How to pull seized nipples on colt 1849's - tips 'n tricks?

H Wally

H Wally

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Hi all!

This weeks problem involves colt 1849 cylinders with crushed and seized nipples. My problem is that the spaces involved are so tight that any nipple wrench that will fit is so weak that it can barely grasp the nipples before bending or breaking. In addition, many are corroded, so grip is limited, and a few have flared tips to getting the wrench onto them is difficult.

I'd really prefer to stay away from heating the whole cylinder, as I feel that's a bit of a risky proposition with nice old antiques and would rather try to remove the nipples manually. I have tried freezing the nipples with compressed gas, but though it loosened one, largely it was ineffectual. In frustration I left the cylinder in penetrating oil over the summer, but sadly that did not help.

So, what're your solutions to removing damaged nipples? I'm suspecting that I'll have to get a fine screw extractor and gently remove it that way, but if anyone has a better method I'm all ears.
 
I would use a good quality easy out, which will have the correct drill size marked onit, the trick is use a left hand drill bit. Sometimes just drilling the hole will relieve the pressure and the l/hand bit will grab it.
Cheers nessy.
 
I had the same issue with by Uberti Walker when I purchased it years ago... The previous owner never removed the nipples as part of his cleaning regime and they where seized in good.... I submerged the whole cylinder in a 50/50 acetone/ATF mixture for about a week...

I fashioned my own nipple wrench by slotting a 1/4 drive socket that was just big enough to slip over the nipple (i think it was 6 or 7mm socket). A dremel with a thin cut off disc works good for this. After the cylinder was in a padded vice I went to work and was able to remove 5 out of the 6... The last one required very localized spot heating with a small oxyacetelyne tip and it spun right out...
 
Which penetrating oil did you use?

Have you tried to apply high-frequency vibration to the seized part, or maybe an ultrasonic cleaner?

You could always use a torch with a pencil tip and just quickly heat the nipple itself, with the rest of the cylinder in a cooling bath (vegetable oil perhaps, rather than water?)
 
Heating the cylinder by immersing it in boiling water is a safe method and ensures an even distribution of heat. That should open up the metal enough to loosen things and when removed any remaining water will evaporate. An application of penetrating oil will get a better chance of working its way in.You will have to let it cool enough so the heat doesn't disperse the oil but this trick has worked for me in the past.

Cheers, Steve.
 
nessy357 said:
I would use a good quality easy out, which will have the correct drill size marked onit, the trick is use a left hand drill bit. Sometimes just drilling the hole will relieve the pressure and the l/hand bit will grab it.
Cheers nessy.
Click to expand...

Interesting - hadn't thought of the left hand drill bit. That's a good trick to try!

Alonzo said:
Just a question...what is the purpose for removing the damaged nipples?
Click to expand...

Just to repair the gun. As they are now they're so buggered the gun isn't functional, and on the whole the gun doesn't have much historical value left, so may as well restore it, and to do that it needs new nipples

ckid said:
I had the same issue with by Uberti Walker when I purchased it years ago... The previous owner never removed the nipples as part of his cleaning regime and they where seized in good.... I submerged the whole cylinder in a 50/50 acetone/ATF mixture for about a week...

I fashioned my own nipple wrench by slotting a 1/4 drive socket that was just big enough to slip over the nipple (i think it was 6 or 7mm socket). A dremel with a thin cut off disc works good for this. After the cylinder was in a padded vice I went to work and was able to remove 5 out of the 6... The last one required very localized spot heating with a small oxyacetelyne tip and it spun right out...
Click to expand...

Hmm - ATF eh? If I understand correctly the acetone cleans/carries the ATF into the threads and the atf acts as a lube?

For heating the last nipple, how hot did you get it? I assume you were heating around the nipple, or do you find it matters? I've broken some bigger stuff free with a propane blowtorch, but in those cases I wasn't concerned about the metal condition afterwards, and the screws being extracted where considerably larger and less easily damaged.

Grouse Man said:
Which penetrating oil did you use?

Have you tried to apply high-frequency vibration to the seized part, or maybe an ultrasonic cleaner?

