BBL/Cylinder gap

It could be like Wayner said and the hand spring is exerting enough forward pressure on the cylinder to close the gap. I wouldn't be too concerned unless it binds when you shoot it. Heck, you might have a navy-nagant with a cylinder which seals on the barrel! Just joking. If it does bind, maybe you could clean the front bearing surface of your cylinder arbor well and apply some epoxy, allow it to harden with the gun apart, then sand it off a little at a time until it's just the right overall length. If you measure it's length when it fits right, I'd think you could knock that epoxy off there and add metal with a wire welder, then file that down until you get the correct measurement back. A real gunsmith like Wayner and some others on here are probably capable of fixing a short arbor better than that way, but if it was my gun and I had to go at it alone, that's what I'd do.

Steve
 
LOL Wayner...yeaaaaaaaa I know what a hand is my brother!!!! I aint that much of a greenhorn!!! Anywyas ..Steve...I think ill just wait till i go shootin to see how it performs..If everything is ok..Im just gonna leave it.. And I WISH i had a Nagant gas seal revolver...been wantin fer a long time to add to my M44 !!!
 
Misourra Don,I didn't mean to imply you are a green horn Bud. I just thought that sounded funny.:D Steve 499, That trick about fitting the arbor sounded good to me. You'd want to watch that the junction of the barrel and frame didn't open up much. I think of the proper fit of the arbor as the foundation so I go there first at times and when that's proper then go to the problem area connected to it. The cylinder and the breech end of the barrel. Pulling the cylinder back and checking the gap would then tell a story. If that was too small then it would be face the breech of the barrel time.
......The wedge would have to be checked before any metal was removed though. A uberti wedge can easily be driven in too far since the arbor isn't bottomed unless that was attended to already by the gun owner or smith. Piettas have a good chance of being bottomed at the arbor and barrels arbor hole.I've seen some guns that had almost 0 gap with the cylinder pulled back against the hand.Anywhoooo, one of the facing tools with a pilot really helps do a good job quickly when facing the breech and it's hard to go off concentric with the barrels bore using the tool also. Using a file to do it is more precarious and needs more concentration.
 
Last edited:
I could add something that may be helpful. Barrels come from Italy with slightly different lengths and the facing of the breech end of the barrel seems to be where the differences are. I just did a gun that had an overly wide gap (Uberti) and remembered a barrel I had that was a little long where the breech end is. It fit the gun like it was made for it. That was an easy fix. Changed the barrel out for a longer one at the breech.
 
Hey there Wayne,....you've certainly posted a great deal of good information here about how to understand and properly adjust cylinder/barrel gap on Colt type cap & ball revolvers,....and it musta taken a fair amount of time to type that all down. Yer fingers must be smokin,...LOL!! So I'm gonna be sure to copy and paste all this into my stash of "Wayne's Tips",...... thanks again, bud! :D :D :D
 
You're welcome Oldelm. Thanks for the thanks. You're a Gentleman and a Scholar.:D Have you ever wished you had a genuine R&D hand made Remington 58 conversion nickle plated conversion revolver chambered in 44/40calibre? One other question for you even though you are a "Remington Man". (I'm an Aqua Vellva Man ha ha ha ) Have you ever considered the differences involved when comparing the Colt SAA with it's cylinder bushing (keeps the cylinder back toward the recoil shield) and the Colt percussion revolvers with their lack of any kind of cylinder bushing? Do you want to know how to make a cylinder bushing for a Colt Percussion revolver even though the barrel is in the way and restricts the space there making it difficult to do it?
 
Last edited:
Do you want to know how to make a cylinder bushing for a Colt Percussion revolver even though the barrel is in the way and restricts the space there making it difficult to do it?
Click to expand...

