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Tuning Open Top Replicas

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Sweet! The bullets look good, are the back ends a slip fit into the chamber? Did you mould them, if so which maker's mould? Good luck with your Dragoon! Geo.

Yep, they slips in.
It's a Hoch mold I got from ebay.
Don't know if it was made by Richard Hoch or (I suspect) after he sold the company.

Got the parts on the dragoon all modified and it's ready to go.

By the way, the mold was set up for 185 grains. I undid the retaining screw and flipped around the bottom plug to increase to 217 grains.
 
Where did you get the taller front sight? Are they screw in type or dovetail?
My 60 Pietta has a cotter pin style, hemispheric mortise cut ,parallel to the bore and the blade is soft soldered in place. I just filed out a new one of brass in target profile (square top) and soldered it back into the factory mortise. I ordered a second cylinder for the gun and found it group shot to a different point of aim than did the one that came in the gun. I'm sure this is because of cylinder notch placement changing the chamber/barrel alignment.
 
Are the chambers reamed to the same depth?
Just asking. Have even seen chambers in the same cylinder at different depths so it's just something I think about.
 
Once again you are wrong, Set up properly the gap is equal all around. As I said the wedge is not nor was it intended to set the B/C gap it's sole purpose is to lock the two units together. This is how I do it. Say I have a new Pietta 1851 that has a .005 B/C gap. The arbor all ready bottoms out since it is a Pietta so driving the wedge in hard is not going to change the gap. I remove .003 from the end of the arbor and from the face of the barrel lug where it meets the frame. I now have a .002 B/C gap that is equal all around and can't be changed by the wedge. With a Uberti of course I have to correct the short arbor also.
By the way on guns with the short arbor point of impact changes each time you reassemble unless you get the wedge in exactly the same place each time.
Do you know or understand the principles of tension and compression of steel and joint interfaces. Metal is elastic and moves when force is applied. When joining points, threads, wedges, slots ,end blocks, dovetails, mortises , cross pins etc. are added were talking about substantial movement under applied force. What were interested in most is the specs. while under the load of use,in this case the discharge of the revolver. The idea is to set up the machine to behave at peak efficiency while under the load of the intended purpose it is to accomplish.
A revolver under load does not have the same measurements as it does at rest. The altered tolerances manifest in accuracy or lack there of under applied load (firing) and longevity. Some things in revolver tuning make a big difference, some not so much and some not at all. From what I can determine the arbor well block adds little if anything to either accuracy or longevity.
 
Let's not get into a debate about what it takes to use a feeler guage and stick to talking about what it takes to tune an open top pistol, please.
 
Do you know or understand the principles of tension and compression of steel and joint interfaces. Metal is elastic and moves when force is applied. When joining points, threads, wedges, slots ,end blocks, dovetails, mortises , cross pins etc. are added were talking about substantial movement under applied force. What were interested in most is the specs. while under the load of use,in this case the discharge of the revolver. The idea is to set up the machine to behave at peak efficiency while under the load of the intended purpose it is to accomplish.
A revolver under load does not have the same measurements as it does at rest. The altered tolerances manifest in accuracy or lack there of under applied load (firing) and longevity. Some things in revolver tuning make a big difference, some not so much and some not at all. From what I can determine the arbor well block adds little if anything to either accuracy or longevity.
Let me guess you work in a meat packing plant making bologna. There is no point in responding to you further. Just enjoy managing your elastic guns with your feeler gauges. I bid you adieu!
 
The best way I've found to fix the shim thickness at the front of the arbor is to use a washer and to work down the thickness with regular old black grit paper. My double extra handy secret is how to hold such a little bitty thing and apply pressure against it while sanding it down. You need goodly pressure on it to take metal off and it's difficult to keep hold of.
The best tool I've found is a soft handle tooth brush, same as like the old one in the black powder cleaning box. Just press down with the end of the soft handle centered in the washer hole and you can take the metal down lickety split.
 
Let me guess you work in a meat packing plant making bologna. There is no point in responding to you further. Just enjoy managing your elastic guns with your feeler gauges. I bid you adieu!
Let me guess you work in a meat packing plant making bologna. There is no point in responding to you further. Just enjoy managing your elastic guns with your feeler gauges. I bid you adieu!
Well actually, not that it matters as some of the best gun mechanics never had any formal training , I'm a schooled gun mechanic that has been working in the trade continually, as a hobbyist, for over 40 years and have learned some things along the way from experience. One of the main things is that there is always more than one approach to any solution and finding the best that works for you is the target. Some others are that there is always something new to learn about every thing and no one knows it all but God.
 
