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The Making of the Centaure Thuer Conversion # Quest for a Modern Thuer Army Conversion # Karl Nedbal’s how to make the Centaure Thuer # Loading Thuer Cases # Shooting the
Centaure Thuer – Range Reports # Learning by
Doing & other Conclusions |
Quest for a Modern Thuer Army
Conversion
Why would one want to have a perfectly functional
Centaure “1960 NEW MODEL ARMY” converted to shoot cartridges? What does such a
conversion have that a quality Single Action Army clone does not offer at a
quarter to a third of the price out of the box? But do we conversion-aficionados want to start
another argument about history, passion and desire?
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Original
cased Colt 1860 Army Thuer conversion with spare
C&B cylinder |
You probably heard about this vicious bug Bacillus Conversicus (BC). Many good pards
& pardettes got bitten. Once you have
contracted BC you can count on regular acute attacks. I got infected early
2002 when I acquired my first Uberti Colt Richards-Mason
Army conversion in .44 Colt and have not recovered since. Actually I like
these attacks. The only therapy |
with a clinically
proven effect today is targeting, tracking down and liberating another
conversion pistol. The intermittent application of drop-in cylinders, with
& without loading gates has been tried by a number of cowboys and cowgirls
with temporary success, too. However, no permanent cure is known!
For a couple of
years I have been drooling over these Thuers and
wanted a quality repro of a Colt Army Thuer conversion…just
because plus…
# this innovative approach on
the drawing board from the late 1860s to get rid of surplus stocks of Colt
C&B
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HEGE 1860 Thuer Army with
accessories, made of Uberti parts, courtesy HEGE, Messkirch |
pistol parts from the Civil War AND to avoid
paying licensing fees to Smith & Wesson and Rollin White is just plain
stupid elegant # I want a
modern made and “new” looking pistol that I can shoot. This rules out the
real thing which I cannot afford, anyhow. # Despite her
reputation of functional flaws on the range I enjoy the quality craftsmanship
of this never popular pistol. # When Uberti sold a few prototype Thuer
Armies and Thuer |
conversion kits a couple
of years back I made up my mind too late and missed the opportunity (left
picture).
# Another
chance to own a Thuer replica seemed to unfold during
Fall 2007 when my friends from HEGE in Messkirch/Germany
presented a series of pictures of their prototype of a Thuer
Army made from Uberti parts (www.waffen-hege.de) by a German
gunsmith. But it appears that this project has been stalled or is many moons
away from commercialization.
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Nedbal
Uberti 1860 Thuer,
conversion cylinder installed |
Nedbal
Uberti Thuer: conversion
cylinder (top), C&B cylinder installed (bottom) & accessories |
Karl Nedbal’s how to make the Centaure Thuer: During my
search for a gunsmith for the Centaure Richards I became aware that Nedbal had been
making Thuer Armies from old Ubertis
since 1997. Actually he is doing them quite regularly on special order -
including loading tool and all (above pictures).
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While one Internationally respected &
experienced Italian conversion replica factory took a decision against
tooling for a full scale Thuer production a couple
of years ago there are now a few gifted conversion gunsmiths out there on
both sides of the Atlantic that are happy to make our dream come true of a both
period correct & shootable Thuer
custom conversion. Therefore, when this pre-owned RNMA #7266 came my
way from a pard in the next village who had used
her for 40 years (!) in bulls eye competition I jumped on the |
#7266
after purchase – base gun for the Thuer
conversion |
opportunity, grabbed and
liberated her as the base gun for this Centaure Thuer
conversion. In March 2008 I asked Nedbal if he would do a Centaure Thuer for me using this pistol and he agreed. So when I
collected the Richards I left him this baby for this project.
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Incidentally, Nedbal happened to have one of his Uberti Thuers in the shop ready
for final fitting and assembly. But the specs of her conversion ring were a
mite off and did not work with my pistol. It will be a couple of months before she is
completed. As with the Richards project Karl |
Nedbal promised to picture-document the progress of the project. Here we
go:
#1 Milling of
the Thuer conversion ring
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Rough contour… |
More precision
milling needed |
…and almost completed |
#2 Conversion cylinder
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Thuer cylinder lathed to fit |
Thuer ring and cylinder installed |
#3 Loading tools
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Accessories
for the Centaure Thuer Conversion |
That’s
all you need to load Thuer cartridges… |
This Thuer
conversion project developed its own appreciably positive dynamics: exactly 3
months after I collected the Centaure Richards Karl Nedbal presented the Thuer to me. August 22, 2008 was the day of truth when I
took possession of my new toy.
