Open top Colt tuning explained.

[French Colonial]

I used to do a lot of things that I do not do anymore.......
Maintaining the diesel for the emergency generator on the ship was one
Wiring houses
Production welding
Diagnosing electronic sprayer controls.

But today!!!!!! To cold for the crickets but the birds were singing this morning, and the coffee was really good.

 

[Butch Martin]

So why bother tuning a new in the box open top? Simple answer is most need work to be reliable shooters. Uberti suffers from the short arbor which has been beat on pretty hard in other threads. There is a certain individual on this forum that has been absolutely against what tuners do to improve these pistols. So in spite of this fellow I am gonna give a rundown on what is done during a typical tuning job.
First and foremost correct the arbor. It's a big deal on the large horse pistols as they can and do beat themselves into a paperweight. Arbor correction has been discussed in detail elsewhere.
Timing and install a bolt guide, a bolt guide is a piece if hardened steel that goes between the frame and the bolt/cylinder stop. It keeps the bolt head traveling in the same plane. In spite of another guys opinion you cannot get precision timing without a bolt guide.
Make and install music wire torsion springs for the bolt and trigger. These replace the flat combination spring which is prone to breakage.
Install a Ruger type plunger and spring for hand tension. Gets rid of the flat spring on the hand. I use a stainless steel plunger and spring. This setup is much more reliable and not prone to breakage.
Install an action shield and stop. Action shield prevents cap fragments from entering the revolver's innards and jamming the works. There are several ways to attach the shield to the hammer. The action stop is installed to prevent damage by limiting how far the hammer can travel at cylinder lockup. It's an important addition for the CAS and fast draw guys. It helps limit wear and over travel and breakage of internal parts
Cap post, This is a small finger that is installed in the hammer slot to prevent cap fragments from getting into the slot under the hammer. A lot of cap and ball revolvers will pull spent caps off the nipples on the cylinder and drop those pieces into the hammer slot. Cap post also deflects blow back gasses from the nipple. Case in point a pocket pistol that would blow the hammer back to the half cock notch. After the cap post was installed that issue was gone.
One of the optional things I offer is to chamfer the cylinder throats so the ball doesn't shave lead when loaded. I set up my revolvers with a.002 barrel to cylinder gap, those lead rings can and do lock up the cylinder. I prefer the ball to be swaged into place with no shaving of lead. I have yet to see any thing documented from Colt or Remington about shaving lead from a ball during loading. Again this is an option.
So there it is in a nutshell. For those of you that are interested this a brief rundown of things that can be done to improve these pistols. My major recommendation is fix the short arbor on the Ubertis. Pietta fixed it on their stuff but occasionally one slips through. For those of you that are new to this please take that fellow who is gonna be commenting on this in a negative way with a huge grain of salt, he does not understand the single action platform.
Let the discussion begin.

I have been following the "controversy" about Colt replicas on here. Recently, I got a Walker kit from DGW and had it sent straight to Mr. Yager for tricking out. I have the gun now. I have not shot it yet because I need to do the finish work first; however, I have examined the action work, and I am very pleased with the results. This gun replaces one that I got back in the late 70s which worked itself into being warped. The arbor length adjustment just makes a lot of sense for Walkers. My new replica should last forever.
I am grateful for Mr. Yagers skill.
Butch M.

 

[Smokerr]

Me too and I still can & have the equipment. USCG trained Engineman. Love the GMC 671 marine turbocharged diesel.

I overhauled gasoline and diesel engines back in the day. Ed says: Not that it has anything to do with BP, but, as a EN2 in the Navy I overhauled Fairbanks Morse opposed piston diesels several times. Quite a jump from working on big 'ol diesel parts to the tiny internals of BP revolvers.

Cummins KT 19 diesels

Dang, we need a forum for us to discuss that stuff.

My Dad was a mechanic and specifically trained on the Detroit 671 (translates to an inline 6). My last 20 years I had a stable of 6 of the 6V71 Turbos for fire Pump drivers. 415 hp as I recall. Had worked on them on and off in singles but those were all mine. Despite the brutal service (start up and go to 2700 under a full pump load) never an issue. Due to pump issues they did a project and hired out the in place teardown of the 71s (it had to be third party and my time was taken up by the other jobs I had to do). No issues found. Clean as a whisle.

I spent 30 years in what I call Electro Mechanical work, maint department is misleading. 90% of what I did was fixing things or running down a solution to fix something. Several had been plaughing the two companies I worked for for years. I got more into Building controls, swithgear and still miss owrking on the engines.

I did do some Maint (real maint) on two or three KT-19s. Those were cool engines. The Generator room had gotten built around, you literately had to lower 5 gallon oil buckets down a 8 ft drop by hand.