You could always use a torch with a pencil tip and just quickly heat the nipple itself, with the rest of the cylinder in a cooling bath (vegetable oil perhaps, rather than water?)
Click to expand...

I don't remember - it's a small container we've had in the shop forever that's always worked on this kind of stuff:p

Ultrasonic cleaner would be an interesting idea, but not attainable at the moment.

I like your idea of using the veggy oil as a heat sink, but was under the impression that it's or more use to heat the holding material rather than the held material, since as metal heats it expands, so only heating the nipple would cause it to expand into the cold cylinder, essentially swelling itself in there. Conceivably doing this could cause the nipple to crush itself when it swelled, or if twisted when hot possibly break things free, but I'd be concerned about trying to force the nipple when it was hot and easily maleable (re: twisting the grip points off). I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing :p

stevejones said:
Heating the cylinder by immersing it in boiling water is a safe method and ensures an even distribution of heat. That should open up the metal enough to loosen things and when removed any remaining water will evaporate. An application of penetrating oil will get a better chance of working its way in.You will have to let it cool enough so the heat doesn't disperse the oil but this trick has worked for me in the past.

Cheers, Steve.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea - safe and simple! I think I'll try this first... it's the most basic and doesn't have considerable risk and doesn't eliminate other options.
 
H Wally said:
Hmm - ATF eh? If I understand correctly the acetone cleans/carries the ATF into the threads and the atf acts as a lube?

For heating the last nipple, how hot did you get it? I assume you were heating around the nipple, or do you find it matters? I've broken some bigger stuff free with a propane blowtorch, but in those cases I wasn't concerned about the metal condition afterwards, and the screws being extracted where considerably larger and less easily damaged.



QUOTE]
I believe you are correct about the ATF/acetone mixture.... It wasn't my idea, I got it from an article in a Home Machinist magazine... The fellow actually rusted bolts together in salt water and used a variety of commercial solvents as well as the home brew and used a torque wrench to measure effectiveness and the ATF/acetone mix acctually beat out everything else...

When I had to use the torch I heated the cylinder area at the base of the exposed side of the nipple and I already had the nipple wrench in place so I could exert torque as I was heating and as soon as it broke free I quite heating... It didn't take very long, but it was a very small focussed oxy/map gas flame and the heating was a lot more localized than you would get with a propane torch.
Click to expand...
 
Be careful using an ez out. One of the worst nipple extractions I've done was a seized, hardened nipple with an ez out snapped off in it. Nothing to grab, too hard to drill. Took it out with a diamond burr in the Dremel, cutting away the ez out and the nipple until I could collapse the remains of the nipple. Did it without harming the cylinder, but this sort of job tends to result in grey hair. Fortunately mine went white ages ago.
Heat can expand the metal. Heat can also break down rust.
I like Kroil for a penetrant.
 
Wally, good point about the heat sink angle, I didn't think about how it was threaded into the cylinder. Okay then, boiling vegetable oil for the cylinder, dry ice on the nipple.

Kroil is very good stuff.
 
I have an 1849 Pocket and the original cylinder has the same problem,I asked the folks a Track of the Wolf about how to remove the old nipples and they suggested using an EDM machine. This is an electrical discharge milling process that removes metal in a controlled manner. I don't know of anyone that has one of those machines but they are used by die-makers ( possibly obsolete with new fangled CNC ).
I managed to side-step the issue by replacing the cylinder with one that had no nipples in it (also no serial number). I took the nipples out of my new Uberti 1851 .36 cal. and they fit right into the antique cylinder.
If I were to restore the original cylinder with new nipples I would set it up in a milling machine and using a 2 flute end cutter of a size that would remove most of the non-threaded portion of the nipple. At this point with some careful hand work the threaded portion could probably be picked out of the hole with some dental picks. The next step would be to chase the threads with a 12-28 tap to clean out the rust. The recommended drill size for tapping a 12-28 hole might be the size of milling bit to use when removing the bulk of the old nipple.
 
