Why are others always tweaking with their guns?

To the OP, this question, like most can divide us neatly into two camps. Those who say “it works just fine”, and those who say “I can make it better”. I don’t think one personality type is superior here. One tinkers. One doesn’t. Oftentimes the nontinkerer misses out on a gun’s potential, and the tinkerer has to order replacement parts....

Woodnbow said:

I suspect the latter. For the most part I am like you, shoot the things for a,while until you know it needs to be “fixed”. I have done some work on some guns, and had others worked on but only after running it as normal first.

Click to expand...

For the most part I think you are right. Have a friend that has to fix what ever he buys. I always tell he has to be the most unlucky guy around. We buy the same things and my always works out of the box.
But I think here is the difference, I shoot just for fun and fill the dinner plate once in a while. So out of the box gun is fine for me. But if I was big in the shooting sports then I could see fine turning.

Half -at least- of the fun of shooting cap and ball guns is the myriad things one can do to improve the piece to your own contentment. This is an area that separates the modern shooter from the traditional. You would think the modern shooter would relish the time spent in tweaking an old hogleg and learning what our ancestors did out of need that we can take our sweet time with and enjoy. But no, he lives in a world controlled by a time clock, dates, figures, the rush of traffic, demands of job and home, et cetera. Give him a sub-machine gun and it will perhaps satisfy his rush if he can afford the time to learn it's idiosyncracies, to say nothing of ammo cost! We Few, we happy Few, who have burst the mind strangling modern age if only in our choice of and mastering of antique weaponry, live in that free -although cloudy- atmosphere that only black powder smoke can provide! How blessed we are to be endowed with the wisdom and weapons of our forefathers; to share a tangible evidence of their existence and even perfect ourselves in that discipline of recreation by working on and sometimes making our own guns and equipment. Give me a simple smokepole or primitive revolver and turn me loose! Geo.

TNGhost said:

Tweaking and modification are nothing new. Many famous gun carriers "back in the day" had their favorite gunsmiths and modifications. Modified grips action tunings, reduction in size for carry, were all common during the period when cap and ball was the cutting edge technology.

Click to expand...

Exactly so. People don't change, but the technology does.

JamesT said:

An original pistol would be good to go as one would expect. An Italian repro is more made to sell than to shoot. Lucky if you have an Italian made pistol that can perform after you tinker with the action as required

Click to expand...

My understanding is that the metallurgy in today's pistols is superior to the originals. I certainly don't consider Uberti and Pietta, awl-hangers.

RB POWELL said:

My understanding is that the metallurgy in today's pistols is superior to the originals. I certainly don't consider Uberti and Pietta, awl-hangers.

Click to expand...

Pieta, are not wall-hangers (correcting the misspellings.

I fiddle with rifles a whole lot, just to get that good off-hand group. My pistols are caplock PRB handguns, a Belt Pistol, and a Pocket Pistol, just good plinkers, IMO. I'm not a revolver guy, too much powder, ball, and caps for my budget ! Tinhorn

Tweeking your latest shootin' iron ??? Yea , out of necessity. Since I'm 74 yrs. old w/eyes unable to see the target , front sight , or rear sight clearly , changed the front sight to slightly thicker blade ... Made a tang rear sight w/ 3/8" diameter post , screwed to the tang down through the post, so screw head's invisible. Dovetailed the piece of a Lyman receiver sight that holds the aperture into the tang -mounted post. It's magic... I can see both front sight ,and target. Back in business. Target most visible to me is a 3" florescent orange duct tape square at 50 yd.s. . This peep sight might not meet requirements for target shooting competition matches , but show me a deer. Lets make some meat.... oldwood

MarkItZero said:

But why are people always talking about fixing timing and doing action jobs, trigger jobs, teaming cylinders?

Click to expand...

Because we can.

You’re probably not experienced enough to know the difference, just being honest. It comes with time.

Some insight perhaps , is due , on "why give a hoot about trying to perfect something."
If you're doing work for yourself , the result is perhaps all the pay you get. If you're doing for someone else , personally , you don't give someone something you wouldn't use yourself. For me , I enjoy working w/m/l guns , building them , making them shoot accurately , and reliably each time they are used. I also can't deny , it is a therapy to make up for doing a job I hated for 41 years just to make money. Life is short, do good things , and take a little for yourself. Oh yea , go shootin' often... oldwood

Smokey Plainsman said:

You’re probably not experienced enough to know the difference, just being honest. It comes with time.

Click to expand...

