Author Topic: Making a Good Ranger out of a Bad one......  (Read 3592 times)

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Offline xtriggerman

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Making a Good Ranger out of a Bad one......
« on: June 12, 2016, 12:35:55 PM »
Something about these little 100 plus year old "Ranger 22 Long" stamped wheel guns that is intriguing. With a working one in my hand, I often think it may well have been assembled by an old Civil War vet. Well anyway, I picked this up on GB about a year ago for about a hundred bucks. Last month I did a similar rebuild on a little 22 short called a Captain Jack. The Ranger is a good choice for a rebuild since it uses coil springs for the cylinder latch lever and cylinder locking lug. Also the hand is sprung very nicely with a strong spring arm pined into the hammer. Many of these early mouse guns used tiny leaf springs that would be a real pain to fab up since they are usually shot.  As with a lot of these, I had to beat the cylinder pin out of the gun. The cylinder had about .016" end shake so the picture shows the building up of weld that will extend the length of the cylinder and I will turn the weld into a thicker bushing face. The original diameter over the cylinder pin was very thin allowing the hammer to beat the cylinder forward over the many firings.


Heres the turned cylinder with a new pin made from oil hardened drill rod.



Once the cylinder is fit into the frame with virtually no forward to back play, The barrel face is turned back and bore drilled out to .250". Then a new 22 sleeve is turned to fit and epoxied into the barrel.

   

most any of these early guns will have the hammer and or the trigger sear wiped out as seen here.



The fix is once again a build up of weld and recutting the hammer sear notches.



Reshaped and the trigger spring was trimmed to lighten it up to a far more comfortable let off. After the trigger is re-timed with the action, I simply hardened it with Kasenite.



 The front sight was missing so I soldered in a new blade and trimmed it down to POA. The target is a 7 round cylinder string fired off hand at 6 feet. The only rounds that I would say is safe to fire in a well functioning BP mouse gun are CCI #0026 22 SHORT CB rounds. These round have no powder in them. only a primer charge. I'm always on the look out for those CCI #0026 rounds. I use them in an old Belgian Flobert type rolling block I have. You gotta love putting life back into these grand old guns! I sure do.



Offline Power Surge

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Re: Making a Good Ranger out of a Bad one......
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2016, 09:35:04 PM »
That's some great work! I just repaired/restored a 100+ year old Hopkins and Allen .32 police special. The craftsmanship of those old hand made pistols is amazing.

Offline Loose}{Cannon

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Re: Making a Good Ranger out of a Bad one......
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2016, 09:44:58 PM »
Awesome work as usual XT! 
      
1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms... It doesn't matter how many Lenins you get out on the street begging for them to be taken.