Wayner,....sure, tell me how you'd go about putting a cylinder bushing in a Colt percussion revolver. I'd be interested to know how you do that,...;)
 
Oldelm, since you asked I'll try to tell you if you put this in your "Wayner Tips" file. The bushing is for Colts since Rems don't need em.Take a steel tube that is a good fit to the arbor and make it the length of the distance from the cylinder to the barrel along the arbor and add about 1/8th in. to that then take a few .001's offin it. Make a rebate in the front of the cylinders center hole about 1/8th in. deep and a little widder than the steel tube. File all but 1/8th in. of the tubes side away to make a close shaped "C" looking at it from the end so the other end looks like a complete circle like "O" that. That "O" that is about 1/8th in. long goes on the arbor first so it goes into the cylinders rebate and the "C" part is on the arbor that shows between the cylinder and barrel when the gun's together. Know what I mean? Maybe I should try a picture of one. I'm too tired right now. The bushing can help stop fouling from making the cylinder drag since it keeps the cylinder back against the recoil shield and won't let the hand push the cylinder forward. Makes a good smooth action in that dragging cylinder regards. It should be a part of every good tune job for a Colt I think. If a person used "low temp/high force silver solder" to solder the bushing into the rebate in the front of the cylinder ,sos it can't get lost falling out, even those inspired percussion revolver shooter extraordinair afficionados that use preloaded cylinders to quick load the revolvers could have a bushing installed. Hey cartridge revolver SAA Colts have the bushing so why can't a percussion Colt have one too?:D The percussion Colt just has a shorter one in the front of the cylinder. Nice tune trick. Nice tune trick. Color case harden it too and it's good fer lookin at like red hard rock candy.
 
Wayner,.....that's a cool tune trick for Colt percussion revolvers! I followed everything you said. Where would you get the cutter for rebating the front end of cylinder to accept the bushing? Brownell's? It would have to be piloted in the cylinder's arbor hole, right,...and be a cutter that made a flat bottomed hole. What would this cutter be called when searching Brownell's? ...........Nice tune trick! Another keeper in "Wayne's tips" :D
 
Wayner,

How about, if you are gonna get a piloted reamer, anyhow, you go both ways?

On my ASM .44, there's about .070 meat at the barrel end, about .060 chamber to arbor hole. Ream both, mebbe .030, silver solder the bushing into the barrel's arbor hole, since you are soldering, anyway.

Or, into the cylinder's arbor hole, make the smoke and soot blow forward, can't bind up the cyl if it's all going into the arbor hole in the barrel.

That way, at least, you don't have to file a "C", and if you do file a "C" and solder it into the cyl's arbor hole, it won't turn, the arms of the "C" will hit the barrel ring.

Cheers,

George
 
Hello Oldelm and George, Glad to hear from you Buds. Oldelm I don't think Brownells has a piloted reamer for a job like that but who knows? It's worth looking into. A person could use a bottom cutting end mill for the job. If a person used a "feeler",as I nicknamed it, as a pilot to set up the job it can be done. I use a milling machine that is just a glorified drill press. If a person had a good drill press with the swivel table and used a machinist square to "perpendicular" the table to the drill head it would work. Get a piece of drill rod or brass rod and make a snug fit with it into the cylinders center hole and put it in the drill chuck and square things up. If the pilot or "feeler" goes in and out of the cylinders center hole,with the cylinder in a vice, without rubbing and the table is perpendicular to the drill head then it's time to mill the rebate. Use the "variable" speed on the slowest setting and put the end-mill in the drill chuck when you take the pilot "feeler" out and mill away. The bushing can be a tight fit in the rebate in the cylinder or have a few .001's slack to be a little loose. Tight if the bushing is to be soldered or press fit. It doesn't have to be soldered though. The walls of the steel bushing tube should be about .030-.040 thick. That is why the part of the bushing that's showing outside the cylinder rebate is filed to the "C" shape so metal does not need to be taken off the bottom of the barrel there under the forcing cone. If that was done to make the bushing solid without the "C" part then that area already taken out under the barrels forcing cone would get thin. I guess a person could try what George suggested if they wanted to try to get by with a thin area under the barrels forcing cone and use a solid bushing without the "C" part. The bushing with the "C" part doesn't let the bushing turn since the "C" arms, as George named them, stop the bushing from turning. That's just incidental. The bushing would turn if the "C" part wasn't there unless it was soldered to the barrel. Soldering to the barrel could harm the blue if low temp solder wasn't used. No soldering really has to be done though unless the person wants to use preloaded cylinders and takes the barrel off a lot and wanted the bushing to stay on so it wasn't lost. Anywhooo, I wouldn't recommend taking more metal off the under side of the barrel under the forcing cone ,where the milled area is for the arbor to fit, since the thinner part there could fragment.
 
