Neglected but still worked perfectly!

[Homesteader]

Hey gang!

I've got a travel trailer that I keep on land I own. It's very nice, but only heated or air conditioned when I use a generator. I haven't done that much, if at all, over more than a year. That means it's a lot like a car: hot in the day, cold at night, etc.

Anyway, I was up there today running some smoke through my Walker, and wound up rummaging around looking for something else when I stumbled across a Pietta Remington NA Sheriff's revolver that I got in a trade. I'd loaded it and forgot about it, and it's been in this non-climate controlled trailer since then! (I know. Irresponsible of me. Still...)

It looked good, so I decided to pop off the caps before driving out the balls and cleaning it up. Every single round went off perfectly, and even made a pretty good pattern at 25 yards! I mean as perfectly as if I'd just loaded it.

And this is after a year of hot South Carolina summer days, cold winter nights, extreme expansion & contraction, etc. It still performed flawlessly! I ran another couple of cylinders just for fun. (And fun it was!)

So... I sure don't plan to (intentionally) keep 'em this way or anything, but I was definitely impressed. Makes me wonder about Wild Bill's penchant for reloading each morning, and why other C & B revolvers failed to go off. It's never happened to me.

So what do y'all think? I'm interested in your opinions.

Thanks!

 

[Don]

Not surprised your revolver worked fine. I've left mine loaded for 2 or 3 months and never had anything but a slight hangfire. However, I loaded one with wads and the lube degraded the powder a bit. It still went bang but velocity was way down. I shot it over a my chronigraph out of curiocity.

Don

 

[rabjr]

Good to see you around Homesteader. :thumbsup:

You use up that patch lube yet??

 

[Homesteader]

Man, I LOVE that stuff! Still have a little bit left, 'cause I just use it with my flinters. Best stuff I've ever used, and I mean that.
:hatsoff:

BTW, it's really good to be back. I've missed my online charcoal burnin' pals more than y'all would believe.

 

[rabjr]

I'll see what I can do. :wink: :thumbsup:

 

[jaxenro]

Wild Bill's life depended on his revolver going bang every time, yours didn't.

If your life had depended on it would you have emptied the revolver and reloaded it or gone with it as it was?

I think he was just being careful

 

[CrackStock]

I would think that gunfighters of that day had 3 interests.

One was taking a reasonable measure to ensure that their load would work flawlessly each time. Daily testing taught them about what works and what does not.

The second was that they got daily marksmanship practice.

The third is that everyone within the sound of these daily shots knew that these men were serious shooters. Those within sight could see the evidence as well. Such unspoken communication has great value too.

CS