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Cylinder lock up

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Treestalker

Treestalker
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Well, I took out the 1851 Pietta 'Confederate' brasser .44 'sheriff' and fired 5 chambers without a hitch, came in and upon cycling the action it froze up on the 4th chamber. No hammer travel, bolt locked up no cylinder turn, what the :cursing: I had gently stoned the burrs off the insides of this like new gun, and it cycled fine and smooth, excellent timing and lock up. I realize this is probably a hand/bolt problem, but I hesitate to tackle it without knowing exactly what to do. Took the cylinder off and on, it worked fine and then locked up again. I marked that chamber and sure enough, it did it again on that chamber. It has shown a tendency to freeze on adjacent chambers, so I need advice gentlemen. Any Ideas? Thanks, George.
 
Totally disassemble the lockwork on the gun.

If no chunks of fouling, or cap fragments are found, it means one of the recessses that the pawl engages on the rear of the cylinder is not machined or located properly.

Unless you can find someone who knows what they are doing to do the repair for free, or at least cheap, get a new gun.
A steel-framed one.
 
Sounds to me like a burr was raised on the ratchet star from cycling the fouled cylinder.
It probably needs filed but this is not something you want to do without experience.
Take it to a revolver smith who has a good reputation.
 
The reason I caution is because ratchet stars are tricky to tune and if you file the wrong surface to much you will need a new cylinder.
If it is obvious then just make it match a neighbor ratchet tooth that you know works correctly.
Make sure the hand spring is working correctly as well and there is no burr on the hand nose.
 
It does not sound like you have a complex problem. Since the gun functioned fine prior to firing and the problem only surfaced after fouled and is as you state ties up on the 4th chamber but slightly hangs up on the others. It sounds like your hand is slightly too long. Probably by as little as .001 to .003 inch. Worked ok until the fouling cut down on the free movement of the cylinder. The fact that it now slightly ties up on 5 chambers and completely on one indicates there may be a tiny burr on one ratchet tooth or it may be as little as .0005 thicker than the others but still well within tolerance. The problem is with the hand tear it all down and take two or three light file strokes off the top of the hand and I believe it will work fine even when fouled.
 
The thing to remember is that when you shorten the hand/pawal it effects the rest of the ratchet teeth as well so what you want is to fit the hand for reliable pick up on the shortest ratchet tooth when the gun is fouled and then adjust the rest of the teeth to the same pick up.
Hands are usually softer and are supposed to wear rather then the ratchet star but this is not always the case. When you find burrs on the star teeth from pick up while cycling a fouled action it means the hand was harder. Which ever one burrs is the softer steel.
One of the first things to do with a new revolver is to remove the cylinder and set it up right on a fine flat wet stone or diamond file and give it a couple of revolutions, front and back. This will remove a lot of burrs from machining and will make the star at the rear and the cylinder mouths at the front perfectly flat and square to the recoil shield and barrel face, assuming the action hole and or the barrel group is co-axial.
I then go ahead and lightly chamfer/break the bolt notch edge corners and the bolt nose corners as well. Only the edge corners on both you do not want to change the width on either.
While your at it check the back side of each notch in the cylinder for bolt drag. This happens when the hand is trying to turn the cylinder before the bolt nose fully clears the notch.
 
treestalker said:
Well, I took out the 1851 Pietta 'Confederate' brasser .44 'sheriff' and fired 5 chambers without a hitch, came in and upon cycling the action it froze up on the 4th chamber. No hammer travel, bolt locked up no cylinder turn, what the :cursing: I had gently stoned the burrs off the insides of this like new gun, and it cycled fine and smooth, excellent timing and lock up. I realize this is probably a hand/bolt problem, but I hesitate to tackle it without knowing exactly what to do. Took the cylinder off and on, it worked fine and then locked up again. I marked that chamber and sure enough, it did it again on that chamber. It has shown a tendency to freeze on adjacent chambers, so I need advice gentlemen. Any Ideas? Thanks, George.
If this is a new gun I would return it for another one - why mess with it :hmm: - it has a problem and is under warranty unless you just like to play with it and waste your time and money :v
 
Well thanks again guys, I have found and removed some horrible burrs on the cylinder ratchets, no good. I then gently stoned the hand and spring and bolt upper edges and still no go. I then restoned every internal part and achieved a go, but once in a while I get a mild hammer hang up and then free up and everything works. At this point it looks like it will wear in and be ok. I still don't know for sure, but I believe the hand may be bit too long, fighting to turn the cylinder against the bolt. I notice if I push down on the hammer a bit it frees right up now, like maybe an extension on the bolt is hanging up a bit on the hammer cam. Hopefully things will straighten up and fly right. Thanks again guys, shoot straight, George.
 
So, if the hand seems to be the problem (and to me it does), why not lightly stone the small flat on the working end just a bit?
Just be sure to keep the same, original angle on the little surface when you do it.

Using a fine grit whet-stone it would take considerable work to remove too much material and removing just a little might be just the thing to fix the problem.
 
I'll have to disagree with your appraisal Jim. The hand may need a bit of shortening but is the one consistent in all of this. If it feels different on different ratchet teeth than the teeth need to be adjusted to the hand nose first. If you shorten the hand first it will likely be to short on the lowest tooth in the star after they are cleaned up.
The final hand length is adjusted last after the teeth engagement is de-burred and made equal using the thumb drag test to make sure it will still pick up smoothly on all teeth, even when fouled.
One thing to "not do" is to force the revolver when heavily fouled. Take it down and clean it out!
If in the field you can help the cylinder rotation by hand so as not to over stress the hand or ratchet teeth.
 
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