Author Topic: Red Brass frame  (Read 1421 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Old Old Rookie

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Posts: 1
Red Brass frame
« on: July 20, 2012, 08:31:08 AM »
Greetings
     I have an 1858 new army revolver ( purchased in 1995 from Bass Pro Shops)  but is unfired to date..  It has a dark red frame which I am relatively sure is red brass,  an alloy which, from what I have read, is an alloy stronger than brass, but not as strong as steel.
   Will I/Should I have any problems with a revolver frame like this converting to a 45 colt conversion cylinder ?? - as long  as I stick to cowboy action grade ammo.?
    Thanks for your help.
 
 
   

Offline Hellgate

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Avid Poster
  • **
  • Posts: 135
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2012, 02:11:42 PM »
Even with the steel frame guns the conversion cylinder manufacturers recommend "cowboy" loads only. None of them approve of their use (conversion cylinders) in the brass framed guns. That doesn't mean it can't work but the brass frames probably can't handle the pressures of sustained/multiple thousands of rounds fired and will eventually "give" and increase the cylinder gap or stretch the frame.
Gun control=OSHA for criminals

Hellgate
SASS#3302
DGB#29
NRA Life

Offline FourBee

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1770
  • Gender: Male
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2012, 07:44:13 AM »
Red Brass?  I'm not familiar seeing a revolver like that.  Doesn't mean a whole lot though.  Try using some MAAS metal polish from ACE Hardware stores, on the brass, and see if it doesn't polish out to a bright brassy finish. Just takes a wee dab of paste to test it.   As far as changing over to a .45 cylinder, and cowboy loads, it oughta work for an Old Old Rookie as long as he can hold out.

 
All Joking aside.  Brass Frames are not very durable.  Even under normal usage, they begin to show signs of wear.  If you insist on using a coversion cylinder, buy some cowboy special brass.  They don't hold as much powder as the normal cowboy loads, and it will be easier on your brass revolver.
Enjoy your rights to keep and bear arms.

Offline Flint

  • Moderator
  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1053
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2012, 09:39:49 AM »
I doubt it's "red brass", copper would be copper color, dark brown or green verdigris, brass will patina to brown before it goes green.  Check the frame with a magnet.  Some steel castings don't take blue very well and turn deep red  I have Old Model 3-screw Rugers with that color.
Flint, SASS 976, NRA Life

Offline Ironwood

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 250
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #4 on: August 08, 2012, 04:31:50 PM »
This is my Pietta 1858 Remington Texan with a brass frame along with the holster and ball flask I made for it.  The revolver was a gift from an internet friend of mine.  I spent some time in the Navy so I just had to polish that brass. :)
 
GO GREEN--RECYCLE CONGRESS

Born in the Pineywoods of East Texas a long long time ago.

Offline FourBee

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1770
  • Gender: Male
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #5 on: August 08, 2012, 04:53:27 PM »
Nice leather Ironwood. 8)
Enjoy your rights to keep and bear arms.

Offline Winter Hawk

  • Trade Count: (47)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1947
  • Gender: Male
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2012, 05:40:38 PM »
As pointed out, the brass frames aren't going to last  very long.  I had a .44 "Reb" model which went out of time with fewer than 100 rounds through it.   :o

It looked pretty in a shadow box,  though!   ;D

I wouldn't even try a conversion.  Get a steel frame if you are going to do that.

Ironwood, I like the stitching!  How do you keep it white with black powder soot getting on it?  I  spent time on a tin can, I relate to the polishing brass!  Every time we came into port we would be shining up the turn buckles on the  lifelines....

-Kees-

USS Philip, DD498; Aug. 1963 - Nov. 1965
"All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse and a good wife." - D. Boone

Offline Ironwood

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 250
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2012, 03:00:24 AM »
The Pietta Instruction manual that came with my .44 caliber revolver suggest FFFG black power at 12 grains as a minimum and a max of 15 grains.  A 200 grain bullet failed to go completely through a piece of cardboard at 25 yards with the 15 grain load. :(

Thank you FourBee.  WinterHawk I had made the holster just a short time before I took the photo. :)


G.A.H.

