One thing leads to another.

[Ed C.]

On my Pietta 1851 Navy I increased the tension of the bolt tail spring against the hammer to help prevent it from slipping off to the side of the cam and cutting it. Evidently that slowed down the hammer drop as I started to get one or two caps not going off on the first hit each cylinder. So I bent the mainspring to provide a better whack to the caps. For now that seems to be working. Only one misfire in 24 today and that was a cap that had no charge. Just waiting now to see if the mainspring will break where it was bent. Anyway a new spring is on the way.

 

[45D]

On my Pietta 1851 Navy I increased the tension of the bolt tail spring against the hammer to help prevent it from slipping off to the side of the cam and cutting it. Evidently that slowed down the hammer drop as I started to get one or two caps not going off on the first hit each cylinder. So I bent the mainspring to provide a better whack to the caps. For now that seems to be working. Only one misfire in 24 today and that was a cap that had no charge. Just waiting now to see if the mainspring will break where it was bent. Anyway a new spring is on the way.

Shorten the cam height a little and Polish it.

Mike

 

[M. De Land]

On my Pietta 1851 Navy I increased the tension of the bolt tail spring against the hammer to help prevent it from slipping off to the side of the cam and cutting it. Evidently that slowed down the hammer drop as I started to get one or two caps not going off on the first hit each cylinder. So I bent the mainspring to provide a better whack to the caps. For now that seems to be working. Only one misfire in 24 today and that was a cap that had no charge. Just waiting now to see if the mainspring will break where it was bent. Anyway a new spring is on the way.

The main thing is to radius all square edges and smooth them with sand paper. Work out any scratches or file cuts that are cross ways to the leaf of the spring and blend width and thickness areas leaving no abrupt boundaries.
Purchase holes should be lightly chamfered on both sides and as large of a headed purchase screw used as possible as this area is where most springs fail. Making a thin washer to go under the head of the screw will work if there is room and enough screw thread for it. This extends the screw head compression over a larger foot print on the spring body.
These techniques help to get the whole spring body working instead of only choke/thin points and high stress areas.
I don't care for cast springs as a rule and prefer making my own of 1095 certified spring stock I buy from Brownell's. This is a good option for folks getting started in fixing there own guns. It hardens and tempers very easily and consistently.