Bending a hammer

[TarponStalker]

Hi folks. This may not be an issue but now that I’ve noticed it I have to make sure it’s not or it’ll drive me crazy looking at it.
I built this .54 cap gun over 20 years ago. It’s always been a good shooter and I don’t remember having many misfires due to caps not going off. But it has happened. I rarely shoot it as I mainly use my flintlocks.
I recently noticed the hammer doesn’t hit squarely on the nipple. Hopefully you can see this in the photos. I don’t think it’s off far enough for a cap to block the hammer from falling completely but I’d sure like to move it just a tiny bit to make sure.
For you metallurgists out there, can I bend the hammer slight enough in a vise without breaking it or must I heat it? Or should I get out my dremel tool and knock off a small bit from the inside cup?

 

[Jim]

Might be “safer” to just file a slight angle on the nipple.

 

[Flintlock]

Can't remember if it's right or not but a couple times I've had to put them in a vice and give them a little love tap before to get them to center.

 

[waarp8nt]

I have bent a couple by doing the following; Remove the hammer, place the hole area in a vise, heat the neck area to red with torch, bend as needed, then allow to cool before removing from the vise. I like to use and adjustable wrench sized down to fit just over the cup area so I have some control over the bend.

 

[bore_butter]

i had to bend the hammers on my tc hawken and seneca couple years ago. did the vice thing and heated to lighter cherry red and used a cresent wrench to bend it and just eyeballed where it needed to be. misted H2O on it after the bend and luckily got them perfect and they are holding up well.

 

[Old Hawkeye]

You will have much better control & be able to more precisely bend it if you heat it til red with a torch. Looks like you just need to twist the end a tad. Easier to square up the cup in both axes, as well. Banging with a hammer is the "bubba" method. Your choice.

 

[R Ellis]

No more than yours is off you should be ok to bend it without heating it . I just did one this week that was off just about the same as yours it was very easy to do and now is perfect JMO

 

[Billy Boy]

Hi folks. This may not be an issue but now that I’ve noticed it I have to make sure it’s not or it’ll drive me crazy looking at it.
I built this .54 cap gun over 20 years ago. It’s always been a good shooter and I don’t remember having many misfires due to caps not going off. But it has happened. I rarely shoot it as I mainly use my flintlocks.
I recently noticed the hammer doesn’t hit squarely on the nipple. Hopefully you can see this in the photos. I don’t think it’s off far enough for a cap to block the hammer from falling completely but I’d sure like to move it just a tiny bit to make sure.
For you metallurgists out there, can I bend the hammer slight enough in a vise without breaking it or must I heat it? Or should I get out my dremel tool and knock off a small bit from the inside cup? View attachment 131634View attachment 131635View attachment 131635

I have had good luck bending them cold. Wrap bottom in leather, tighten in the vise, leather over head of hammer and tighten a large crescent on it and slowly tweek it in the direction you need to go.

 

[The Appalachian]

The hammer is cast steel. Cast steel does not play well with bending cold. Clamp one end in a vise, use a Cresent wrench on the other end. Plan out exactly what you're going to do. Heat it to dull red in the area you need to bend and bend it.

I unfortunately reminded myself about cast metal just the other day. After fitting/inletting my cast steel trigger guard to my rifle I discovered the cast steel set trigger contacted the trigger guard just enough to prevent it from setting. The easiest fix was to take the trigger out of the trigger group and bend the trigger forward a tiny amount.

Got the torches set up, heated the trigger enough and bent it forward. No problem, now it could move reward enough to set. But, the curve of it didn't match up enough with the trigger guard to be aesthetically pleasing. The bottom quarter inch needed to be straightened out just a tad to fix that.

Being on crutches awaiting hip surgery, and the garage being another trek I didn't feel like taking, I figured I could just bend it that little bit with pliers.

Snap........

Good thing I'm a damn wizard with a MiG machine on thin metal and got it fixed. Picture is after breaking and welding.

Heat that hammer to bend it.

 

[deerstalkert]

heat it. nothing as stomach punching as a "snap" and loose feeling in your pressure hand.

 

[doubleset]

Is the hammer really off? Or is the lock canted in its inletting?

 

[necchi]

Your better off too heat it as shared here several times already. There's no need to worry about "re-temper" or "quenching" to get a proper temper afterwards. Just let it cool.
Cold bending can work, but at least 7 times out of 10 they'll break. Those odd's aren't good

 

[TarponStalker]

Thanks to all for the help. I chickened out on bending since it didn’t need much if any. I took a small stone on my dremel and slowly removed a “zillipeter” from the inside of the cup. I fired two caps (didn’t want to waste them since they’re hard to come by). Both went off just fine.
But again thanks for the education as always. I’m sure I’ll need it somewhere down the road.

 

[R Ellis]

No more than yours is off you should be ok to bend it without heating it . I just did one this week that was off just about the same as yours it was very easy to do and now is perfect JMO

Quess I was lucky want try it again

 

[toot]

Hi folks. This may not be an issue but now that I’ve noticed it I have to make sure it’s not or it’ll drive me crazy looking at it.
I built this .54 cap gun over 20 years ago. It’s always been a good shooter and I don’t remember having many misfires due to caps not going off. But it has happened. I rarely shoot it as I mainly use my flintlocks.
I recently noticed the hammer doesn’t hit squarely on the nipple. Hopefully you can see this in the photos. I don’t think it’s off far enough for a cap to block the hammer from falling completely but I’d sure like to move it just a tiny bit to make sure.
For you metallurgists out there, can I bend the hammer slight enough in a vise without breaking it or must I heat it? Or should I get out my dremel tool and knock off a small bit from the inside cup? View attachment 131634View attachment 131635View attachment 131635

if it isn't broke and working, don't fix it.

 

[Timber Wolf]

I just cold-bent two CVA Mountain Rifle hammers a couple of months back. One needed to come in a bit and the other out. I clamped them in the vice and tapped with a big hammer. Tap, check, repeat as required. I got one on my .50 right the first time but the one on my .45 required two tries.

 

[deermanok]

As mentioned, if you don't have to, don't. I recently did a cold bend on the hammer of one of my rifles. It just needed a little tweak as the hammer cup was hanging up on my caps. I slipped a creasent wrench over the hammer and gave er a good yank. I bent the hammer alright but made a good ding in the stock. Shoulda took the hammer off first, duh!

 

[ZUG]

I have bent MANY hammers on locks from Chambers, L&R, and other cast steel hammers. I've bent them cold if only needing a slight adjustment like yours using a crescent wrench holding the hammer nose and the base in a vise. When I had to open up the hammer throw then I would use a torch and heat up the neck and grab the nose with vice grips and tweak open the hammer nose at the bend radius. Most of the movement needed are only fractions of inches.

 

[ohio ramrod]

Over the years I have probably bent over twenty hammers, I broke the first one and have heated all since then. I place the hammer in a vice with copper jaw pads, heat with a propane torch, bend with wrench , and spray with a lite oil while still hot. The oil spray gives a nice colored pattern.I have found that it helps to make a small block that will line up with the hammer so that you can have a reference to measure how far you bend the hammer.

 

[Whughett]

Why fix something that isn’t broken. Shoots well you say, nobody is going to notice a slightly off set hammer and the caps don’t seem to care. IMO why run the chance of ruining something that’s may be hard to replace. Just a flip side of your question.