just got an R&D conversion

[Will52100]

I just got in off the rig and the 51 navy I'd sent to R&D was waiting on me when I got home.

I had the barrel linned to .357, front sight and ejector and frame drilled/tapped and leaver cutout under barrel pluged.

For the money I'm tickled pink.  I haven't had a chance to try any black powder rounds yet, but did manage to put 100 rounds of smokless through it before the mosquitos tried to pack me off.  A little stoning of the hand and she's slick as can be.  I'll know more as I fine tune the sights to my prefered load, but a little informal plinking at steel target shows she's plenty acurate.

All in all a good looking and functional gun.  Now I just got to get the money together to butcher anouther cap and ball 51!

[LEE3370]

Congrats, that is exactly what I dream of when looking at my 51. Question, what was the total price of having it converted? I may need to start saving my "play money".
Lee

[Will52100]

The shop work was about 265$, the conversion cylinder and breach plate were 245$.  The nice thing about R&D is that you can get a little work done as you can afford it.  I think the next one I do will be with a 5 1/2" barrel.

[LEE3370]

$510.00? hummmmm.
Might have to start saving "play money"....
Did you send in the whole revolver or just the frame and barrel?
Thanks,
Lee

[Will52100]

I just sent the striped frame, conversion cylinder and breachplate, and barrel.  It is a good idea to check headspace also, with the conversion cylinder in I had way too much head space and since I was getting the barrel linned I had them set the linner back a little to tighten it up.  You can see it if your realy looking for it, but the linner set-back isn't that noticable.

I do need to grind a good bit off the front sight, I like the 165 grain round and it prints a foot low with the curent front sight, both black powder and smokless.  If I had it to do over again I'd probably leave the front site alone till I tried some test loads.

The minimum cost would be for the cylinder and breach plate, and you could use hollow base bullets till you can afford the barrel mods.  I oppted for the roll engraving on the cylinder so it was a little higher than a non roll engraved cylinder.  The roll engraving is fainter than on the percussion cylinders, but is legible and the cylinder is 4150 steel, so it doesn't stamp as easily as the softer percussion cylinder does.

When you add everything up it would be probably cheaper to buy conversion from the factory, but I wanted as close to "authentic" as I could get and this used to be a cap and ball.  The factory "conversions" I've seen are not quite "rite" to me if I'm making myself clear?

[unspellable]

Never occured to me before, but I'll bet BP is a heck of a lot better than smokeless for keeping blood thirsty insects at a distance!

[Will52100]

Well an update on the R&D conversion.  It's very accurate with black powder or smokless.  Only problem I've had so far was that I had to open the head space up a couple thou. The head space was too loose when I sent the gun to them and requested that the linner be a little longer to tighten it up.  A minit with a file, sand paper and a quik buff with green chrome rouge and it works great with bp or smokless.  It was binding a bit with bp loads.  One other problem croped up, the repro percussion hammer was so soft that the firing pin batter it up to the point I was starting to have missfires.  A second with the arc welder, a little fileing, a torch and some kassnit case harding compound and it's fixed.  If the hammer had been properly case hardened there would have been no problem.  The thing is it hits the firing pin directly between the cap venting cut in the hammer so it's not a 100% hammer to pin strike and the hammer get's beat up.  It did take about 400 rounds to notice a problem, and this gun has fired several thousand rounds of cap and ball, and a couple thousand rounds with a kirst konverter, so there's no telling how long a new hammer would last.