Colt Country | Home of The Almighty Colt

Yeah.
Remington man. Indeed.

One of the benefits of doing what i do is that word gets around. What that in turn brings is that from time to time there´s those in the door that simply leaves you flabbergasted.



So. This elderly gent has owned this one for a looooong time, n see now it needed service. To be looked over. Nothing inherently wrong with it, just wanted it to be checked for further use



Yep. You guessed it, time to put the pot on again. Boiling old iron out is a SPLENDID way to keep it up to snuff!

















Thing is that many pure collectors frown upon touching the guns, at all. IMO this is pure fallacy as the materials will deteriorate no matter if used or not why picking even the nicest of them apart to at least CHECK is ALWAYS a good idea.
Let me tell ya.. i´ve taken barrels out of rifle stocks looking "da bomb" just to realize that below the stockline rust reigns you won´t believe. Just because "don´t touch it, it´s valuable!"
Yeah. Whatever... *sighs*





Uhu. My 5 liter "revolver pot". I just use regular tap water, granted.. we get really GOOD water where i live so.. for some distilled water might be the right choice.
Just keep that in mind.



















Uhu, and here we go. Boiled and carded. Due this as these guns are collector pieces these days (this one gets shot though) they are WAY better maintained than back in the day.
Due that and due the boiling and carding this gun is now ready to take on another 150yrs in this condition and as long as the owner takes care of it.. no worries.

What the progressive rifling looks like on a more or less to this day new Remington NMA?





Oh! On old rare iron.
Remind me.
I´ll put a post up on not one but TWO of the approx 700 made Allen&Wheelok Armys.

As some of you know i´m a Remington man really.
Not only that, what started out shade tree became a part time solution as far as working on old n antique guns.

But yeah. Although i personally own a plethora of old cap n ball revolvers i have to admit to being a Remington man at heart.

Now.
Sometimes fact surpass fiction, and i´d say so in this case...





Oh yeah?
Uhu, oh yeah. We get this new dude at the club right, a hunter like most of us. At this specific instance old friend Stefan is at the range airing his 1858´s. He´s got a few of them.
So this new dude walks up to try a few shots and bursts out "Hey! I´ve got one of these at home! But i believe it´s a non firing replica.

We used it to play cowboys n indians when i was a kid. Always been there.. in a drawer."

So Stefan tells him to seek me up and let me be the judge. So.. "Dan" calls me up asking if he could swing by with this old replica for me to take a look at.
Well. As a new member to the club, sure. Bring it.

..and he does. Dan.
He walks in the door with this piece and it takes me like a few secs flat to realize this is an old original. Untouched.







Dan still doesn´t understand squat, he just stands there as i ask to pick the thing apart. "Non firing replica" "It carries a plug in the barrel too".
Nah.
Not really, guns needs to be cleaned out on occasion. That´s all.

Back story here is that Dan great grand dad was a skipper and he bought this thing when visiting NY at the turn of the century approx. Brought it home, and it´s resided in a drawer at the family residence since.
Used to play cowboys n indians. 







I keep explaining while picking the thing apart, cleaning it as i go, and i guess it´s starting to dawn on Dan what we got here.

So.
I tells him that it´d be a good idea to "conserve" the thing. Ie; boil it in water, then into some sort of petroleum based fluid to finally be carded clean.
This converts any and all red rust, which is always present albeit we might not see it with the nekkid eye.. turns it into black oxide.

Dan being flabbergasted to say the least basically just nods and goes.. "Uhu.. uhu.. i´ll pick it up in a week then?"

Yeah Dan. You do that. 









So here we go gents. An original NMA that´s spent most of its life in a drawer in Torslanda/Sweden. Since basically 1900 then..









So a week passed and Dan showed up to pick his dear old family loom up and about fell over. I told him the approx worth of the piece, where he about fell over again. 

..and i´ll about guarantee you good folks one thing.
This guns days as a prop for cowboys n indians around the garden.. has most likely come to an end. Dan is a cool guy though cause.. we kind of struck a deal.
As sorts of a "thank you" for puttin him in the loop.. he brings the piece and fires it on a regular basis. As dear Mr Remington once intended.

There ya go.
Facts. Fiction. 