Maybe the oddest one was the Onan/Cummins Gen set (80KW) driven by a 460 Ford Natural gas engine, it had a turbo charger on it. Natural gas runs 1000 deg at 1800, no provisions to idle it, cooked one Turbo and after that we ran it hard once a year and started, stable and off as soon as steady. No more cooked Turbos but risk of something failing if it had to run for an outage.

Biggest I worked on were some EMDs in a Oil Filed Service Ship (boat?). Forget the model but some new heads and assisted in the setup to jack up the power to 2500 hp (from 1800 as I recall). Spec for the service it was going to be used for.

It was and we were on standby when one of the Heavy Lift ships brought in an oil drilling rig from Africa. Amazing to see a ship sink and the oil rif float off. Vessels was called the Mighty Servent at the time, Brit captain, great accent to go with the ship name.

 

[Smokerr]

I used to do a lot of things that I do not do anymore.......
Maintaining the diesel for the emergency generator on the ship was one
Wiring houses
Production welding
Diagnosing electronic sprayer controls.

then you know better. Not exact but similar to work I did. All that kind of stuff needs tuning. Installers just rough it, sometimes they screw it up entirely.

I had a 25 ton semi hermetic condition unit that had never worked right. Started fine, just did not do what it was supposed to.

Took me a week to read through the manual, ok, it has elecric unloaders but that werid pneumatic control on top of it is also an unloader. Testing the electrie portion, that all worked.

The Pneumatics was erratic. I had learned how to tune those as they were common in buildings (basically a pneumatic temp in and an air pressure signal out). It was so far out of adjustment and calibration it was pure chance it worked sometimes at all. No idea why you would not stick with an electirc setup for all the unloaders, but there it was. Did the tune up and it was good, never another problem.

Well it turned out the whole building pneumatic control system was mis set. Key to that was my brother gave me a pressure gauge he had and I could read the pneumatic conversions (it was good down to better than 1/20th of a psi). None of this is right. No wonder it keeps drifting off, its centered at 3 PSI and it runs out of range as well as 3 psi was the lower limit, air gets weird for that use below 3 psi (actualy more like 1 but the book says 3) and its supposed to be centered at 9. Took two weeks but got them all fixed (replaced some temp sensors with good ones and tune the system to mid point at the mid point temps).

 

[D Yager]

I have been following the "controversy" about Colt replicas on here. Recently, I got a Walker kit from DGW and had it sent straight to Mr. Yager for tricking out. I have the gun now. I have not shot it yet because I need to do the finish work first; however, I have examined the action work, and I am very pleased with the results. This gun replaces one that I got back in the late 70s which worked itself into being warped. The arbor length adjustment just makes a lot of sense for Walkers. My new replica should last forever.
I am grateful for Mr. Yagers skill.
Butch M.

Thanks Butch! I was happy to help.

 

[WalnutRed]

I have been shooting percussion revolvers off and on since the 70's follow these threads with interest. Back in the last century I spent some time working for Uncle Sam as a Battery Armorer. I've received batches of brand new firearms and after cleaning you could tell that one or two just seemed to cycle better than the rest. I've had reproduction revolvers that seemed to get out of time after only a few years use and ones that just seemed to get better with use. Maybe it's poor quality control regarding metallurgy or maybe it's quality control in fit and finish. Probably a little of both.

Given what modern reproductions cost I think a proper tuning is a good investment in extending the useful life of the revolvers. I'm hoping to learn enough to feel comfortable tuning some of my own.

 

[oldschoolhunter55]

Hmmm.

want to thank you for sharing information on here.It has helped me understand a lot.. but I've learned this .... if I got something broke I'm going talk to you about it and hope that you will let me send it to you for repair. I promise it won't be in pieces after I worked on it lol.It won't be touched by me. thank you FOR TAKING YOUR TIME AND SHARING

 

[Dude]

Every good thread needs a troll to liven it up, huh?

Thanks, guys, for the tutorials. I've gotten several cheapo used guns that needed attention badly and have used what I've learned here to put them back into action. One was a Uberti 1851 from way back around 1955 with several faults that appeared to have been that way from new. Probably never shot from the looks of it. It's now a very accurate shooter and I love it. There are many more.

And, hey, no need to go into all your past training on other stuff to demonstrate you know how to fix things. I'm sure a lot of us here who are into fixing these guns have mechanical experience in other areas. When you like fixing stuff, you also like knowing how it's supposed to work.
When you understand mechanical things, it's not all that difficult learning how these pistols work, though these things are more complex than they appear. It's that old oriental saying: If you want to understand simplicity, study complexity. And, vice versa.

 

[Bad Karma]

Nice. I always thought 25 yards was a good distance. You can raise or lower a bit for shorter or longer range. ROA was 10-15 inches high and that is a lot of adjust for.

