Slicking Up The Winchester 1873 - Cowboy Action Guns

you guys made me see a here and today I got a treat for you look at this it's the 1873 Winchester that's a replica of course whoo birdie replica but look at that beautiful is she beautiful thanks for our buddy James Brolin came down here from the club but you guys might get a kick out of seeing this oh yeah want us to give him a hand slicking it up so I thought we'd do a video on it show you guys how to do it the way we do it at least fun gun gun - one - West and its high quality whoo birdie can't beat that let's get into it we've got a lot of stuff to cover first thing we're going to do is of course I already remove the stock screws make sure the weapon is unloaded I love these guns and we're going to pull the stock right off hopefully there we go stocks off so these guns are beautifully case hardened see that now the best thing about this is this bottom Tang pulls right out and oh man I'm making a mess here bottom tank pulls right out easy to work on the side plates kick off excellent what we're going to do is we're going to slick up you know about ten or fifteen different spots of this gun don't quote me on that though and what that will do is it'll increase decrease the drag on it and make it just smooth like butter hopefully so a couple guys we're also talking about how they cut a little bit off the bolt back here we're not gonna do that we're not going to cut anything we're not going to you know do any hardcore major sanding or filing or anything because these don't need it these things are works of art as they are so let's get into it first thing after taking your stock off is I want to scratch this beauty up so we got padding everywhere we're going to remove the side place I play it very simple you guys are using your hollow ground screwdrivers right there you go you don't want to Mar scratch or anything plates will come right off for the second side knock it off this is the site it's got the loading gate on there so don't get scared everything in here is very very simple to work on well what we're going to do is we're going to go through and show you what we smooth out while we replace we make our own part I'm going to make a couple of parts we're going to make one part actually the screw so uh let's get going on it first thing I do is take off your levers camming this is a toggle bolt system everyone talks about the toggle bolt you see that when this is sitting like this right and you got that's why they make these guns in the pistol calibers you don't ever want to fire anything really heavy in here because you see how that is linked up you got a lot of stress on the bolt that's being held in this pocket right here it's being held by this pin these three pins we've got three pins at holding whereas in a 92 94 you got a straight bolt right here you've got a toggle see when you open it up you see how that kind of like a hand cans down and these are great for black-powder but not so great for smokeless so keep them wide this is a third 357 caliber I never originally came in but I mean we're loading these for nothing I the guys I shoot with we really all know these you know this is strictly a cowboy action gun so light loads only please unless you want to destroy your gun and that's not what you want I've seen some of these with the pins getting bent from guys shooting 357 you know going fifteen sixteen hundred feet per second because you got the long barrel again more pressure build-up you got more power so just a fair warning for you sighs all right so let's pull these guys off here show you a quick demonstration those come off on that side equal on the other side they slide right off pins slide out now we're going to remove the lever but before that these two Springs right here we've got to loosen these Springs this the screws for these guys and these guys if this is the first time you're doing this they might be in there a little bit tight but you don't really have to do all that much I'm just going to loosen these just enough to move them out of the way we've got the pressure off of the there you go and you can see how they kind of flop around now now the lever will flop around because there's no pressure putting on there now we're going to do is we're going to remove the lever pull the lever out there you go simple simple simple so to remove the bolt now I'm going to remove the rear bottom tang over here and that's these two screws so these screws will slide out and as always always make sure you guys use hollow ground screwdrivers that way you don't worry about dinging anything up now you can pull your it's good this the pullout here well we can put the carpel before the horse here let's take out the lower tank first and this guy is yeah he's in there really good he's in there pretty tight use this to help kind of cam them out there we go oh yeah this is the tight finish and remember this is Wow it's nice now this right here these edges right here gonna be sharp as knife as knife so you I've cut myself before on them they're really sharp just be careful with it now once we got that out now we can remove the lifter get the screw out of the way get this spring out of the way here lift there slides out you can pull the bolt back and the lifter old actual lifter itself comes out so at this point we are just about done all we got to do now is remove the bolt and to remove the bolt you've got a pin slides right out see that pin slides out and you've got a little bit of a key I'll show you on this side there's a key right in here pull that key out a 2-part bolt will come out okay and then we've got to make sure we remove the top here so just now you got to watch out because there's a piece here that holds everything together this is the shell cover it's like a heating wrap now the bolt will fall out and then you've got this