit better with some dirt.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Working the grip panels this morning. Reaching the 90% level with fitting. The urethane carves well with a sharp chisel removing the bulk of the excess in fine curls. Followed by shaping with files, 120g paper and then a buffing with 0000 steel wool and spit on 400g wet dry paper. I'll stop the shaping here for now as a 1/2" bar of brass is inbound for the extension work on the bottom of the back strap.

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Here, the grip is left slightly proud of the back strap and trigger guard all the way around.

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Note, with a hand on, the longer than ruger factory 1860 Colt Army grip provides just sufficient extra purchase for the little finger of the average size hand. Part of what makes this a much better grip for control in my opinion. All three fingers of the hand are in use on the grip and the little finger is not riding under the trigger guard in recoil. With an extension to fill the extra length provided by the VA Dragoon grip panels, the grip is about 1/4" to 3/8" longer than even the longish 1860 Colt Army grip frame. Even large hands will fit a three finger hold without the small finger sliding under the trigger guard. With the panels in place and semi fitted, the feeling of the grip is fuller than either the Ruger or Colt Army but since its all closer to the trigger, even my average size hand has a proper pad of the trigger finger bend/and contact with the trigger. As for alignment, the grip easily finds center in my palm with the barrel parallel to my arm bones. i.e. It points where I point. In any event, even a set of home made wood/stag/horn/other panel grips can be easily cut to extend beyond the base of the trigger guard for better purchase.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Starting to flatten the base of the backstrap for its extension to fill the gap between the grip panels.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Tips for soldering. Approach soldering heat slow with the lowest flame that gets the entire part hot. Tin first with good flux, flux again, clamp and heat flowing extra solder into the joint if needed. Don't use high temp solder where low temp is perfectly strong. This part will use low temp solder....I'll defy anyone to break the brass bar off the base of the backstrap without heat that melts the solder joint, i.e. plenty strong. Finally, use the least solder that will coat the entire joint, less solder is stronger than more.

So....1/2" brass bar arrived. I cut it to length, drilled the counterbore for the backstrap screw, flattened the mating surfaces and tinned them both with solder. Clamped, aligned the counter bore with a spud that was removed as soon as the clamps were tight, heated it till the solder flowed and then let it cool.

Removed the clamps and ruff shaped the extension to fill the gap between the VA Dragoon grip panels. I'm pleased. The brass will be final fitted with the grips next and after final polishing, antiqued so it don't have a sportin house look to it.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Been working out the grips. Coffee, dirt and finally some redbrown gunstock colored stain....then a coat or two of shellac to seal the color in place.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Building up and nocking back several layers of Superglu gel on the ivory surfaces. It'll add a bit of texture (as gel does not flow out smooth, buffing later will smooth it up...for now I steel wool between coats and sand the excess glue off my fingers for each pass) and seal the surface a bit better against dirt.

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Sharps40

Old Mossy Horns
Two piece grip panels can always use some internal support....especially when they are wide and/or some really fancy wood that breaks easily. Here a piece of walnut is clamped into place with some super glue. Plenty strong. No need for a pin or screw.

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About a minute in the clamp is all that's needed. The block is a few thou smaller than the inside measurement of the back strap. The grips will pull into it without breaking or tearing out the screw/washers. But, should keep one from over tightening the grip screw.

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Meantime, scrap cast brass is rounded up, filed to the desired thickness, just over 1/8" and a proper hole is drilled.

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After tinning the brass and grinding back a new shoulder on the ejector rod housing, it also being tinned, its all clamped up in a giant clamp and heated till the solder flows.

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After some work with dremel drum, files, etc, and finding out the loop on the frame is back cut on this one, so some tedous fitting was needed.....there is a new brass wedding band on the ejector rod housing. Brass front, middle and rear now. I think it'll be enough brass.....maybe....

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With a touch of cold blue to see how it'll look later.

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