Correcting Uberti Short Arbors?

D Yager said:

I can tell you from experience of working on these pistols that the arbor not being seated can turn a Walker or a Dragoon into a paperweight in short order. I have also corrected a few belt pistols as well that were shot with heavy loads and stretched the frame, it's a lot more common on the big horse pistols. Major Kudos to Bad Karma for finally bringing this into the light!! The stretched frame issue can be fixed but it does get a little labor intensive. I have yet to see a Walker wedge fail after the arbor is corrected. I do have one in a drawer in the shop that tried to fold itself in half, has a nice half moon shape in profile. The stretched frame issue shows up as an increased barrel/cylinder gap and a loose wedge that won't tighten no matter how much it gets pounded on. I just repaired a 2nd model Dragoon that all the classic signs of being shot with full house loads. The arbor was 3/8ths of an inch short, the wedge would fall out and it had a huge barrel to cylinder gap. It's a very accurate pistol and solid as a rock now that it's properly set up and the problems fixed.

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Dickydalton said:

Dave, Mike has been saying that all along but MDL and pals vehemently deny it and then forget they did.

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D Yager said:

I can tell you from experience of working on these pistols that the arbor not being seated can turn a Walker or a Dragoon into a paperweight in short order. I have also corrected a few belt pistols as well that were shot with heavy loads and stretched the frame, it's a lot more common on the big horse pistols. Major Kudos to Bad Karma for finally bringing this into the light!! The stretched frame issue can be fixed but it does get a little labor intensive. I have yet to see a Walker wedge fail after the arbor is corrected. I do have one in a drawer in the shop that tried to fold itself in half, has a nice half moon shape in profile. The stretched frame issue shows up as an increased barrel/cylinder gap and a loose wedge that won't tighten no matter how much it gets pounded on. I just repaired a 2nd model Dragoon that all the classic signs of being shot with full house loads. The arbor was 3/8ths of an inch short, the wedge would fall out and it had a huge barrel to cylinder gap. It's a very accurate pistol and solid as a rock now that it's properly set up and the problems fixed.

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M. De Land said:

assume grown men have stones enough to stand their ground without wetting their depends ! If we dish it out we ought to be able take the incoming !

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Sorry Dude said:

This is my new Uberti 1851 with the arbor fully bottomed out on the barrel. From what I have read this should be good to go, does this look correct? Did I get a unicorn?

View attachment 366889View attachment 366890View attachment 366891

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hawkeye2 said:

This thread has degenerated to hurling childish insults at one another and seemingly to feed the egos of some members. This drags the forum to a new low and has nothing to do with the original subject nor the purpose of the Muzzleloading Forum. I am respectfully requesting a moderator to lock this thread and possibly delete some of the posts. Asking someone to simply disregard certain posts is not a solution, the posts should not be here for the membership to see. Personal disagreements like this can be done with PMs (messages) and kept from sight or by meeting in a honky tonk on a Saturday night.

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45D said:

No.
That test doesn't work.
How about driving the wedge in and see if the cylinder locks up?

Mike

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45D said:

Let's not lock it.
I'm too busy to respond in "kind" right now.
All one really needs to do is read over the first part of this thread to see why some have responded like they have.

Mike

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Sorry Dude said:

Cylinder lock up is fine, I don't have any problems other than cap jams. Just wondering if my arbor looks good or not. Any other tests that might be more effective.

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Sorry Dude said:

Cylinder lock up is fine, I don't have any problems other than cap jams. Just wondering if my arbor looks good or not. Any other tests that might be more effective.

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45D said:

See, the wedge in "Beauty and the Beast" is in as far as it can go
View attachment 366950
The arbor won't allow the barrel assy to move back any farther. Endshake is @ .002" .

Mike

PS no, I'm not working on B&B, I brought it back out just to take this pic.

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Sorry Dude said:

So I should overdrive the wedge in as far as it will go, and I should still be able to rotate the cylinder when half c0cked?

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French Colonial said:

Just shoot it...

I have a Uberti 1851 Navy that I bought from Dixie and right out of the box it shoots round balls great, conicals not so much.
I have shot pistols in competition and the Navy shoots very well. Give your pistol a chance and you may be surprised without worrying about what others "think" you need.

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45D said:

Yep.
If you can't rotate the cylinder, the arbor is short. That's not necessarily a "perfect" test but it's a mostly common tell tale. A less destructive test would be to drop a thin washer down the arbor hole and assemble the revolver. If you can, the arbor is short.

Mike

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