WHO?

when my revolvers and my muzzleloaders and my buffalo type rifles are set up they have no need to be tweeked anymore. they shoot consitanly good. guys monkey with guns because they want to or they dont know how to set them up in the first place. one or the other.

Cattman said:

when my revolvers and my muzzleloaders and my buffalo type rifles are set up they have no need to be tweeked anymore. they shoot consitanly good. guys monkey with guns because they want to or they dont know how to set them up in the first place. one or the other.

Click to expand...

Impressive that you can set a gun up and it will have no need to be tweaked anymore. I find that with my guns that parts wear and break, components being used change (percussion caps for example) from lot to lot and from one manufacturer to another, etc. Maybe you could put on a ‘set it and forget it’ clinic for the less knowledgeable.

The reason cylinder chamber mouths have different and some times out of round diameters is because they are simultaneously gang reamed in a six position fixture. Each of the reamers has a plus and minus tolerance after they are repeatedly sharpened before they are replaced. These reamer tolerances the industry allows and excepts as safe practice is the reason for the inconsistencies. The same is true of the gang boring of the holes before they reach the reaming stage. The combination of tolerance allowance is what shows up in your finished hand gun.

Sdsmif, it would be fun for me but time consuming. as for your request, it was done with sarcasim and i will not become a part of that. keep tweeking, i dont have to.

Cattman said:

Sdsmif, it would be fun for me but time consuming. as for your request, it was done with sarcasim and i will not become a part of that. keep tweeking, i dont have to.

Click to expand...

Understand you don’t have to tweak your guns, though that is a broad statement. When I was shooting cap and ball revolvers in SASS I rarely got 200 rounds through any Pietta or Uberti without a component wearing or breaking to the point where the gun was down and needing some tweaking. Take one of your tunes traditional revolvers and put 1000 rounds through it as fast as you can pull the trigger and report back. Would be interested to know how many shots you get before a mechanical breakdown, jamb or fail to fire.

Interesting that when shooting the modern designed Rugers, they would run thousands of rounds with nothing more than proper cleaning. With no tweaking, and just as received from Ruger. Not a fair to compare to a traditional design.

SDSmlf said:

Understand you don’t have to tweak your guns, though that is a broad statement. When I was shooting cap and ball revolvers in SASS I rarely got 200 rounds through any Pietta or Uberti without a component wearing or breaking to the point where the gun was down and needing some tweaking. Take one of your tunes traditional revolvers and put 1000 rounds through it as fast as you can pull the trigger and report back. Would be interested to know how many shots you get before a mechanical breakdown, jamb or fail to fire.

Interesting that when shooting the modern designed Rugers, they would run thousands of rounds with nothing more than proper cleaning. With no tweaking, and just as received from Ruger. Not a fair to compare to a traditional design.

Click to expand...

It’d be interesting to see how the Colt open top design would fare if built by Ruger of modern Materials.

oldwood said:

Tweeking your latest shootin' iron ??? Yea , out of necessity. Since I'm 74 yrs. old w/eyes unable to see the target , front sight , or rear sight clearly , changed the front sight to slightly thicker blade ... Made a tang rear sight w/ 3/8" diameter post , screwed to the tang down through the post, so screw head's invisible. Dovetailed the piece of a Lyman receiver sight that holds the aperture into the tang -mounted post. It's magic... I can see both front sight ,and target. Back in business. Target most visible to me is a 3" florescent orange duct tape square at 50 yd.s. . This peep sight might not meet requirements for target shooting competition matches , but show me a deer. Lets make some meat.... oldwood

Click to expand...

Yeah Buddy, I'm challenged physically and can relate! My vision is 20/60 in my right (shooting) eye, and still 20/20 in my left. My brother had a pair of special glasses made which involved having the focus point of his right eye interpolated into the lens as he held a rifle at the shoulder. The optometrist thought it a little weird, until he saw Tiny's match targets and the results of his seeing clearly, along with his Marine training years before.

Woodnbow said:

It’d be interesting to see how the Colt open top design would fare if built by Ruger of modern Materials.

Click to expand...

The typical problems I had with the open tops, both Pietta and Uberti, has been the paw spring breaking (have an original 1858 with a broken paw spring right now) and the soft steel in the cylinders peening where the stop comes up. I actually have a tool to clean the pocket up after each use. For the paw spring you can replace it with a Ruger style plunger and spring, then they seem to last ‘forever’. SASS is really hard on the guns because of the speed you are running them at, or at least for my guns.