The best way I've found to fix the shim thickness at the front of the arbor is to use a washer and to work down the thickness with regular old black grit paper. My double extra handy secret is how to hold such a little bitty thing and apply pressure against it while sanding it down. You need goodly pressure on it to take metal off and it's difficult to keep hold of.
The best tool I've found is a soft handle tooth brush, same as like the old one in the black powder cleaning box. Just press down with the end of the soft handle centered in the washer hole and you can take the metal down lickety split.
If I were to install and end block I think I would use glass bedding and release agent in the well end. This would give the closest form fit to the full arbor end and is removable. It will easily do the job as is seen in the glass bedding of recoil lugs and barrel roots in muzzle loaders.
 
I think I'm going to leave it unattached. It goes directly to where it is supposed to during assembly and comes back out when disassembling for cleaning. If I was going to attach it somewhere it would be to the end of the arbor. And maybe some day I will.
Like right after I lose the washer and have to make another one. 🤪
 
Wow! I am really impressed with your answer. Care to enlighten us? It ain't rocket surgery, and one does not have to be a machinist to use feeler gauges properly.

SMH.

Jim
In regard to revolver tuning, we use the feeler gauge to check cylinder gap at 3-6-9 and 12. You will find that they are almost without exception different and some times by quite a lot. Feel is the key word in the use of the gauge. Were looking for close slide fit without binding the gauge to a stop. Often times barrel cylinder gap will be out of a plane of parallel not only top and bottom but side to side or combination of both. This is quite normal with any revolver but especially true in open tops. When the light comes on in a chamber and the ball hits the forcing cone all of those carefully made measurements change and are not same any more. Even barrel torsion from bullet or ball spin has an effect on this gap shape. Where these tolerances allow the frame and barrel interface to end up under load determine accuracy and longevity.
It is almost impossible to use a feeler gauge to set wedge depth if the wedge has to be pounded into place. A method I use is to push the gauge in the gap then push the wedge in until snug, usually using a screw driver handle or pop cycle stick to lightly tap or push until the gauge blade indicates the proper tension. Simple and fast but not the only or even the best method, just one that works repeatedly well.
I must admit that often as not I just know where the wedge should be, the pressure required to get it there and eye ball the gap, but felt the correct and proper method should be explained for those interested.
 
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Guys i read responses about driving in the wedge, please do not drive the wedge in with a hammer. All you are doing is damaging the wedge and slot. Thumb pressure and maybe a light tap. If it loosens during your shooting session then press back in with thumb. Repeated driving in and driving out will damage the wedge and slot on these Italian and Spanish made revolvers. Their steel is not that hard.
DL
 
No it certainly isn't hard. Seeing the steel smooshed back on the side of a slot on used revolvers is common.
 
Yes to most of your Items. I shim the front of the arbor so it bottoms out in it's hole when the wedge is driven in leaving a .004" gap between the barrel and cylinder. Carefully file the mating surface where the bottom of the barrel mates with the frame to adjust for windage. Fine tune windage by filing the V in the hammer on one side. Install a taller front sight to bring point of impact to point of aim. Polish the nose of the sear and the full-cock notch in the hammer with a hard arkansas stone ( be VERY careful to not change angles!!). If there are rub marks on the side

You have to do all this to make it accurate? Seems the Remington salesmen may have had a point.
 
You have to do all this to make it accurate? Seems the Remington salesmen may have had a point.
I’ve always suggested running the gun, any gun, for a good while before making all of the “improvements” And “tuning” you’ll read about on the internet. Chances are really good that nothing besides load development will need to be done. This applies to cap and ball, cartridge guns, probably even ray guns should they become available...

I’ve noticed that internet hobbyists tend to fix their new toy first before even knowing if a problem exists. Something that professional gunmen don’t tend to do.

I’m not saying that the modifications have no value but that in many cases folks would be better served by investing time and money in powder and lead.
 
Last night and today was working on a 2013 production 1860 Pietta.
The trigger wouldn't work when I put it back together. Time after time.
The trigger spring is just short enough as slip off unless the hammer is in just the right position.
Put it together in just the right position and everything is OK.
First time I'd seen that particular hickup.
Any how, got the chambers beveled and polished, frame is all greased up inside.
I need another handful of .451's.
Might end up enlarging the opening beneath the loading ram. It's a little smallish.
 
As you found, the little flat 2 leaf spring can be installed two ways. If it is installed upside down, things don't work.
 
Oh, I didn't install it upside down. The trigger side of the spring is just short enough that it can slip off the step on the trigger while putting the gun together if the hammer is not in just the right spot. Made me crazy while I played with the magnifying glass for a while. Never had a "Colt" do that to me before. Once it's all together (assembled with the hammer rotated back to the right spot) then everything is hunky-dorie until it gets disassembled again.
 

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