My arbor has a hole in it???

[vintovka]

Any chance that's a threaded or press fit plug??

Bingo!!

 

[Columbus]

Well, fixing the arbor length will keep this from happening . . .
View attachment 110007

So, it's worth doing, but even more so you'll have the same revolver every time you assemble it.
Somebody here made a comment about barrel harmonics when I had mentioned that the arbor, barrel connection allowed the harmonics of both assemblies to act as one rather than one rattling the other to pieces . . . It's actually fairly high end design but we are so dumbed down "they didn't know what they were doing" back then . . . "they" would run rings around the "smart ones" today lol !!!

So, that's why you need to finish it, it's not hard, I even gave ya step by step . . .
When you drive the wedge in, the barrel assy is being pulled (under great tension) AGAINST the end of the arbor so the "above pictured" CAN'T happen.

Mike

Did some rough measuring tonight. Using a dowel approximately the same diameter as the arbor I measured and marked the depth of the arbor hole. Putting that dowel against the arbor I found that it aligns perfectly with a machined mark on the arbor where the barrel and cylinder meet when assembled. What keeps the arbor from bottoming out is the forcing cone, it's exactly that much short, .18 inches +-

 

[45D]

The problem is, all the measuring in the world for this spacer goes out the window when the applied tension (from the wedge) is added.
On another forum folks got in a tizzy arguing that "finger tight", "just thumb pressure" is all you need. Well . . . it isn't . Colt's own instructions say to "drive the wedge (actually " key") in and drive it out. That's not "finger tight".
So, a quick little experiment with my Dragoons proved that just finger tight the barrel/cylinder clearance was roughly .0035" - .004" for both. When driven in (plastic faced machinist hammer) they both exhibited a snug .002" endshake . . . which is what they are set to. You can't remove all the available clearance in the arbor /arbor hole with just "finger tight".

Columbus, sounds like you're getting there . . .

Mike