The Hobby Gunsmith Home Page. Readers. of the Hobby Gunsmith have probably already concluded that we like cartridge. In fact, Walt Kirst of Kirst Industries has been a supporter of. Hobby Gunsmith since the beginning. At the bottom of the cover there is a knurled screw that fits in threads that are in the cover, so you can loosen the screw while gently pulling back. How To Install The Mainspring Housing Tool' title='How To Install The Mainspring Housing Tool' />It was my intention to do another. The reason Ive chosen to do this is that the. Single Action Shooting Society made a decision to change the loading rules. BARRYS GOODS FOR SALE Bridgeportstyle Millhead for Sale. Ruger SingleAction Revolver DisassemblyReassembly and Spring Replacement by Roy Seifert Click here to purchase a. Job Interview Practice Test Why Do You Want This Job Answer this job interview question to determine if you are prepared for a successful job interview. Ruger Pistols, Pistol grips, Cleaning Ruger Pistols, Disassembly of Ruger Pistols, Reassembly of Ruger Pistols, Patented Speed Strip Kit. For this. reason Ive chosen not to stop shooting percussion revolvers in cowboy. We were wondering what. Walt. Kirst himself. Walt offered me one of his new 3. Colt Navy. What made this particular conversion. It took about two seconds to accept Walts offer to convert one of my 5. Long Colt. One condition of the offer was that he wanted me. That. meant no milling machine and everything had to be done by hand using either. Another thing Walt. We certainly agreed to these conditions and he sent the. Long Colt ported conversion cylinder along with the new spring loaded. Navy revolver prior to conversion. Some people wonder why. Navy revolver into the. Ruger or another clone can be bought for only a. Navy and conversion kit. We can. think the two reasons why a person would convert a black powder firearm. Navy revolver or they want to be able to. The conversion kit does. This makes one gun become fully functional almost all in cowboy. Only percussion conversion revolvers can shoot. We started the. conversion process by taking apart the 5. Navy percussion revolver. To. disassemble this revolver, we start with a small brass punch on the right. The wedge on my Pietta Navy revolver must be completely removed to remove. This is done by depressing the retaining spring and pulling the. The gun can then be put into the half. After removing the. The arbor is the large axel the cylinder revolves around. At this. point, We removed the Kirst backing plate from the box and put it into place. Be sure the loading. If the. gate is not open, the backing plate will not move into place as the loading. The loading Port will not close. Percussion revolver with new cylinder. The loading gate will not close. With the baking plate. After assuring that everything. With the hammer still. The. headspace measured to be. The original headspace on this particular gun and had. This particular 5. Navy. revolver had been used as part of a two gun set for shooting in the. SASS. I had always used this gun with either. Hodgdons 7. 77 powder, or more recently with American Pioneer Powder. It was. my experience that a 2. American pioneer powder was about. This will be very close to the. One consideration for. Navy revolver is a. One might. think the. The 5. 1 Navy revolver has a barrel bore that is. When firing the. Long Colt bullets through the 5. Navy. revolver, it is necessary to use a hollow base bullet to maintain accuracy. We purchased a 3. Rapine bullet mold from Buffalo Arms. This mold looks like a normal. Under normal shooting conditions the pressure behind the bullet should. Navy barrel. The should maintain accuracy when shooting this gun with the. It did taking some searching to locate a supplier of. Rapine mold, but ordering online allow me to have the mold delivered. After determining. We. then removed the two screws from the top strap into the frame and then the. We then removed the mainspring screw. We then removed the three screws surrounding the trigger. We then removed the 3. All parts will now slide out through the bottom. This completes the disassembly of the firearm. The machinists dye has been marked to. Although Walt Kirst. We used machinists dye and coated the inside surface of the. After the dye dried, we put. Port open and used a scribe to. This process is. illustrated in the photos. With the loading Port. Although the frame of the revolver is color case heartened. We did not detect any resistance to the file while attempting to remove. Port.    One tip we recommend is. It can be difficult to start filing on a rounded surface while. Another precaution we take is to use duct. We placed duct tape on each side of the loading port as a. The tape also provides some protection if the. We began filing with a. Port into the recoil shield. Work. slowly and carefully and itll take a couple of hours of filing to achieve. Progress can be speeded up by using a carbide bit in a. Be very careful to maintain control. The early cutting of steel was done with. An alternative to using. We used a quarter inch dye grinder with a quarter inch carbide bit. We caution people when using powerful tools to. It is safe as long as you can still touch the frame. Be aware of how hot that frame is becoming and. Another caution we offer for anyone using a carbide cutting. We recommended a shop vacuum be set up near where. We also. strongly recommend using a face shield and safety glasses while using any. Follow the directions that come with your tools. The cut is regularly tested to prevent. Patience is very. One should often check to see how close. As we. approach the point where we might be able to load cartridges, we stop. And as we get closer. We start with a course grit and focus on. As the port approaches its final. We eventually found it was necessary to fit a the backing. It required several. After it was determined the loading port was the correct size and shape, it. The first attempt results in. We installed a small. This was. done with the plate in place and after we had a good match, the loading gate. The next step was to. Using the pan vice as a handle. We applied a small amount of unscented mineral spirits to the 4. This required about 1. The finished loading port is now sanded. We then used the small. The parts were cleaned to with gun scrubber to remove. The loading port has been buffed using. We used to a cold. Caswell plating that has been featured in previous. The Hobby Gunsmith. The Best Of Thelonious Monk there. We used a Q tip to dab the cold bluing. After letting the solution. It required several applications of cold bluing. We used a little Birchwood Casey cold bluing solution in spots to. The finished frame ready for final. With the loading port. The gun was. reassembled with all parts properly oiled and applied grease on the arbor. Final assembly was to install the barrel and all. The amazing part of this. The original Navy on the left and the. We admit to using a more powerful. Any hobbyist could complete this project. This is. an excellent project for the beginning hobby gunsmith who is limited in the. The two 5. 1 Navy revolvers. The top. Ever since I started. I have wanted to own a 5. Navy conversion. For the. Navy revolvers with one converted to cartridge. I am now the proud. Navy conversion that looks as good as any of the factory. A close up photo of the Kirst Konverter. Walt Kirst has. certainly outdone himself with this new backing plate with a fully. The Kirst Konverter and a hobby grinder quickly. Navy revolver into an. The only component still missing from the. This 5. 1 Navy revolver was one of a pair and we assure you that the. Update. 5. 1 Colt Gated Konverters are not yet available. Due to construction. All we can say is. Kirst parts will be running as soon as the new machining center is. Makers of fine Cartridge Conversion kits. Remington New Army 1. Colt Ruger Old Armywww. Kirst. Konverter.