Off-center hammer?

Hi everyone,

Just got my first muzzleloader today, a .54 cal Lyman Great Plains Rifle. After taking it out of the box, which seemed to be damaged, I noticed that the hammer doesn't hit the nipple square. It seems sometimes the edge of the hammer will actually hit the edge of the nipple. I did however successfully fire two caps without a problem. Upon examining one of the caps it looked like there was a pinch mark on the edge of the cap where the hammer and nipple came in contact. I'm wondering if this is something I need to fix right away or if it is okay to take out firing?

Thanks for your time

I have fired many locks with the same problem. I haven't had any accuracy or safety issues with them. They discharged just fine. I had to fix them just because the off-center situation bothered me.

HH 60

Mines a little off also,howd you fix it?

Torch.

Welcome to the forum!

If you have a propane torch, mapp gas is better. Take it off and put it in a vise, heat it up and adjust the bend.

Before bending the hammer, loosen the lock bolt and try repositioning the lock. Put the hammer down on the nipple with the lock bolt loose, hold the hammer centered on the nipple as you tighten the bolt. Sometimes a slight adjustment of the lock inletting with a little judicial wood scraping is all that's needed.

I agree with seeing if the lock can be repositioned before doing anything more drastic.

If the hammer is a little too far out towards the side or a little too far towards the barrel it can easily be fixed by removing the lock and doing a little scraping on the locating surfaces of the locks mortise.
Sometimes a tiny little change can move the hammers nose quite a bit.

If the hammer noseseems to be too far forward or aft, it can take a bit more work to adjust it.

:hatsoff: Remove the hammer put it in a vise heat it with the propane tank and bend it slightly. Worked just fine for me!

Thanks for the great info on fixing the off-center hammer. I will likely try and fix it soon, but I think I'm gonna take it out shooting tomorrow and see what happens. I'll keep you guys updated on both of the situations.

I look forward to contributing to the forums more,
B

People seem to think first of bending the hammer and that is an obvious solution. But if you think about it, those hammers are cast by the thousands and it's very unlikely that your hammer is any different from the thousands of others. The difference is in the inleting of the wood. A small paper shim between lock plate and wood at the top or bottom will shift the hammer outward or inward. You may then want to remove wood from the inlet to correct the alignment or you may just glue the shim in place and leave it, sort of "out of sight out of mind".
If you do decide to bend the hammer it's not always so easy to do as to say. Some hammers can be cold bent just a bit but others will snap off before bending at all. It's far safer to heat the hammer to a dull red before attempting to bend and a propane torch won't do it. It also may take a few tries before you get the bend just right. You only need about 1/8" of correction to bring it to center and it's easy to over compensate. Even if you get it right on the first attempt there will be heat discoloration and perhaps scale from the heating. I have bent a few hammers but I consider it a last resort, re-working the inlet is much safer and easier and nothing will show when it's done.

One final update for you guys. Took the GPR out shooting yesterday and to little surprise I had quite a few misfires with it. Nevertheless, when it did go off it was fairly accurate and probably the most fun I ever had shooting, it was surely an attention grabber at the range. Looks like I'm gonna have to fix it and I'm thinking the paper shim method would be a good starting point.

B

Paper shim will let you down in wet weather. I have bent about all of mine and CJ is right I could not do it with propane. I used a torch and just did it. On one rifle I wanted to try bending the part that my thumb is on to clear my Lyman peep sight. I like that a lot and plan to do the others. This is one I did for my Hawken. Ron