piece has a ball a little detent in here you push that down and you can slide this the rest of the way out just make sure it doesn't go shooting across the room see see that right there ball bearing spring all right and then you can remove your Springs let's get the right screwdriver these are the remove the springs I like to keep the screws with each one just so I know what goes where and for this video we're not going to bother taking out the four stock and tube and all the other good stuff just because we've already got this going this is gonna be a long video so we're going to try to make it a little bit shorter short as we can so that's it the gun is disassembled coming up we'll show you where we start with our smoothing so you guys know exactly how we slicked these babies up well once the gun is completely disassembled you can see over here we've done just that you want to go through and inspect most of the parts and see what's rubbing where and what's rubbing how now some of the biggest issues with guns like the with the 73 is you've got this block that goes up and down and this is what feeds the rounds from the tube and they hit this ramp right here see that ramp on the block and then it gets pushed well you see I gets pushed into the chamber as it goes up okay so you want to make sure that this ramp right here is as smooth as possible it's one of the first things we're going to do so we'll take and your best bet is to use a shell that's already contoured for it see and of course we're going to use our 600 grit what they call alligator paper and I like 600 grit because if it's not too rough it'll go in there and just kind of smooth everything out remember we're not really removing a whole lot we're just going to smooth the heck out of it so take and just sit there and polish it back and forth if you don't want to change the contour on the ramp at all all we're doing is removing the machining marks on this block and you can see we're doing just that now the block is solid brass and I'll show you exactly what the machining marks look like so let's wipe it down okay so you can see we've got a lot of those machining marks out of there now let's say you're get a close-up of this so you could take a look at it and you can see the machining marks I don't know the light it's going to let you right in here they're grooves that go back and forth like that and if you're looking to side of the block right here there you've got a really good view of the machining marks see these it's from the machine so these right here as it goes up and down inside the the body of the of the gun doesn't help so we'll remove these over here we'll remove some of the ones over here this is the one we're really critical about because this is what happens when the round goes up hits that goes inside you want that to be smooth as possible and also the back so what I like to do is basically take your again 600 grit and I've got a piece of flat cold flat steel here and with a little bit of break free we're gonna flatten out and see if we could remove some of the machine marks so we're not going crazy here guys just a little bit to smooth it out make sure we remove a lot of the machining marks or make them smooth basically if you can make them smooth the smoother the better so it might take a while to do so just take your time and like I said whenever you're doing something like this is a project like this take your time on it you know there's no rush there's no reason they have to rush because you're gone you're not charging anybody by the hour they're not charging you by the hour so just take your time make sure everything is nice and smooth you want to keep the angle really flat which is why we're using a nice flat piece of steel here you want to keep the angle flat and change get a fresh sheet of paper over here to work on fresh area that one area has got a lot of machining marks so I like to work in circles so I'm going to work I'm gonna do the bowl here I'm sorry the lifter I'm gonna work on a lifter here for a little bit make sure I get this all smooth out and then what you want to do is you want to come by and I'll hit it with a dremel right in between here just because I've got some I know the dreaded Dremel right I love the Dremel and I mean it cut your time in half half he'll cut your time in it by nothing and look beautiful shiny nice and smooth that's what you want you want smooth because that's where this guy just slides right up it's where the round slide up on so I don't use a dremel on the flat areas just on this round area right in here the ramp you want the ramp to be nice and smooth the sides and all that we can get away with using this now onto the boat you can see here you've got a little look down here sometimes that lip will tend to you get some erosion on it or it'll chip or wear away and then you'll have feeding issues also if that's the case you have to get a new bolt or your might as well try to take this up and use a file and get it to the right shape the ejector or the extractor sorry look at these extractor up there what you want to do is see how it's shiny you want to make sure that shiny polished that up little 600 grit paper and then hit it with the dremel or you can do by hand and get it shiny like that because what happens is you want that to be as smooth as silk so where this comes up when the round comes up it just slides boom right underneath it see and one of the only ways to do that is make sure it's polished all these little things make a difference so we polish the extractor on there see nice but you don't want to take there's a the jag that's inner you don't want to remove the sharp edge because that's what actually grips your shell so and this gun like we said had a couple hundred rounds through it already and you can see where it's wearing and that's where you want