These guns are my every day carry pistols and a 25 yard zero just works for varmints and targets of opportunity. The front sight is tall enough to be useful at a hundred yards or so too…

 

[Relic shooter]

Being a relic myself I started out & enjoyed shooting original Colts & Remingtons because they were priced about the same as replicas.
In later years I stuck with the originals because they didn't require much or modifications to keep them running & used Uberti parts if I needed a new replacement.
We're fortunate to have several guys on the forum like Mike/45D who are excellent pistol mechanics who don't mind sharing their expertise & modifications to improve function.
Relic shooter

 

[Blackpowderart]

Good grief, if you don't want your stuff tuned don't send it to any of us. It's your choice however it would be appreciated if you would stop implying that tuners and pistol smiths are thieves.

It's ok, we can all identify the idiot in the room. It was always my understanding that forums were an exchange of ideas. Seems some aren't capable and are sour about it. I'm for one glad I know who I could send it to if I so choose. I haven't but I have needed something done on a shotgun. I can attest that their aren't many who specialize or even work on muzzleloaders or modernize cap and ball revolvers. Someone needs to make their own post. Poor souls. Glad I don't have to eat breakfast with them..... one hell of a way to start the day.

 

[Dickydalton]

When MDL's illegitimate son speaks up everyone instantly knows who he is!
They both talk down to their betters because...... well just because!

 

[D Yager]

It's ok, we can all identify the idiot in the room. It was always my understanding that forums were an exchange of ideas. Seems some aren't capable and are sour about it. I'm for one glad I know who I could send it to if I so choose. I haven't but I have needed something done on a shotgun. I can attest that their aren't many who specialize or even work on muzzleloaders or modernize cap and ball revolvers. Someone needs to make their own post. Poor souls. Glad I don't have to eat breakfast with them..... one hell of a way to start the day.

Not sure who this is aimed at. Care to clarify?

 

[Dickydalton]

Not sure who this is aimed at. Care to clarify?

One of two people or both but not you Dave, I'm thinking...

 

[Blackpowderart]

Not sure who this is aimed at. Care to clarify?

@French Colonial or insert any other sour member name here

 

[Blackpowderart]

You can't take your money with you. If ypur
Revolver leaves you frustrated or you just want MORE, I don't see anything wrong with Free advice and service's for those that can't
Or no longer want to work on stuff. It's not easy to work with small intricate things after a certain point in life. Time comes for everyone at some point.

 

[French Colonial]

@French Colonial or insert any other sour member name here

Feel free to put me on ignore at your earliest possible convenience.

I have already put 45D, Yager and others there as I have a box stock Uberti 1851 that shoots very well and need none of their "improvements" and they add little (none) to the time periods that I have interest in.

And since you do not like my posts, I think you will have a chance to join them!

 

[Blackpowderart]

Feel free to put me on ignore at your earliest possible convenience.

I have already put 45D, Yager and others there as I have a box stock Uberti 1851 that shoots very well and need none of their "improvements" and they add little (none) to the time periods that I have interest in.

And since you do not like my posts, I think you will have a chance to join them!

Then why are you commenting on their post? Seems "ignore" isn't working out for you. Your probably a democrat... if not, you sure fooled me. They usually can't stand to hear opposing opinions.

 

[Rfp10000]

Pretty entertaining stuff. Mike puts a lot of effort into his participation here including good pics & diagrams. I’ve not seen or heard anything that would give me pause about his service. My repros or at least most of them have taken some work at first. Fortunately with the advice on forums, I’ve managed. With all the talk about tuning Colts it makes me lean toward Remingtons but I do look at the service of gunsmiths for these guns as invaluable. It’s a fun hobby to me that puts me back into another time. If a gunsmith keeps it fun , I’m in.
I look at some of what we hear like when guys used to turn their cars into hot rods. They liked fooling with cars & liked doing things to make them more fun. I bought a pietta Colt 1860 at a good price and I think about letting one of these guys do what they do just to compare it to others I have. I bought a Ped 1858 just to see how it compares to an Uberti & Pietta. As I said it’s a fun hobby and I’m sure even with tuners it’s cheaper than golf or having a boat. I enjoy handling the different guns , taking them apart , reading all this stuff even when it goes off the rails a bit. It’s fun even when things don’t work and I lose a screw and end up crawling on the floor in the hunt. I tune out & in to the hobby as it suits me.

 

[Smokerr]

I have to agree. I prefer shooting but the 47 Walker and the ROA have been interesting from the standpoints of fixing them.

I have already put 45D, Yager and others there as I have a box stock Uberti 1851 that shoots very well and need none of their "improvements" and they add little (none) to the time periods that I have interest in.

What counts is you are happy with where you are at with it. So posts you can just ignore, I am not into flintlock pistols, very much a BP revolver only type. The guys who are like what they do and I am all for that, its their area of interest and my lack is not needed.

But having an arbor issue on the 47 Walker I sure needed the help to correct that. Same with the ROA. One truth in this, Uberti ships nothing but short arbor guns and for those that the problem messes with their shooting, the resources here are priceless, you can buy as many Uberti guns as you want and its the same problem.