62 Uberti police

[M. De Land]

Well, found the problem and it wasn't what I figured.
The pawl/hand had been poorly fit at Uberti leaving the inside corner sharp as a razor and over time it had imprinted a ledge in the corner of three ratchet teeth at the bottom where it begins it's push upward. The trouble tooth was the highest fit and when the imprinted ledge got deep enough the hand nose would not slide around any longer and would hang up right there locking the gun.
Pulled the gun down and went through the hole nine yards of cleaning lubing and stoning corners on the bolt,hand and ratchet teeth.
Using my four sided swiss file with one narrow side safed I cut the buggers out and re-profiled the corners on all five at the bottom and lowered the bolt contact.
Next the inside corner of the hand tooth was radius-ed and the sharp point rounded,slicked up with emery and all is well in Potsville! Cycles like she ought to now.
Will need to pull the bolt at some point and TIG in a bit of material on top the cross screw hole as one is cracked through and the other pretty thin.
This is from the factory for sure. No one had been inside doing any filing and the gun has been well taken care of.
The front sight was replaced and I will probably make another as it is homelier than a mud fence.
This gun was made my Uberti for Navy Arms and has a 6.5 inch barrel.
Cylinder alignment is off a few thousands to one side but all five are the same. It should shoot fine hopefully.







MD

 

[M. De Land]

Oh, the cylinder exterior is rebated but the chambers are straight.
Trigger pull is about 1.5 pound and breaks quite clean for a factory gun. I couldn't see that the hammer notches or trigger nose had been hookiebooed with.
The gun was completely dry inside sans any lube but a fair amount of congealed oil.
Looks like one of those guns the grips are pulled off and it's put in the dish washer. Pretty clean but dryer than a pop corn toot.
P.S. in the second picture from the bottom you can see the step the sharp hand point imprinted in the corner. I couldn't safely remove it all but was able to file and stone out enough to make the nose slide over smoothly.
Pulled my 60 apart to get a look and the corner profile which is the same and used it for a pattern. Filing ratchets causes one to age rapidly. MD :rotf:

 

[M. De Land]

Front sight looks like rudder on a sail boat! :rotf: MD

 

[Wes/Tex]

Rudder is right! Figure out what the front sight height needs to be for this gun and round the sight blade to a half-circle with that height. About the quickest fix and should look kosher! :thumbsup:

 

[M. De Land]

The dove tail is done well in the barrel and I will make another front sight to take advantage of it soon as I settle on a shape conducive to this gun and still effective for sight picture. Although dovetailed sights are not traditional to this gun they are considered a custom touch to hand guns in general and allow far more latitude in sight selection with the added benefit of allowing windage adjustment.
The rear sight notch filed in the nose of the hammer is square and may need to be widened a bit more as well.
I think over all it was certainly worth 125.00 and a few hours of work to time it and fix the buggers in the ratchet. MD

 

[M. De Land]

From what I can deduce after working the gun over about the cause of the problems I would have to say the hand length and sharpness and a bit of bolt drop retardation were the culprits responsible for the cyclical failure.
In the side shot of the cylinder bolt mortices one can see the shine on the back side corner indicating a bit of contact with the bolt not clearing before rotation initiation.
I both shortened the bolt height and the nose of the hand a bit for better clearance and retarding rotation just a smidgen. Once the ratchet teeth were cleaned up and re-profiled the gun cycled correctly. MD

 

[M. De Land]

Can some one post a picture of what the front sight on these look like. Trying to decide on a blade or pin mount in the dove tail.
I will probably make the sight one piece of steel and perhaps a brass inlay on the face. These show up good on overcast days or in the alder brush.
Kicking around the notion of perhaps a pin in a dovetail block rather than a blade.
Down side for a pin is that the sight height removed was .350 from bottom of dovetail and that would make a pretty tall pin I'm thinking. MD

 

[Zonie]

My Uberti made Colt 1862 Police model has a small .078 spherical bead for a front sight.

