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gun safes and cap and ball stories...

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nick_1

nick_1

45 Cal.
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Vermont
came home from work friday and found this.
IMG_2277.JPG

office trashed
IMG_2278.JPG

dumb losers worked on the safe for awhile with a splitting maul, hatchet and ice ax. they broke the house door open with a splitting maul. not smart enough to grab an angle grinder out of the shop. missed an 1858 that was under my pillow. did not take the TC Hawken that is on the wall. did steal one of my guitars that had my bifocals in the case...
DSCF0400.jpg
jerk left my door busted and open on the coldest day of the year... My 1858 has been loaded for perhaps 6 weeks without being fired. its been my home security pistol. I stepped out back and the first shot was really slow ignition. half second delay and a miss. I got two more shots out of the cylinder and the rest were duds. i suspect oil contaminated caps?? I use barristol but the nipples were dry when i capped them.. the barristol probably creeps? Usually this gun is pretty reliable if I empty it once a week. note I said pretty reliable. once I got the safe open I broke out my 19ll. that has not been fired in over a year. 100% reliability... Its a real bummer having my space intruded on and losing my sense of peace in my home.
 
Last edited:
nick_1 said:
came home from work friday and found this. View attachment 287342
office trashedView attachment 287343
dumb losers worked on the safe for awhile with a splitting maul, hatchet and ice ax. they broke the house door open with a splitting maul. not smart enough to grab an angle grinder out of the shop. missed an 1858 that was under my pillow. did not take the TC Hawken that is on the wall. did steal one of my guitars that had my bifocals in the case... View attachment 287344 jerk left my door busted and open on the coldest day of the year... My 1858 has been loaded for perhaps 6 weeks without being fired. its been my home security pistol. I stepped out back and the first shot was really slow ignition. half second delay and a miss. I got two more shots out of the cylinder and the rest were duds. i suspect oil contaminated caps?? I use barristol but the nipples were dry when i capped them.. the barristol probably creeps? Usually this gun is pretty reliable if I empty it once a week. note I said pretty reliable. once I got the safe open I broke out my 19ll. that has not been fired in over a year. 100% reliability... Its a real bummer having my space intruded on and losing my sense of peace in my home.
Click to expand...
#%$$!! thats a shame.a very bad feeling when u come home and see this!!! makes the nights laying in bed very uncomfortable.feel bad for you.this is hard to get over.
nick_1 said:
came home from work friday and found this. View attachment 287342
office trashedView attachment 287343
dumb losers worked on the safe for awhile with a splitting maul, hatchet and ice ax. they broke the house door open with a splitting maul. not smart enough to grab an angle grinder out of the shop. missed an 1858 that was under my pillow. did not take the TC Hawken that is on the wall. did steal one of my guitars that had my bifocals in the case... View attachment 287344 jerk left my door busted and open on the coldest day of the year... My 1858 has been loaded for perhaps 6 weeks without being fired. its been my home security pistol. I stepped out back and the first shot was really slow ignition. half second delay and a miss. I got two more shots out of the cylinder and the rest were duds. i suspect oil contaminated caps?? I use barristol but the nipples were dry when i capped them.. the barristol probably creeps? Usually this gun is pretty reliable if I empty it once a week. note I said pretty reliable. once I got the safe open I broke out my 19ll. that has not been fired in over a year. 100% reliability... Its a real bummer having my space intruded on and losing my sense of peace in my home.
Click to expand...
 
nick_1 said:
They don't take fingerprints. Too busy running speed traps to invest the time and expense of training sheriffs to catch thieves..
Click to expand...
Overall I like my local law enforcement - but.................

About ten years ago thieves broke into an outbuilding and stole our four-place sled trailer after loading it up with additional expensive stuff to the tune of $10,000-$15,000 total. The law that responded did a lot of head scratching and saying "huh". At one point I showed them where the thieves had backed into one side of the door and left large broken pieces of a pickup tail light assembly. When I asked if they wanted that so they could at least tell what kind of pickup it was they literally said "eh, that's a long shot......".
 
Oh man, I’m sorry to see this. At least they didn’t get in the safe. Were the contents in the safe ok? My safes are bolted to the floor and int studs on the wall. My buddy had a safe stolen out of his garage. 48 wide, 30 deep and 84” tall. chocked full of stuff. according to the neighbor, truck and flatbed trailer backed into driveway, 3 men pried up garage door then rolled the safe on pieces of precut 3/4” pvc pipe to trailer and pushed it over on safes back onto trailer and drove off. All under 2 minutes. Never recovered a thing except the pieces of pvc all over his garage floor.
 
...And this is part of the reason to keep tools locked up as much as possible, not just so the tools themselves wont be stolen.

Glad they didnt make entry into the safe.

