Gunsmithing a '58 Remington

[dlbarr]

I have Pietta that I got on gunbroker at a real good price. It's just a shootin iron to me and I thought maybe I'd learn a little C&B revolver gunsmithing on it. So far, all I've done is tear it down and I draw filed the barrel and frame to get rid of the factory markings. I plan on cutting a dovetail for a new front sight as the original sight system shoots too far left, at least for me. Some other things too, but here's what I want to know - has anybody ever cut the forcing cone on one of these barrels to an 11 degree angle? I hear & read stuff about that improving accuracy significantly and wondering if it's worth my while to do it(?)

I know the answer is: "well, it depends..." but what I'm looking for is what's the tool cost that you do this with? And where do you get such a thing? Anybody know or heard of this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Jim Watson]

Brownells sells forcing cone cutters.

Whether an 11 deg cone will help a ball over black, I can't guess.

 

[maillemaker]

I also bought a Pietta 1858 from Cabela's.

Mine also shoots to the left about 3". I'm waiting on my gunsmith to get his mill back in operation to install a dovetail front sight.

Mine shoots a ragged hole at 25 yards, so I'm happy with its grouping.

I filed down the sear stop as it had a very long trigger creep before release.

This is off a bench, using 20 grains 3F Shuetzen (which I think is dirty burning powder, by the way) and Cream of Wheat filler. 25 Yards.

Steve

 

[dlbarr]

That's certainly good shooting there. That tall front sight needs to be trimmed abit, doesn't it? That's what I did with mine anyway...

 

[maillemaker]

Yup, but I'm not going to bother since I'm going to replace the sight with a dovetail one.

Steve

 

[dlbarr]

BTW, have you decided what sight you're going to use? I am in the same process right now but haven't made the selection. Looked at a bunch of choices at track of the Wolf....

 

[maillemaker]

I think I bought mine from S&S firearms:

http://www.ssfirearms.com/proddetail.asp?prod=JA182

No picture on the shopping cart but you can see it when you download their PDF catalog.

Steve

 

[dlbarr]

WOW....that alot of pages of gun parts! Don't happen to know what page it's on, do you?

 

[dlbarr]

NEVER MIND.... I found it. Thx

 

[swathdiver]

Brownell's has them but they are from Dave Manson. I have to call him back to talk about this sort of thing too. Also want to ream chambers and chamfer them. It all adds to accuracy, velocity and reduced fouling if your gun is good to start with.

No point in messing around with the aformentioned if your chambers are more than .004 over groove diameter or your bore is so big you'd need a custom mold even after reaming your chambers.

 

[dlbarr]

No point in messing around with the aformentioned if your chambers are more than .004 over groove diameter or your bore is so big you'd need a custom mold even after reaming your chambers.

Yeah, I wasn't planning on messing with the chambers at all, just the forcing cone. My gun uses .454s well enough but I'm going to start using .457s simply because I'll use them for both my C&B and for reloading RB loads in 45/70 and don't want to have to cast two different RBs that are so close in size.

 

[dlbarr]

Brownell's has them but they are from Dave Manson.

Don't know of Dave Manson, myself. Have a website or contact info on him?

 

[swathdiver]

What I mean is, if your chambers are .448 and your barrel is .451 then the forcing cone mod isn't going to benefit you much because the round ball is going to be too small. Measure your groove diameter and chambers first. If you've got the typical numbers above, fix that, switch to .457s and then do the forcing cone.

Dave's website is mansonreamers.com

 

[bushmaster65]

I had my Uberti walker worked on due to lock up from narrow cylinder gap.
He also worked the forcing cone but I don't know the exact angle.
The first thing I noticed was the improvement in accuracy. Very nice shooter now.