Back story here is that we´ve taken an old homeless man under our wings at the shop.
Lives in a trailer/caravan outside the shop, on the premises.
Well. Fredrik and regular hygiene as far as foods and so on, not to much.

So we got infested by rats. Now. Shop is kind of "downtown" so an unsurpressed 22LR gun even is simply out.. rat poison, ditto as i´ve got three small muts running around.
So. Shoot them.



Yeah. Living in Sweden on occasion has its percs! So that there is a by me modded to kingdom come FX Impact in 25cal. Yep.. sports a PARD NV-008LRF night sight...
Main fudder for it is ZAN made 41 grain hollow points that exit @ north end of 1000fps.

That said.. 
I repair, modify and restore guns right.



Thought a Lothar Walter barreled Hatsan BT-65 would be neat. 25cal too and.. yeah well, regulator yadda yadda, home brew shroud and moderator and what have you not.
Again a gun that sees ZAN 41 grainers as main fudder, and is normally actually even more powerful to the setup than the Impact of mine.
Makes VERY VERY short notice of the rats.



I´m sure someone´ll take offense, but whatever.. These critters are NOT the smallest around. The mut of mine (Diesel) is a male Lhasa of approx 30lbs.. and that rat weighed in at almost 4..
Not that i per se have anything against rats really, it´s just that they friggin destroy anything in their path. So.. hafta go...
Get this.
Just outside the front entrance of the shop and out rear by the shop compressor i´ve shot 120 of them since last october. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY! 

But yeah. Why stop there?



Coffee break at the shop. Dangerous, cause a dare was set forth. "How much performance can be wrought out of the most lowly PCP available?".
So i picked this Artemis PR-900 up for a song (Diana Stormrider and what not) in 22cal. N we huffed n puffed.. and soon enough that thing was shoving 25,4 pills downrange inxs of 1040fps. Even sports a titanium valve poppet.
Modified though doesn´t even START to describe it! 

So.
Artemis seemed cool.



Yeah. A bullpup P-15 was picked up and modded beyond belief. Yep. Here we go again.. just short of "the wall" performance wise.

Ok.
But what if fast follow up shots then?
YEAH! We need a semi!!





Kral Puncher Auto. Sure. Why not?  Sure kept the rats occupied at least, i´ll tell ya that much.



Hm. Got impressed by the AEA HP series, but them ain´t imported here.. so what if..?
Yep. A from the onset Co2 powered Artemis CP-2. Got itself a 300cc tank and we took it from there. Uhu.. again running up against "the wall".
Turned into a very rugged lightweight piece. Have to say.

So right now i´m sittin here awaiting delivery of the all new Artemis M-60 "Impact killer". We´ll see about that as it touches down..

All said i presume it was bound to happen.
The Henry, the Vetterli and what not.. repeaters i guess, but nothing like we´d consider "rifle performance" rifles.
Well.
The Kropatschek is.

This was the brainchild of Austrian artillery officer Alfred Ritter Von Kropatschek and the rifle became a mile stone in rifle development i´d say.
There´s like TONS to be had on Youtube n more so i won´t bore you to death on the generals of it.
Suffice it to say it truly broke ground. Sporting a tube mag, like the Winchesters and what not, carrying 8 in the tube, one on the lifter and in turn one in the chamber for a 10 total.
This in 8*60 Kropatschek.



The main force to use them was the Portuguese. The Kropatschek was to replace the Guedes, which it did. Where the Guedes was still "old school" single shot.
As this is a permit gun to me i looked long and hard for a NICE one, and kind of struck gold down in France.
Now.
This gun is excempt in France while under permit to me. Go figure, but that ment that i asked friends of a close by RFD handle the import to save me on that debacle.



So what we´re talking here is basically a modern day hunting "cylinder repeater". I guess part of the difference vs new stuff is that this piece was hand fitted and has had like 100yrs to be "run in".
Action of it is silk smooth. Really. It´s a cock on open, which of course means you´ll have to put a LITTLE effort into opening of the bolt but that done... daaaaaamn..











Uhu. Most of the blueing still intact, as well as the marking/approvals and what have you. History in short, and i´ve got all the intent to use this thing for our black powder nationals so go figure.



Sir Joseph Whitworth and his trio had already laid the ground and as 8mm caliber is smaller still than 45cal.. yep. Even faster twist. Rifling btw after a bit of clean, clean as a whistle. Shiny even.





