Six shooter C&B

[necchi]

Your right. I'm wrong.
No excuse. I'm sorry. :redface:
I've got a couple Colts, but I'm moving and the "firearms" are packed and out of reach right now.
I know at least one of them has pins,, :idunno:

 

[Grenadier1758]

I was looking at that too. Might have to take a new look at the hand.

 

[M. De Land]

All you have to do to check for a short hand is drag your thumb lightly on the cylinder while cocking the hammer. If the bolt won't drop into the cylinder notch then the hand is short.
Many new guns will not pass this test particularly double action guns.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Necchi, don't beat yourself up. I've made plenty of mistakes too. Now I am likely to have have to find a hand stretcher for my Remington. Interestingly, I got that Remington for an extremely low price because the screw holding the hand had backed out ant the pistol couldn't be cocked. I took it home and found the loose screw. To think that for all those years, I never noticed that the hand was too short.

As another side note, the steel framed Colt had a hand that was too long and I fixed that.

Now I need to find a source for the hand for that Uberti Remington Navy caliber revolver.

 

[M. De Land]

You may have been joking but you really can stretch a hand longer although there is a limit to how much. It's accomplished by removing the hand,laying flat on an anvil or piece or rail road rail and striking it mid body with a flat face punch. It will extrude the length .010 or so which is about the max it is recommended to do.
The reason folks don't notice it is because the inertia will carry the cylinder around to bolt drop from the cocking action. Dragging your thumb lightly on the cylinder kills the inertia energy.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I was joking to a certain extent. I thought the hand would be soft enough to get a little bit of length through some judicious hammer work. Thanks for the suggestion on lengthening the hand.

 

[Zonie]

If you have a chisel made for use with metal or a cross peen hammer, it can be used to lengthen the hand.

Using something like M.D. described to back up the hand, place the chisel so that the blade like end is orientated across the body of the hand.
A few light taps with a small hammer will force the hand metal to flow in a lengthwise direction.
Don't hit it too hard. If you do, it will try to cut the hand into pieces.

Blacksmiths have been using cross peen hammers and blade style chisels almost forever to lengthen pieces of metal using this method.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I did the drag test on the cylinder. I held my thumb on the cylinder as I cocked the pistol. The bolt always locked into place as the hammer was pulled to full cock. The marks on the cylinder may have come from a time before the present hand was installed. I bought the pistol used from a dealer at a gun show. At the show I could not pull the hammer back. I got the pistol for much less than he was asking, so I ended up bringing it home. When I took it apart, I found the screw holding the hand in place was backed out and dragging very heavily on the frame. I simple put the gun pack together with the hand screw properly installed and operation was smooth and I never noticed the nicks on the cylinder edge until now. I gravitated to shooting the long rifles and the pistols spent much more time in the gun safe.

Thanks for all the suggestions and sharp eyes to spot a possible problem.

 

[crockett]

I guess I'm missing something. To the best of my knowledge NO ONE is advocating lowering the hammer on a cap and carrying the revolver in that manner. So, the face of the hammer has a groove that is lowered on the pin in between the chambers, so the hammer isn't on a cap. You can beat on the hammer all day- there is no cap under it.
The next situation is to pull back on the hammer, rotate the cylinder enough to bring the NEXT chamber into alignment but before the hammer cocks it slips off whatever is grabbing it and drops on the loaded chamber. I get the impression folks are saying this is more likely if the hammer is in between the chambers. Whether the hammer is initially on an empty chamber or initially half way in between the two chambers, in order for the cylinder to rotate far enough to drop the hammer on the next chamber with a cap, the hand (operating off the hammer) must move upward until at the top of its path and the bolt locks up the cylinder. Whether you start from an empty chamber or half way in between, the hammer must still be pulled back THE SAME AMOUNT, in order to lock up the gun on the next chamber.
So....let us examine the SAFE practice of the hammer on an EMPTY chamber. The next chamber is to be loaded. Now let's suppose the gun's hammer (while in a holster) grabs against your coat cuff or a branch, or anything that draws the hammer back to almost full cock and then the hammer falls on the next chamber that is loaded and fires. THAT'S with the hammer INITIALLY on an EMPTY chamber. If the hammer is in between two chambers, on a pin, and the same thing happens, (the hammer accidentally drawn back and drops on the next chamber, loaded and capped) it is the same thing. I don't understand why some folks reason lowering a hammer half way between two chambers is unsafe versus lowering on an empty chamber.
As I said, maybe I'm simply missing something-been known to happen :hmm:

 

[azmntman]

:thumbsup:

 

[Gene L]

That's the way I see it.

 

[rodwha]

Precisely, which was my point as well. For their version to be safer the next chamber would also need to be empty and so it’s a pointless arguement.

 

[POPPY]

with the hammer on a empty chamber the bolt in the frame holds the cylinder in place if dropped, if the hammer is between chambers the bolt is not locked in. its just resting on the cylinder, the cylinder will turn if dropped. and be on a live cap.possibly going off if it bounces twice. chris popp.

 

[Gene L]

Not if the hammer is on a pin between the chambers. At least I couldn't get it to move off the pin by rapping it with a hammer. Some revolvers don't have the pins, and POPPY's example is most likely true.

 

[POPPY]

a colt or rem. with pins or notches if dropped on a hard surface can cause the cylinder to turn. if on a empty chamber the bolt will hold the cylinder in place. even the ruger old army with the hammer in the safety notches can be jarred out, by bounceing around. light mainsprings seem to make it easier. chris popp.

 

[Major Tim]

I've never dropped a pistol so I always load six. The guy that lectured me about loading five "for safety sake" was also wearing both suspenders and a belt to hold up his britches!

 

[swathdiver]

The guy that lectured me about loading five "for safety sake" was also wearing both suspenders and a belt to hold up his britches!

:rotf:

 

[brubincam]

I wear suspenders and belt together sometimes.
Suspenders to hold pants up.
Belt to keep suspenders from pulling pants too high.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[azmntman]

:metoo:

Belt also for holsters, phone/glasses case etc. :surrender:

 

[Gene L]

a colt or rem. with pins or notches if dropped on a hard surface can cause the cylinder to turn. if on a empty chamber the bolt will hold the cylinder in place. even the ruger old army with the hammer in the safety notches can be jarred out, by bounceing around. light mainsprings seem to make it easier. chris popp.

The Barney Fife school of gunhandling.