I put a 10 speed Campy wheel on a bike with a 9 speed Shimano chain, and old Campy SR friction shifters and derailleurs, and I expected it to not work very well. I wasn't sure that the chain would fit the sprockets without rubbing or even worse, getting stuck and seizing.

What I found instead was complete silence and smooth shifting. I expected it to be fussy at the least, but it wasn't at all. The only thing I couldn't do was get it onto the largest sprocket as I ran out of swing on the shifter. Front shifting worked fine also.

I guess you never know what will work until you try.

Campy 10-speed cassette cogs are spaced slightly wider than Shimano's and a 9-speed Shimano chain does work well with them. When Campy first introduced 10-speed and it's very problematic chain, many riders reported using Shimano 9-speed chains with good results to avoid the Campy chain.

BTW. I'm surprised your shifters won't cover the full cassette range. Try shifting into the smallest cog, disconnect the shift cable at the rear derailleur and pull ALL the slack from the cable. Tighten the clamp bolt and that should do it. Otherwise be sure your low limit screw isn't set too tight as that will also prevent reaching the largest cog.

I didn't look at the adjustments on the derailleur yet, so you are probably right.

This bike will be my "ride laps in the park" bike. I doubt I'll be taking it on any serious rides. It is old time Columbus SL tubing, pantograph Campy parts, old Concor saddle, Modolo Kronos levers. I replaced the brake cables on this thing a month or two back and was amazed that the brakes actually work now. This bike has always had sucky brakes. I'm the original owner of this bike from 1981.

The original wheels, and one original Clement Criterium Seta tire are still with me, but the 6 speed freewheel didn't work well with the 9sp chain.

Be a bit careful with those, particularly the crank. The pantograph engraving acted as stress raisers and they tended to crack under load after some use.

I expect the 6-speed freewheel never worked all that well even with it's OEM chain but we didn't know any better at the time. Modern index shifting with the accompanying shaped and enhanced cogs and chainrings is so good it has spoiled us and we forget how ragged shifting was in the past.

I didn't forget. I've been saying the same thing for a while myself. Modern shifting has improved more because of the ramps on the cogs and the close spacing than the indexed levers. Even friction shifters work better with modern cassettes. I've argued that we wouldn't have indexing if the cassettes had been improved first.

I'm happy to have integrated indexing shifters. Being able to shift while out of the saddle on a climb is a good thing. Plenty of other situations are improved too.

I'm not saying I don't like indexing, but would we have arrived here if they had made friction shifting better? I'm not so sure. I've thought the indexing was the answer to the poor shifting of the old cassettes. It is probably both though.

I also like fingertip shifting. Riding downtube bikes after riding my Chorus 10 setup is a bit of a pain. I keep tapping the brake lever.

10s is a stretch for old Campy SR friction shifters!!!!

I'm more worried that if I could get it onto the 10th cog it would hit the spokes. I'll play around with the limit screws and if I can make it work, great. If not, well then I have a 26 tooth cog that acts as a spacer. I even have a hanger adjustment tool, if it turns out that I want to align it.

I took it for another spin last night and it works great and the 10th cog is unnecessary around here anyway.