New Cylinder Alignment Issues on Pietta 1858 New Army

[FreebornMNGuy]

I ordered a second cylinder for my 1858 Pietta ... it arrived today. Upon opening it, I could see that there was buildup on a couple of the nipples and the inner cylinder walls had wear and powder specks in them. Clearly the cylinder had been fired and returned by a previous buyer.

Upon installing in my gun, it was obvious the nipples were not aligning centered in the hammer groove. A little bit to the right ... not severely but i kind of think it's one of those things that should be correct on a gun lol. I assume the ball would also be traveling down the barrel off center as well which would in turn cause accuracy issues.

Anyway, should I return the cylinder or is there a work around to get these to center properly? Frustrating to deal with this issue as I ordered from a reputable dealer ... and the mail is extremely slow right now.

Thanks.

 

[Tyler L]

I'd return it since it was obviously used. Can I ask what vendor it was?

However, the alignment will not be guaranteed with a new cylinder. There's a non-zero chance you'll have to fit it to your gun. Parts are seldom going to be perfect due to tolerance stack-up in all the components. It could be that your original cylinder is +.00X" off one way, and the hand was fit to it, but the new one is -.00X" off the other way.

 

[FreebornMNGuy]

I'd return it since it was obviously used. Can I ask what vendor it was?

However, the alignment will not be guaranteed with a new cylinder. There's a non-zero chance you'll have to fit it to your gun. Parts are seldom going to be perfect due to tolerance stack-up in all the components. It could be that your original cylinder is +.00X" off one way, and the hand was fit to it, but the new one is -.00X" off the other way.

I'll say for now ... it was a very large Pietta dealer out of CA. I'll wait to hear back from them and see how they'd like to proceed. Depending on how they handle it, will determine if I update my post with the company name. Let's just say they deal enough with Pietta that they should know better than to send out used crap. I've sent an email requesting them to send another one with return slip to cover shipping on this one. Given the circumstances of what they've done, I don't think that's an unreasonable request. Given modern day machining methods (CNC), this much runout on a part shouldn't be occurring. Any tolerance variation with these machines shouldn't be noticeable to the eye. Furthermore, if there is ... QC should be catching it.

 

[Gee Dog]

EMF. Why the mystery?

 

[FreebornMNGuy]

EMF. Why the mystery?

The problem is only half the dealer's fault. Since i haven't spoken directly with the dealer yet, I believe they should have a fair shot at taking care of it. The original question was pertaining to any "at home" machining one can do to correct these. To be fair, I looked at 2 other 1858's at Cabella's before ordering this one online. One was the blued 8" the other was a shorter Sherrif's model. Those were by far worse. Seems to me like it's more of a Pietta issue than a dealer issue ... but then again Pietta owns a portion of EMF .... and manure always runs downhill.

 

[Crow Choker]

Seems you have already contacted 'the seller', but IMO anything purchased new, still under warranty, or is used but guaranteed by the seller needs to be returned and either repaired or replaced. EMF if that is the seller is a great company to work with.

 

[M. De Land]

I ordered a second cylinder for my 1858 Pietta ... it arrived today. Upon opening it, I could see that there was buildup on a couple of the nipples and the inner cylinder walls had wear and powder specks in them. Clearly the cylinder had been fired and returned by a previous buyer.

Upon installing in my gun, it was obvious the nipples were not aligning centered in the hammer groove. A little bit to the right ... not severely but i kind of think it's one of those things that should be correct on a gun lol. I assume the ball would also be traveling down the barrel off center as well which would in turn cause accuracy issues.

Anyway, should I return the cylinder or is there a work around to get these to center properly? Frustrating to deal with this issue as I ordered from a reputable dealer ... and the mail is extremely slow right now.

Thanks.

I had similar

I ordered a second cylinder for my 1858 Pietta ... it arrived today. Upon opening it, I could see that there was buildup on a couple of the nipples and the inner cylinder walls had wear and powder specks in them. Clearly the cylinder had been fired and returned by a previous buyer.

Upon installing in my gun, it was obvious the nipples were not aligning centered in the hammer groove. A little bit to the right ... not severely but i kind of think it's one of those things that should be correct on a gun lol. I assume the ball would also be traveling down the barrel off center as well which would in turn cause accuracy issues.

Anyway, should I return the cylinder or is there a work around to get these to center properly? Frustrating to deal with this issue as I ordered from a reputable dealer ... and the mail is extremely slow right now.

Thanks.

I had similar issues with the new cylinder on the 62 Police. I had to file the ratchet some to get the hand to engage and turn up to the next tooth and I had to remove some metal on the left side of two of the nipple wells to give the hammer nose enough clearance to fully seat on the nipple without binding. I used my trusty Foredom tool and an appropriate cylinder grinding stone to remove a few thousands.
I need to go shoot it when it warms up and see how it does.
Strangely enough though alignment is not all that bad as the tight pin gauge that fits the bore diameter will start and go most of the way down all chambers. They're not dead nuts but I've seen worse.