Regarding the gun not firing, Ive left them a couple years at a time with only a single slow-fire per cylinder, sometimes none. Once cleaned with HOT water and dried, they get loaded, no oil at all for the cylinder, with only the center pin lubed with grease. The lockwork can be oiled, but I never do the chambers or outside of the cylinder around the cones. Mine generally stay loaded. If going to load one to leave loaded thats been unloaded and oiled I think id be sure it was de-greased inside and out of the chambers and cones before loading.
 
you got lucky malmute. I have had them fire perfectly and i have had them not fire at all. best bet is to make sure you have a fresh cylinder once a week.
The sherrif was really nice but not super encouraging about catching the theif. similer head scratching... I asken him about fingerprints and he said. Oh those are really tough, have to assume that he is not trained and dosent have the kit with him... have to assume that all my scopes are off zero.. everything covered in sheet rock dust from the fireproofing. Locking does little. any door will succumb to a big enough hammer. this happened in broad daylight.. aparently its not hard to get into these gun safes with an angle grinder?
 
ps. the cylinder was not oiled I assume that oil from the actual frame and bbl somehow got on to the cylinder. or the caps sucked or whatever.... moral of the story is that modern guns are in fact more reliable... I have had perhaps 3 missfires in modern guns in my entire life... not counting range discards that I picked off the ground and tried to shoot.
 
Nick, that sucks bad. As you said, fingerprints?
I may be one of the few on here has absolutely no use for LEO boys in blue.
All I ever got from them is “call your insurance company “.
They are tax collectors and revenuers, whose job is to collect money for the city, state, feds.
Protect and Serve, give it a rest.
I hope your insurance company makes it right.
 
nick_1 said:
ps. the cylinder was not oiled I assume that oil from the actual frame and bbl somehow got on to the cylinder. or the caps sucked or whatever.... moral of the story is that modern guns are in fact more reliable... I have had perhaps 3 missfires in modern guns in my entire life... not counting range discards that I picked off the ground and tried to shoot.
Click to expand...
I gotta agree, my C&B stay unloaded, well oiled, coated. My cartridge pistols stay loaded and slightly Break-free coated in the barrel. Blueing takes care of the rest.
But you not being home makes any gun discussion mute.
 
Very sorry to see and angers us more than you can believe. We live rurally and according to Sherriff we are "on or own". Found that a combination of simple net connected security flood light cameras and battery operated radio signaled proximity alarms have worked so far. These plus internal wireless net alarm that ring our cell phones. Sounds paranoid but works. Watched some see the signs or notice the proximity alarms and turn back. Both Feit and Dakota make these and are now super cheap plus insurance co offers discounts for having them.

Back In California if they stole or damaged less than $1000 its no longer a crime. Also if less than $1000 and not a crime insurance may not help. Like sheriff said your "on your own"
 
nick_1 said:
you got lucky malmute. I have had them fire perfectly and i have had them not fire at all. best bet is to make sure you have a fresh cylinder once a week.
The sherrif was really nice but not super encouraging about catching the theif. similer head scratching... I asken him about fingerprints and he said. Oh those are really tough, have to assume that he is not trained and dosent have the kit with him... have to assume that all my scopes are off zero.. everything covered in sheet rock dust from the fireproofing. Locking does little. any door will succumb to a big enough hammer. this happened in broad daylight.. aparently its not hard to get into these gun safes with an angle grinder?
Click to expand...

It wasnt a single instance, its a general bad habit. I used to keep a 44 navy-ish pistol loaded in the side tool box of my truck and shoot it once a year, then reload and go again. It was generally fairly reliable considering it was in all temps in the truck for a year in Flagstaff. I dont recall any dramatic failures, only handful of slow fires. That was in the 1980s.

The percussion guns Ive had in the last 15 years or so have mostly been loaded all the time, I try to remember to shoot them every couple years or so, a time or two its been longer. No idea what caps are on them, Ive used whatever was available at gun shows so have a variety around.

One difference may be the extremely dry climate here. The previously mentioned 44 navy-ish gun, one time I went to fire it that year and realized I had shot it the year before and forgot to clean it. There was some minor pitting here and there but nothing very serious. I cleaned it, loaded it and carried on. I once loaned it to a lady living with a small child in a tipi for protection from dogs that had been bothering her now and then with no trepidation of it working.
 
I kept a 1851 as a house gun for a while. The technology made me worry. Caps falling off from either long storage, shuffling around or jamming when firing were always a concern, Also long term powder issues in humidity came to mind. Being a single action posed issues as well. In adding up all the plusses and minuses a 12 gauge pump and/or a modern revolver were far better choices especially for those of us getting on. Finally i find ready access to a backhoe also a great comfort.
 
vintovka said:
I kept a 1851 as a house gun for a while. The technology made me worry. Caps falling off from either long storage, shuffling around or jamming when firing were always a concern, Also long term powder issues in humidity came to mind. Being a single action posed issues as well. In adding up all the plusses and minuses a 12 gauge pump and/or a modern revolver were far better choices especially for those of us getting on. Finally i found access to a backhoe also a great comfort.
Click to expand...
 
I really feel for you friend. Nothing worse than a bunch of scumbags breaking into your home. Cops don't care and won't do their job. I'd grab a cup of coffee n cruise around the neighboring towns looking for that truck with a busted tail light. It would be my new hobby. I will bet you a paycheck they are local. Only consolation is they will be dead from a fentynal od soon enough and won't be a scourge anymore. One more thing, trade that old cap n ball up for that 1911 and get into the 21st century. Be ready when it's go time my friend.
 

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