A Cocky Hammer Head:

Quote from The Firingline. com .. 

“Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.

No excuses but .. I bought this 170 year old original Colt '1849 Pocket Model' percussion revolver fully knowing it was buggered. - Among it's faults, the HAMMER was the central issue - you should be able to clearly see, that compared to a half-decent one, it's nose is beaten out of shape by banging into the rounded rear shoulder of the cylinder .. 

And an even more tricky repair job will be fixing the cocking notches where the hand pivot hole has broken through at the bottom of the hammer. - Don't go off half-cocked eh.

Two ORIGINAL 170 Year Old Colt 1849 Percussion Hammers

- One damaged by Colonialism .. The other well adjusted, multi-generational, non-binary.

I reckon 170 years is some six generations - & this old revolver looks as if the last five generations of boy-child have spent their summer days running around paddocks, whacking this gun while shouting BangBang You're Dead at the hoggets ..

A SKILLED welder is needed here ... Luckily the EAGLE ENGINEERING team who helped repair my Ruger Old Army .44 stainless steel Base Pin some eight years back are still in business near Amberley. - They are friendly, helpful and experienced metal workers ..

'bits'n'pieces'

Well - what else are you going to do?

Metal added, that's a start then .. it seems that the broken hole/cocking notch area may have been silver soldered previously - so we ground-off that area before welding. Back home, hand filing the new steel to profile made me appreciate the advantages of 3-D Printing, and CNC machining ..

Metal removed, three days spent hand-filing surplus welded steel to shape whenever I was "in the mood" was OK - but once an area was near to shape it got really nerve racking .. you DON'T want to turn a working surface into swarf  iron filings eh .. 

- OBSERVATIONS: Do Not Do This At Home. ( Peanuts may contain Peanuts)( Hot Drink may be HOT)

1/- Everytime I needed both hands at a critical point - my nose developed a demanding itch .. and 1a/-  Just two more strokes of the file should do it .. I HAVE TO PEE right now. 

2/- The smaller size the screw - the more often you'll drop it.

3/- A decent new sharp file makes SO much difference to life ..

4/- the first re-assembly truly seemed to want to function, but the hammer was slipping-off my hand-filed sear notches ... so strip it all out again and recut the notches deeper & sharper - back into the frame (with more screw dropping)

- AND IT WORKS .. truly a miracle (maybe there is hope?)

Fully Cocked 6 Inch On My Dickies-Dirt

And Yes - that is my new front sight loose at the muzzle ..

- Reality arrives -  don't get all excited here - as I've now re-assembled the other, 5 inch good untouched 1849 gun SEVEN TIMES .. and I still can't get it to work - it just wants to lock-up solid !

Life is Good,

Marty K.