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I finally took my Pietta 1860 Army out for its inaugural range trip, today, and I was thoroughly impressed with how it did. The range I visited had target stand mounts staked into the ground at 50 feet, and I figured out the best hold-under to get the desired POI. Windage was dead on.
I was pleased with the results and had no failures of caps to detonate. However, when I was on my third cylinder, I went to cock the hammer after firing the second shot, and the hammer/cylinder wouldn't budge. I thought to myself, "No, the infamous cap jam couldn't have just happened so soon!" I went ahead and pulled the wedge, and after removing the barrel and cylinder, the action functioned with absolutely no issues, so it wasn't a cap jam. I reassembled the weapon, ensuring that the capped chambers weren't going to align with the hammer as I seated the barrel, and I had no further issues.
The same thing happened on my fourth cylinder after the third shot. In fact, I pulled the hammer back to put it to half-cock as soon as I had the wedge out and before I'd moved to pull the barrel off.
One thing I'd done with the fourth cylinder was to remove spent caps as soon as I cocked the hammer after firing so as to ensure that none of them were binding when they rotated across the bottom part of the recoil shield, so I can pretty confidently state that cap fragments weren't the culprits.
Has anyone ever had this happen with one of their 1860s? What causes this to happen, and how can it be prevented?
I was pleased with the results and had no failures of caps to detonate. However, when I was on my third cylinder, I went to cock the hammer after firing the second shot, and the hammer/cylinder wouldn't budge. I thought to myself, "No, the infamous cap jam couldn't have just happened so soon!" I went ahead and pulled the wedge, and after removing the barrel and cylinder, the action functioned with absolutely no issues, so it wasn't a cap jam. I reassembled the weapon, ensuring that the capped chambers weren't going to align with the hammer as I seated the barrel, and I had no further issues.
The same thing happened on my fourth cylinder after the third shot. In fact, I pulled the hammer back to put it to half-cock as soon as I had the wedge out and before I'd moved to pull the barrel off.
One thing I'd done with the fourth cylinder was to remove spent caps as soon as I cocked the hammer after firing so as to ensure that none of them were binding when they rotated across the bottom part of the recoil shield, so I can pretty confidently state that cap fragments weren't the culprits.
Has anyone ever had this happen with one of their 1860s? What causes this to happen, and how can it be prevented?