There Will Be Brass. And copper line. No guages, but...I'm seriously considering other "Steam-esque" cosmetic upgrades. I mean hell, if I'm most of the way there already...screw it, right?
I'd like to get some engraving done on the sight body...on one side, "Krakatoa", the other "Breakalegga"...
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One trick will be to get the upper half of the loading gate open only after the "eject position" chamber has an empty in it. I think there's a way to do that automagically - by carving slots into the upper loading gate so that as the cylinder cycles twice, the shells themselves will push the upper loading gate first halfway then all the way open. It'll make the cocking stroke stiffer on the first two but that should be OK - I've already got the lower-slung SBH hammer on there and I tend to grip it very well with my strong-side thumb.
Here's why it matters:
Start with the gun in carry position: fully loaded, hammer down, both halves of the loading gate all the way closed. Cock it, and a live round is moved from the behind-the-barrel position to the "eject position". This is round six in the firing order. We don't want it ejecting yet - but we can allow the upper half of the loading gate to come open halfway, pushed by that first rotation for the first cocking. We fire round one. The upper half of the loading gate is still closed enough that it holds round six in. Good. We cock it again. The upper half of the loading gate gets another, second "shove" - and now it pops out all the way. Good. Round six is now safely in the gun, held by the LOWER loading gate half (original to the gun and still closed). With the upper half of the loading gate open, great, each empty in that spot when the gun fires gets auto-ejected via a gas tap copper line off the compensator chamber at the muzzle.
When the gun is dry, one option is to just dry-fire it putting the last empty behind the eject location and use the manual ejector to kick it out. Then throw open the LOWER loading gate, free the cylinder for rotation, grab a tube and fill 'er up. Close both halves of the loading gate, ready to go.
Key thing here, I'll have to make sure there's no "high spot" on the front of the upper loading gate...otherwise I'm liable to tap the primer on live round number six and set it off out of battery, trashing the frame. Whoops. There'll be some damned careful clearance checks there.
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I'm gathering parts now. I've taken careful measurements, performed a true free-spin mod (altered the pawl) and otherwise started the prepwork.
Heh. Yeah, this is either gonna be really cool or really stupid, damned if I know which yet
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