What you need to keep in mind here is the era. Things evolved INSANELY fast and the Kropatschek while being an extremely important gun as far as rifle development as we see it today was dead in the water upon being put into the market.
Why?
This gun was made in 1886 and then revised at the earliest in the mid 1890´s as it carries the cutouts for a "heat shroud" on the stock that only the ones intended for colonial use did... but no matter cause what happened in 1886 made it obsolete before even hitting the market as the French launched the 8mm Lebel using "poudre B".
Smokeless.

That brings that the Kropatschek really IS the dying breath of the black powder era and black powder era guns. A relic if ever.
However...
We (as in humanity) had by now learned how to alloy steel and indeed the Kropatschek is made using nickel steel.. Due that the rifle stayed so to say and was indeed used with smokeless too! 

Yep! She runs both way! Leaded and unleaded! To add insult to injury the thing even used jacketed boolits!  (which was sure in its infancy)
This made the Kropatschek a kind of unicorn in as much that it was used by armed forces all the way into the second world war.
No.
No, that´s NOT a misprint.
These days most shoot it using smokeless i guess, i do not. However, fouling gets boring why i mainly use duplex loads.
Huh?
Yes. This is black powder and smokeless mixed. No. Not to increase performance but the thing is that the smokeless burns/carries the blackpowder fouling, making for a blackpowder gun that you do NOT have to "patch" like every 4th shot.
Bring two cases (100rds) of ammo and go at it!


Delivery of it.. as it turned out that rather "grey´d" stock carried a crao load of dings. No way even CLOSE to on par with the metal n furniture of it.
So.
Steam time. Cecilias iron and wet towels... patience.. 



..it paid off. What can i say? Now i had a rifle not only clean (oven cleaner and oxalic acid) but "semi" ding free.. looking the part.



Yes. Cleaning rod on the left side of the gun, actually locking the entire front setup up. Barrel band and all.



"8mm.. new&improved" but GET THIS!! Takes almost 80 grains of powder and see.. this is a TALL lady, which renders that the stock 250grain bullet exits at plus 1700fps using black powder! Say WUT?!? Yep. Indeed. Flat shooting here we come!





The modified colonial guns intended for smokeless powder use got fresh sights. Get this.. marked for 2200 meters, and that´s pulling the "extra ladder" like 1/3 out! Whhoooop!



With flash, so you get a notion of the plunger/follower for the tube mag.



This... this is the mag cut off. It was thought at the time that mags were the devils playground..

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REAL happy with how this turned out. Have to say.



Uhu. Flag safety as on a Mauser. Now. The Kropatschek was first implemented in 45cal for the French marine forces so go figure who borrowed what from whom.



You know. Comparing this to guns like made a mere 20yrs earlier, it´s not even on the same map. Evolution at the time, what was the bees knees one month was old news the next. Insane times, for real.





SURELY there´s not ammo to be had tho right!?
Wrong.
I make ´em using the 348Win as parent casing. Then there´s dies to be had from LEE for the 8mm Lebel which is close enough as long as you don´t bottom the die out.. and in turn "correct" dies from RCBS and CH4 both.
The cartridge uses LOADS of "bullet protrusion" alright and can carry approx 80 grains of powder going at it using drop tube and what not.

So. For those of you into it, pick one up! You can still get spares on French Naturabuy as some ppl part them out..
REAL hoot to own, shoot, use and admire and it´ll spook the living crap outta "the modern" crowd, let me tell ya. Cause this thing HAULS when asked to!

 



Uhu. My 4 screw. Photo by good friend Patric.

As many of you are aware i dominantly posted on 1858.
Several of you know me from there, and several have been at me like a ton of bricks posting on here instead.
Seeing how 1858 is gone, well here goes fellas!

Like Len and a few other members i live in Sweden over in Jurope which brings that what i deal with are old originals. Basically all of it, and what started out as a hobby has grown to something i could never have imagined.
"The shade tree smith" i guess.. Anyways. Being a rather avid BP shooter some of the guns i write on are mine, some customers.
Anyways!

Gallager.



Yeah. So just recently one of the auction houses down in Italy that i cover had this Gallager carbine up for grabs.





All good n dandy i suppose and what showed up..



..didn