USS Price DER332;  Jul. 1957 - Dec. 1959
GO GREEN--RECYCLE CONGRESS

Born in the Pineywoods of East Texas a long long time ago.

Offline Gatofeo

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 448
  • Gender: Male
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2012, 07:23:56 AM »
The factory instructions for cap and ball revolvers have long suggested loads that are so weak that you run the risk of getting a projectile stuck in the barrel.
Don't know why they haven't corrected this. I guess the factories don't care about their written instructions.
Anyway, with a .454 ball and Wonder Wad, I'd suggest 20 grains of FFFG black powder or the equivalent volume of Pyrodex P. That is to say, whatever measure throws 20 grains of FFFG may also be used for Pyrodex P.
Hodgdon does not recommend the use of its 777 in brass-framed revolvers, by the way. Anyone tells you they use it in their brass-framed revolver, ask them what ballistics lab they obtained pressures from. It's difficult to get a handle on what kind of pressures you're getting in a cap and ball revolver, since there is no case to measure.
About the only pressure indicators are velocity and another indicator that manifests after you've already entered dangerous pressures: caps disintegrating and the hammer being thrown back from high-pressure gas spurting back through the nipple.
If this happens, you're already well into dangerous pressure -- the kind that can burst chambers and barrels, and stretch frames, especially brass frames.
But as long as you use black powder or Pyrodex P, you won't be able to create dangerous pressures. You can create pressures that are injurious to a brass-framed gun with black powder or Pyrodex P, so don't load your revolver to the gills.
For the 200 grain bullet in a brass frame, I'd suggest you try 18-20 grains of FFFG or the equivalent Pyrodex P. I use 26 grains of FFFG in my steel-framed Remington under the 200 gr. Lee conical bullet, but it's a much stronger gun. I wouldn't go higher than 20 grains.
I'm not so sure that using conicals in a brass-framed revolver is a good idea. Conicals being heavier will create higher pressures, powder charges being equal to those used with balls. You may reach a point early on, in which you enter an injurious pressure level just to get the conical bullet out of the bore.
Balls, being lighter and having a thinner bearing band for the rifling to grip, create less pressure than conicals.
Try 18 grains of FFFG or equivalent with your 200 gr. bullet at first, then increase incrementally to 20 grains. Strive for consistent seating pressure on the bullet; firm against the powder, leaving no space between bullet and powder, but not hard. Seating hard can damage the powder kernels, affecting burn rate, and damage the soft lead bullet.
The most accurate loads in cap and ball revolvers are almost never those that are at or near maximum. Mild to mid-level loads almost always are the most accurate, because they place less strain on the projectile.
"A hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .44."

Offline Gatofeo

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 448
  • Gender: Male
Re: Red Brass frame
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2012, 07:37:48 AM »
Regarding the brass frame:
Considering that you purchased that revolver in 1995, 17 years ago, I suspect that the preservatives applied to it at the factory have reacted with the brass and produced that color. Or the preservative may be in a thin layer on the brass, and you're looking through it.
I recall seeing a like-new bolt-action service rifle -- Austrian, I think -- at a gun show years ago that had been covered in some kind of light grease decades before, for storage. It struck my eye because the buttplate was brass (I thought that armies had forsaken brass years before!) and that brass buttplate looked brownish/red because of the paper-thin layer of preservative on it.
Flint's explanation is plausible too: the metallurgy itself is at fault, producing a reddish hue when blued. The 1964 to early 1970s Winchester Model 94 rifles had baked-on black finishes, as I recall. When this was removed and they were reblued, the typically result was a purple receiver. Read this years ago in the classic gunsmithing book, "Gunsmith Kinks."
It may be that your brass frame was exposed to bluing by mistake, resulting in an odd color. Stranger things have happened in factories of all types through the ages -- especially on Mondays.   ;)
"A hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .44."