doubleset
50 Cal.
I'm still experimenting with my new Crockett .32 rifle. It's going well, and I really like the gun, though there are one or two more things I need to fix with it. First among these is its terrible propensity to suck and tightly hold onto the fired cap in the hammer face. At this point, I have this down to what's just a persistent chore of freeing the cap with a pick or a knife blade or even fingernail. But I'd really like to get it so that the cap isn't getting stuck -- or at least stuck so tightly.
So far, what I've done is to smooth out and open up a the V notch a bit. This makes the stuck cap easier to get out, but it doesn't seem to affect the caps getting stuck in the hammer face more often than not. I've also smoothed out the interior of the hammer face with a stone. This seems to have resulted in some improvement in terms of how stuck the caps get, but it's still pulling the cap off the nipple and holding onto it. The rim of the hammer face does seem to have a minor (casting?) flaw in the bottom edge where it's just very slightly flattened on the inside and there's a VERY small shallow groove in the inside of the rim at that point. I'm a bit skeptical that this is the primary problem, but it may be.
I don't (and never have had) this problem with my Lyman GP rifle. One thing I noticed almost immediately with the Crockett is that while the diameter of the hammer face is about the same (within about half a mm) of the GP hammer face, the Crockett one is significantly deeper. Putting a depth gauge on it, the GP hammer face is about 2.9mm deep and the Crockett is about 4.2mm deep -- so the difference is 1.3mm, which seems like quite a bit (approaching a 50% depth increase over the GP face).
Any thoughts on why the face on the Crockett is so deep? I mic the percussion caps I'm currently using at 3.8mm tall. This means that they're in fact taller than the GP hammer face recess. And indeed, it you put an unfired cap into the GP hammer face, it sits proud of it by about 1mm. It certainly might explain the increase in the inclination of the Crockett to hold onto fired caps. But these differences vary with manufacturer. I mic my CCI #11 caps at 4.2mm (oddly the same height as the recess in the Crockett hammer face?). I'm wondering if Traditions doesn't view this as a "safety issue" and is attempting to provide hammers that "fully enclose" the percussion cap when it's fired. Of course, such a design is probably at least in part responsible for the V vent in the Traditions hammers -- which is missing in the case of the Lyman. I don't want to debate the potential safety question here, except to observe that it's very difficult to establish empirically and that Lyman (among others) has not seemed to have a problem with the alternative.
For my own part, I'm thinking that some careful and judicious filing of the face rim would (1) eliminate the minor casting flaw in it, and (2) maybe eliminate the cap sucking (possibly exacerbated by the "full enclosure" of the cap?). Has anyone out there done anything similar to this hammer (or to any other)?
So far, what I've done is to smooth out and open up a the V notch a bit. This makes the stuck cap easier to get out, but it doesn't seem to affect the caps getting stuck in the hammer face more often than not. I've also smoothed out the interior of the hammer face with a stone. This seems to have resulted in some improvement in terms of how stuck the caps get, but it's still pulling the cap off the nipple and holding onto it. The rim of the hammer face does seem to have a minor (casting?) flaw in the bottom edge where it's just very slightly flattened on the inside and there's a VERY small shallow groove in the inside of the rim at that point. I'm a bit skeptical that this is the primary problem, but it may be.
I don't (and never have had) this problem with my Lyman GP rifle. One thing I noticed almost immediately with the Crockett is that while the diameter of the hammer face is about the same (within about half a mm) of the GP hammer face, the Crockett one is significantly deeper. Putting a depth gauge on it, the GP hammer face is about 2.9mm deep and the Crockett is about 4.2mm deep -- so the difference is 1.3mm, which seems like quite a bit (approaching a 50% depth increase over the GP face).
Any thoughts on why the face on the Crockett is so deep? I mic the percussion caps I'm currently using at 3.8mm tall. This means that they're in fact taller than the GP hammer face recess. And indeed, it you put an unfired cap into the GP hammer face, it sits proud of it by about 1mm. It certainly might explain the increase in the inclination of the Crockett to hold onto fired caps. But these differences vary with manufacturer. I mic my CCI #11 caps at 4.2mm (oddly the same height as the recess in the Crockett hammer face?). I'm wondering if Traditions doesn't view this as a "safety issue" and is attempting to provide hammers that "fully enclose" the percussion cap when it's fired. Of course, such a design is probably at least in part responsible for the V vent in the Traditions hammers -- which is missing in the case of the Lyman. I don't want to debate the potential safety question here, except to observe that it's very difficult to establish empirically and that Lyman (among others) has not seemed to have a problem with the alternative.
For my own part, I'm thinking that some careful and judicious filing of the face rim would (1) eliminate the minor casting flaw in it, and (2) maybe eliminate the cap sucking (possibly exacerbated by the "full enclosure" of the cap?). Has anyone out there done anything similar to this hammer (or to any other)?
One of the projects this winter is to fit a new cylinder to it and time it correctly.