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Master Nedbal
and 3 Thuers… |
...which one is the Centaure or the Uberti or the original
Colt? |
Although #7266 saw many years of black powder shooting I asked Nedbal not
to do a full restoration of the pistol, particularly not to “push” the worn
wedge. But I could not stop him to nicely doming and fire-bluing all screws
like you would expect on a NIB 1st generation Colt. See for
yourself.
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Left side |
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Right
side: loading area of the barrel lug has been re-contoured for easy loading
of the cartridges |
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Closer
views of Centaure Thuer #7266… |
…with loading tool and
empty cases |
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For easy loading and ejection of the empties the master re-contoured both
sides of the barrel and opened the loading slot like on an original. He also
drilled and threaded the percussion rammer-plunger to receive the Thuer priming punch.
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Barrels: Centaure C&B (left) and Thuer (right) |
Thuer ring fixed, resting on cylinder |
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Cylinders
breech view C&B (left)
and Thuer (right) |
Cylinders
front view C&B (left)
and Thuer (right) |
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Thuer ring and cylinder separated |
Breech view of conversion ring |
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Three big questions remain: will the reloading
combination tool work for me as Karl Nedbal demonstrated it in his shop? Will I
hit what I am aiming at with my Thuer reloads? And
finally will the ejection mode of the conversion ring do its job?
Loading Thuer cases: Here are a couple of pictures of my first experience loading Thuer shells using the cartridge loading fixtures as the
loading tool was called back then. I use large pistol primers for the cases
machined by Nedbal. The bullets are soft lead & lubed hollow base conicals of 280 gr. Nedbal gave me a
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Priming the Thuer case… |
…and primed |
Seating the bullet (1) |
handful together with the loading tool. The cases were filled “to the rim” with
the holy black (Czech Jagdschwarzpulver V, similar to
FFg), although the Vienna Proof house approved her
for smokeless! Once I found my routine of turning the tool forward and backward
around the arbor loading these cartridges is a
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Seating the bullet (2) |
…and here is my
first Thuer cartridge using the 280 grainer conical |
simple, straight forward operation. I have an idea now how the oldtimers felt sitting in the bunk house
reloading Thuer empties yesteryear…
Shooting the Centaure Thuer – Range
Reports
On the indoor range in Hofheim with the Centaure Thuer,
August 27, 2008. Loading the 6 cartridges is
easy (below left). Only very little force is needed to push them into the front
of the chambers…1st round fired downrange from 25 meters…provides a solid
first impression: nice boom, pretty thick smoke, significant but easy
manageable recoil of the 280 grainers… (below right)
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Loading
the Thuer cartridges from the front using the
loading lever |
Historical
moment: 1st Thuer round fired in Hofheim…ever? |
Next 5 rounds fired in quick succession, quick recovery from recoil. Hits
produced satisfactory POA/POI at 8 meters… (below
left) and positive ejection of the shells after all chambers were emptied below
right).
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Recoil is easily managed |
Positive
ejection of the empties |
It is a joy to shoot this Nedbal Centaure Thuer.
She functions reliable most of the time if I do my part…but you have to pay
attention to the details and don’t get over-excited… like counting your empties if you do not wish to end up with a “Thuer Magnum” like I did (picture below left). She has her
personality. This is not what I would call a “forgiving” pistol. I am very happy to have
her and look forward to putting her through the paces of more serious target
shooting.
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Thuer Magnum: fresh round loaded on top of an empty |
At 15 meters she is printing a bit
high and to the left |
Gave her another work-out November 26, 2008.
Same charge of a full case of BP but this time I loaded soft lead flat base conicals of 200 gr. and .450 diameter.
Since the bullets did not come lubricated I used some hand creme
with high water content as lube and to keep the front of the cylinder and the
barrel clean. The Centaure Thuer liked these 200
grainers much better than the 280 grainers because impact was right on target,
just 2” to the left of POA and that’s OK by me. There were no issues with
cylinder locking up from BP crud or cartridges or empties moving forward during
recoil.
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Pair
of Centaure conversions: Thuer (top) Richards (bottom) |
Learning
by Doing & other Conclusions: One issue
related to the reloading process remained unsolved with these lighter bullets.