I had the same problem i just put a drop of penetrating oil on each
nipple and put in in the oven preheated to 200f. for about 5 minutes
it worked for 5 out of 6 nipples. it also works great for rusted screws
about 80% of the time.
 
rgbai said:
I had the same problem i just put a drop of penetrating oil on each
nipple and put in in the oven preheated to 200f. for about 5 minutes
it worked for 5 out of 6 nipples. it also works great for rusted screws
about 80% of the time.
Click to expand...

I like this idea, I can see this working , ref; the acetone and ATF i read that same article where they busted loose rusty fasteners, and the acet,/atf need the least torque to loosen.
Thinking back to when I apprenticed in the 70's i remember an oldtimer (someone over 50 ;) 0 telling me that ATF was the best penetrant , so mixed with the acetone I can see why .
Cheers ness
 
stevejones said:
Heating the cylinder by immersing it in boiling water is a safe method and ensures an even distribution of heat. That should open up the metal enough to loosen things and when removed any remaining water will evaporate. An application of penetrating oil will get a better chance of working its way in.You will have to let it cool enough so the heat doesn't disperse the oil but this trick has worked for me in the past.

Cheers, Steve.
Click to expand...

Remember to suspend it in the water so that it does not come into contact with the burner.

I used a piece of wire through the cylinder pin arbour hole.
 
Following this with interest. Looks like a challenging tight spot to work in. A high powered soldering gun might be able to impart enough heat into the nipple to create some thermal shock. On cars, welding a nut to a sheared off bolt, or heating a nut red hot and spraying it with penetrant often breaks them loose. But you would need a very fine torch tip to do this in the tight spot you are working in.
 
Grizzlypeg said:
Following this with interest. Looks like a challenging tight spot to work in. A high powered soldering gun might be able to impart enough heat into the nipple to create some thermal shock. On cars, welding a nut to a sheared off bolt, or heating a nut red hot and spraying it with penetrant often breaks them loose. But you would need a very fine torch tip to do this in the tight spot you are working in.
Click to expand...

I vote for a combo of boiling it in water, followed by spraying with Kroil, followed by successively larger left hand drill bits spun to the left, till it catches and spins out. Hopefully...
 
nessy357 said:
I would use a good quality easy out, which will have the correct drill size marked onit, the trick is use a left hand drill bit. Sometimes just drilling the hole will relieve the pressure and the l/hand bit will grab it..
Click to expand...

You will probably have to heat the nipples to about blue or into the 6 or 700 F range in order to drill them. I generally started with a penetrating oil (Moveit) for a week or two then get impatient and try just heating the nipple and surrounding area. If that does not work, then drill the nipple out to the point were I can use an easy out. As Tiriaq said, you sweat bullets using a small easy out and a seized nipple. I would guess that I have had to heat up into the 700 F range on at least 1/2 of the nipples I have removed. Once removed you may have to make a slightly oversize tap to chase out the threads and get past corroded metal and of course then make nipples with oversize threads.

I think that revolver nipples are a royal pain in the bum to make because if they are a little too short the caps don't fire and a little too long, the cylinder does not turn when the nipple is on it.

cheers mooncoon
 
cantom said:
I vote for a combo of boiling it in water, followed by spraying with Kroil, followed by successively larger left hand drill bits spun to the left, till it catches and spins out. Hopefully...
Click to expand...

It would have to be a left-hand thread (meant to cut when turned counter-clockwise) drill bit to work, a regular rotate-to-the-right bit will just polish the hole and dull the bit.

I would use one of the threaded extractors because they are left-hand threaded and will grab better than a drill bit and they are not so prone to breaking as the square-taper-type extractor, both of which can cause more grief than they cure.
 
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jethunter said:
I would use one of the threaded extractors because they are left-hand threaded and will grab better than a drill bit and they are not so prone to breaking as the square-taper-type extractor, both of which can cause more grief than they cure.
Click to expand...

I am not a great fan of the reverse threaded type easy outs. On small screws which have to be drilled out nearly to the threads, they tend to expand the thread and make it tighter if possible.

cheers Doug
 
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