copyright William Marion 2008
Black Powder Revolver
The Online Magazine and Resource for Black Powder Revolvers
May 2006 Edition
Building the CVA Pocket Police Kit
It had been awhile since I built a revolver from a kit. My first black powder revolver was an 1851 Colt Navy I assembled from a kit in 1981. Having fond memories of handcrafting what turned out to be one of my favorite guns, I decided to once again try building a kit. Looking around, I found a CVA (Connecticut Valley Arms) 1862 Colt Police Pocket. This was one replica I had wanted to add to my collection, so with the assistance of my credit card, the kit was in the mail. Opening the package, the kit looked good. A nicely polished steel barrel, a brass frame that needed a little work, a small bag of parts and of course the instructions.
I immediately read the instructions (one of the few times I ever had) and noticed that a couple of pages were missing. No big deal, I must have assembled Colt replicas hundreds of times. The barrel looked good, just a little finishing and it would be ready for bluing. The grips were a nice hardwood and overall this was looking to be a fun project. On to the first steps. Easy things like installing the nipples in the cylinder, but one of the 5 nipples didn’t screw in. Swapping nipples, it was clear that there was a problem with the threads on one of
It had been awhile since I built a revolver from a kit. My first black powder revolver was an 1851 Colt Navy I assembled from a kit in 1981. Having fond memories of handcrafting what turned out to be one of my favorite guns, I decided to once again try building a kit. Looking around, I found a CVA (Connecticut Valley Arms) 1862 Colt Police Pocket. This was one replica I had wanted to add to my collection, so with the assistance of my credit card, the kit was in the mail. Opening the package, the kit looked good. A nicely polished steel barrel, a brass frame that needed a little work, a small bag of parts and of course the instructions.
I immediately read the instructions (one of the few times I ever had) and noticed that a couple of pages were missing. No big deal, I must have assembled Colt replicas hundreds of times. The barrel looked good, just a little finishing and it would be ready for bluing. The grips were a nice hardwood and overall this was looking to be a fun project. On to the first steps. Easy things like installing the nipples in the cylinder, but one of the 5 nipples didn’t screw in. Swapping nipples, it was clear that there was a problem with the threads on one of
the nipples. These things happen, and I was sure I had a spare nipple to use. The grip took a bit of sanding, but after staining it with Linseed oil (an original finish for the period) it looked great. A bit of polishing and the barrel blued very nice. So far so good. Now for the more difficult part. Fitting the bolt and hammer took quite a bit of filing and fitting but it all came together and the action worked fine. Sliding the barrel on, I opened the bag of parts and found the wedge. Hey aren’t these thing supposed to have a spring on them? Ok, well as I said before, these things happen and after all it is a kit, so let’s just put it together. Fitting the wedge took a bit more filing and now time to try it all out and that’s when I noticed that the cylinder was now rubbing against the barrel to the point it would not rotate. Ok, let’s take it apart and file a bit more and now we’re back in business.
Just a few more steps and we’ll have ourselves a nice looking replica. Time to assemble the grip, strap and frame. Got all the screws and now let’s see how the grip fits the strap and, hey isn’t the strap supposed to have two screw holes at the top to attach to the frame? Yes indeed it is, but it looks like the right upper tang of the strap is broken off. End of fun project. After a futile effort to braise it back on, I set
Just a few more steps and we’ll have ourselves a nice looking replica. Time to assemble the grip, strap and frame. Got all the screws and now let’s see how the grip fits the strap and, hey isn’t the strap supposed to have two screw holes at the top to attach to the frame? Yes indeed it is, but it looks like the right upper tang of the strap is broken off. End of fun project. After a futile effort to braise it back on, I set
Page 1
The CVA Colt Pocket Police Kit
Continued next page
What we hope the end result of this kit will look like
The kit with all parts on the cover of the box. From here things went down hill.
The offending nipple that wouldn’t thread into the cylinder