Seating them straight on the powder is almost impossible with the Thuer loading tool. Therefore, for the next shooting
sessions hollow based and bevel based 200 grainers of .450 diameter were loaded. By now my loading chores were shared
by FROCS # 7 Bumble Bee. Because Bumble Bee could not pass on Nedbal’s Uberti Thuer and just had to liberate her for his cowboy armament.
With these 2 types of bullets we could improve on our loading procedures, turned
out properly seated bullets > 9 (HBs) or > 8 times out of 10 (BBs).
Some observations ought to be mentioned here:
# chamber & case dimensions of these two
Nedbal Thuers are the same because the master is
duplicating originals,
# although the rifling diameter of the Bumble
Bee’s Uberti Thuer is .452,
i. e. bigger than my Centaure’s
.447 we used the same .450 diameter hollow base and bevel base bullets in both
conversions. Accuracy in terms of bullets’ spread on the target of these 2 Thuers is comparable but different POIs were noted.
# some unpredictable forward movement of empty
cases or cartridges from recoil was noted in both Thuers.
This affected cocking and/or firing of the pistols. In a few instances
disassembly of the pistol was necessary to correct the situation.
# a meager velocity (V2) averaging only 140
m/sec (460 fps) was chronographed with both types of these
200 grainers.
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Bumble
Bee produces nice smoke and lots of sparks with CZ Jagdschwarzpulver
V but little recoil only |
The analysis of the velocity findings led to the development of a new load
with hot Swiss CH1 under soft lead 195 grainers/.450 dia of heel type design with flat base. As a control group the
same BP/bullet combination was loaded in the C&B cylinders of the two
Nedbal Thuers. Here is what we learnt:
# No matter if the Thuer or the C&B
cylinder was installed these loads made the pistols kick like a mule. In the
Centaure they felt like an unpleasant .357 Magnum. Felt recoil was a little
less with the Uberti.
# Little smoke, no sparks worth mentioning
# Centaure average velocity (V2): Thuer 310 m/sec
(1017 fps), C&B 297 m/sec (975 fps)
# Uberti average velocity (V2):
Thuer 260 m/sec (853 fps), C&B 249 m/sec (817 fps)
Three comments: everything else being equal the slightly lower velocities
recorded with bullets fired from the C&B cylinder can be explained by the
different type of ignition used, i. e. gas
back-firing through the nipples, whereas the comparatively lower velocities (and
less kick!) of the Uberti are due to her bigger bore
diameter. Although a crimp is not possible with Thuer
cases heel type bullets with flat base can be seated much firmer into the case
than HB or BB type bullets. In combination with the hotter CH1 this is
accountable for the much higher overall velocity compared to the earlier
experiments.
Having studied original and modern made Thuers
some these loading and shooting sessions taught me a lot about the Thuer conversion system. They provided some ideas why real cowboys
preferred their contemporary Remington cartridge conversions or S&W
Americans over Colt pistols of Thuer design. Or why
they kept their battle proven C&B Armies and Navies. I feel these aspects are
important because they add to the shooting fun but also bring the real life value
of these different ignition systems into historical perspective.
# Thuers have potential for reasonable accuracy
but ... there is an inherent flaw, originals and today made ones alike.
Provided the latter are turned out period correct after an original conversion
cylinder. Like the originals from the 1860s the chambers of the Centaure
conversion cylinder and Nedbal Uberti Thuer conversions for that matter have their tapered
profile all the way down from the front end of the cylinder to the breech end!
# During firing the conicals have no bearing
surface in the cylinder, are not guided by the chamber walls, until they hit
the rifling of the barrel because the front diameter of the chambers is greater
than the rifling groove diameter of the barrel. Oversized bullets are no solution
here. In my experience soft lead 195 or 200 grainers of heel type are the
optimum followed by hollow based ones as a second choice. Bevel based bullets
can be considered as well but flat based ones without heel cannot be
recommended.
# The tapered cartridges are loaded from the front and kept in their
chambers by friction only, as are the empties after firing. They might and do move forward during the action from recoil or even when
the pistol is carried on a person walking or riding on horseback for a longer
period of time ….which might make cocking and firing
difficult to impossible when the going gets tough.
WDN/May 27, 2011
© 2007-11 Wolf D. Niederastroth