This seems to be in agreement with the photos of original Colt 1862 Police models shown in R.L.Wilson's book, "*C*O*L*T* AN AMERICAN LEGEND" which all are made with a small spherical bead.

To my way of thinking, the small bead makes sense because the pistol is more likely to be pointed rather than aimed at an assailant by an officer making a large accurate sight unnecessary.

That said, anything you do to put some usable sights on it won't be HC so go ahead and do whatever you like best.

 

[M. De Land]

Yeah,good point! I'll take a look at some custom guns in Bowlens book and see if I can get some ideas appropriate for this little gun. MD

 

[M. De Land]

Well, this is what I came up with. Needs sighted in then I'll rust blue it and install permanently. Took about three hours to mill it out of bar stock and file to shape and dimensions. Left it .030 higher than the one that it came with.


Top view of the skirt I put on it to give it a little different look from above the barrel.

You definitely would not want to stuff this barrel sight in the front of your pants and make a quick draw. The blade is right at .078 and shows good light through the hammer notch. MD

 

[M. De Land]

Jim, what is you load for the .36 police? Mike D.

 

[swathdiver]

You didn't ask me but we shoot 15-18 grains in our ASM with .380 round ball, the chambers are .374.

 

[M. De Land]

Thanks, appreciate the info. Hopefully will get to sight it in tomorrow and needed a starting range as I have no experience with a .36 cap-n-ball.
I think that sight is going to look pretty good on there when it's blued and set. Mike D.

 

[Zonie]

19-20 grains of 3Fg under a .375 diameter lead roundball. No underwad.

Works for me. :grin:

 

[M. De Land]

This is the final configuration of the new front sight after sighting in, bluing and installing.
Had to cut it nearly half way down to get it near vertically adjusted.
The little guns seems to want to group nicely from the sand bags. Got a new set of stainless nipples and a wrench coming so should be pretty well set up now.


The starting height:

 

[M. De Land]

It shot really well with 20 grains of 3F Goex and my what a report out of the little gal!
Sounded rather like a .44 wannabe! :grin: MD

 

[torn moc]

Most Surprising :grin: isn't it !

 

[M. De Land]

Well, five new stainless nipples and a wrench to install them with showed up today. They fit superbly and it looks like the little gun is ready for action.
Bought it mostly because it was a .36 and was curious as to what was wrong inside. Thought I would get a chance to fix it up, learn something and have some good trading fodder for a 51 in .36 but the little gun is going to be hard to part with me thinks. Especially if it will shoot like it seemed to want to the first time out.
I am acutely sensitive to chamber alignment in revolvers I buy and knew this was out a few thousands from the get go so it will be of interest to me to see if I can get it to shoot anyway.
I have seen this before in other revolvers I have worked on and test fired. Some of them didn't seem to care and yet the most accurate are always near perfectly aligned so am always curious about finding out why some misalignment doesn't seem to matter much in some guns and a great deal in others. My guess is probably that the ones that shot well had the same amount of misalignment for each chamber, which this gun does. Time and test will tell the story! MD

 

[M. De Land]

Just got back from the range and the sight is correct for a six o'clock hold at 25 yards with a 20 grain charge of 3F.
Am happy with the sight looks and performance but the ratchet does not seem quite correct yet as the cylinder will not cycle on it's own after the first round of fouling gets in it.
All my other revolvers will get to the point where they will quite cycling after several cylinders full if not wiped/brushed out but not after the first one.
What I really need is to get a look at one that functions correctly when fouled up if one exists. Mike D.

 

[AZbpBurner]

You got a heck of a deal. I got a 62 a while back & was disappointed by Uberti's lack of craftsmanship in putting mine together. The nipples were all too short - enough that the hammer hit the frame before impacting the cap on the nipple. New Ampco nipples cured that problem.

Next problem is that tiny little cone-shaped bead front sight - it fires about 10" high. I really like your blade front sight.

Next, the cylinder is a little outta round - one section between flutes lightly rubs against the frame.


Over all I'd have been happy with mine at YOUR price, but at even the sale price with over $60 off, Uberti kinda screwed the pooch on this 1962's quality.