to make sure you put a little bit of extra grease or moly on there and see on put the top over here in the lugs or down here on the bottom so something else to think about moving on now we're going to show you another another couple areas another thing that you really want to do is and this one has already had it done is let's show you if we can get this going here on the inside on barrel on the mouth of the chamber let's see right here you want to make sure that they champ for the mouth I don't know if you can see that no you can't see it let me see anybody get in there you want to make sure they chant for the mouth of the case I'm sorry the mouth of the chamber right here this one has it done already I'm sort of change the angle so you could there we go now you chamfer it that way as the bullet comes up it enters easily this one's already had it done they had this done it looks like at the factory you can see it right here and that radius is a very slight and that's going to aid when the bullet goes in and enters you could also polish the inside of your chamber and you know that is that's not that big of a deal you can just use a long enough brush and a piece of rod I do it by hand and of course use your six hundred grit and then polish it out 600 grits awesome you can do with that and that'll get a lot of the rough burrs out of there from machining but other than that I wouldn't do anything else to this because if you're gonna if you chamfer it too much you're gonna have problems feeding and then what's going to happen is you're going to have to take the barrel out and recut the barrel and set it back and it's a whole hassle it got that right there you need a machine to do you're going to need a lathe and a drill press and all other good stuff to do some of that so stay away from doing that not something a novice would go and do out there own next thing we're going to do is we're going to focus on this is the lifter finger right here so this is the thing that sits inside the lifter sits in here and as it goes up and down up and down rides along the track that's inside the lifter itself there you can see it now this one was full of specs when they cut it so I guess the the owner never took it apart never cleaned it out but we took it apart for him that's why he came brought it over to us for us to take a look at it you can see right here where it drags you can see right there the brass where it kind of just rolls up and down so obviously the smoother you can make this the better but you don't want to take any material off of this again because what will happen is that will affect the way the bottom here protrudes on the bottom and you want it a nice flush look on the gun you don't want it hanging down like that up like that or dragging down like this because it'll affect your function and your feet also so not something to do but this you can do this and no problem at all I take this and I'll just hit it with the dremel with a little bit of the Flitz of course I use Flitz for all this this Flitz is great I just put a little dab in my finger and just kind of work it right and you can see the high spots you can see where this thing is talking is hitting on the lifter and the smoother you can get it the smoother gonna feel we're not removing any material we're just smoothing it polishing it so it's like glass so obviously anywhere you can reduce they're nice and smooth anywhere you can reduce the drag on it will make the gun just cycle you can see just how rough these parts are when they're cast see you see the marks on top of there that doesn't help so make sure every time you're using the polish just wipe it all down see see how shiny the ball looks now and what's going to happen is that'll help it right in here a lot easier it's a little bit harder to get in here to polish so we're better off polishing the ball on here and it's you can feel there's a lip right here but you see that it already feels a lot smoother so if you start taking away material from here that's when you get start taking here TIG welding here or TIG weld on the bottom to tweak this going up and down and that is not something you want to do that takes a while and it's just for people who are experienced TIG welders remember every time you're welding on gun parts use TIG don't use MIG or stick that's just too hot and you'll ruin the temper of the gun so the next thing we're going to talk about is let's see a lot of guys sometimes they go in here and this is where the bolt rides and they think that they polish the inside of this out it'll make it smoother but there's really no good way to polish that out without digging up the corners over here you could try a wooden dowel with your with your sandpaper but I won't do it just because if this ever gets where it's out of spec and loose you'll have problems feeding a gun you'll have problems with the gun working and actually in cycling you don't want that while we're doing here is just simple things you could do at home and I mean basic basic everyday things that you can do that won't affect the function of the gun

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Views: 174,464

Rating: 4.8207684 out of 5

Keywords: Firearm (Sports Equipment), Winchester Rifle, Cowboy Action Shooting (Sport), mannyCA, Winchester 1873 levergun, 1860 yellowboy, 1866 Winchester, Winchester leverguns, cowboy action, shooting, target practice, 1876 Winchester, how to, gunsmithing, armory work, Shooting Sport (Sport), 1873 Winchester, slicking up your '73 levergun, Uberti lever gun, levergun, Armi san marco, black powder, .44-40, .45 colt, .357, .38 special, .38-55

Id: I0u79KdszOI

Length: 22min 24sec (1344 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2015

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Part 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoaQ8UF3w7Q