No contest here, but if you solder the bushing to the counterbore in the barrel's arbor hole, you no longer have a thin part of the barrel's forcing cone to fracture. You have just beefed it up, again. You just did the same with the chambers, thinned the walls by .030 near the arbor hole, but you don't think that matters, can't roll over a chamber mouth?

You don't need a dedicated reamer with a pilot. My arbor hole is .420 to .425, a little egg shaped. If you want an .030 bushing, you take a 31/64 drill bit to a grinder who knows what he is doing. He'll grind you a pilot to fit YOUR arbor hole, and he will grind a lead on it to cut slow and smooth, not dig in.

I'd sooner silver solder into the barrel's arbor hole, that way if you have 2 or more cylinders, they will all be held X thou back from the forcing cone. If you want to counterbore the cyl also, fine, as I think I said, it would make something resembling a labyrinth seal.

Cheers,

George
 
Sounds good to me George about the reaming and soldering and all. One other thing though....... The last time I took a drill to be piloted it cost a mint. I found a guy earlier that made counterbores for some industry and was set up to just do that for a business. He said he'd make me any drill with any pilot $25 each. I was gonna sell them to people so they could drill their own liners for the barrels of the conversions for maybe $37. Then he died. No kidding. I ended up at the only machine shop around that had one of those milloset(I think he called it that) grinders to do the cutting edges and some other grinder to do the pilot and the price was $160 for the first one and after that $160 for two. I figured $80 my cost meant I couldn't offer people a cheap piloted drill to use to reline barrels. I remembered another place recently that I used before that made me a piloted reamer (not drill) for about the same with the "T" handle and all to just ream by hand. That's a nice feeling to get a new "cut like butter" reamer.
 
Wayner,

That's ridiculous!!!!

Gimme some dimensions, for your own specific case, I'll ask a bud of mine to grind one for me, hell, 2 of them, one for the tubing you want to use for making the ID of the bushing, to be a slip fit over the arbor, and the other the OD of the tubing.

Might need an inch of pilot to guide it, considering the reamer drill will only be cutting on 30 degrees or so till it gets past the extension of the barrel and barrel ring till it gets to a full cut, that would be no big deal to grind to length if it's too long.

First danged time I don't have the guns to measure while I write, in the glove box, gonna have another bud weld the front of the wege slot in the arbor, wedge is gettin near to the end of travel, and the meat of the arbor is down to about .010. Needs some buildup, and the whatever it is .36 needs the end welded up to bottom out.

Cheers,

George
 
Ya know...someday..Im gonna be able to understand gunsmith talk, and really comprehend what you guys say...even though i kinda know the basics of what yer sayin....to REALLY put it into action is another thing...any of you guys wanna take on a "apprentice"...and teach me the ropes??..(its gonna have to be a cheap rate though..HA ) There really is so much cool stuff to learn from you guys..keep up the good words!!!
 
Cap and bll end shake and cylinder gap

I got a Pietta 1860 Army and a R&D .45 Colt conversion cylinder from Taylor's

With the R&D cylinder there is NO END SHAKE and a tiny cylinder gap of maybe .003/.002. It is super accurate. More than any of my other .45 wheelguns.

I checked with R&D and they confirmed that their conversion cylinders are .004 to .006 longer than percussion cylinders to take up the end shake and cylinder gap

I have two percussion cylinders and sure enough there is considerably more end shake and cylinder gap than the R&D unit. But I think this is necessary to keep the cap and ball black powder revolver shooting for more than a few shots. Figure there is a crazy strong hand spring and a powerfull hammer spring shoving the cylinder forward and ensuring a good cap ignition. Upon firing crud and powder fouling comes out the front and the cylinder moves back. Then the shooter cocks the gun, the hand forces the cylinder back forward making room for cap fragments and junk to fall off the back of the cylinder and hopefully allow it to rotate.

Seems to me a certain amount of end shake allows the cylinder to move forward and back as it turns and helps prevent the revolver from binding up.

Black powder cap and ball and smokeless cartridge revolvers are two very different animals.
 
Yep, ...after you have the barrel on slide the cylinder back and place a piece of paper between the cylinder and barrel and then let go of the cylinder and slide out the paper. If you can do that easy and no paper ripping you got it made.
It seems to me that to be able to get that barrel and cylinder so tight that it wont turn right would be hard to do unless you have a bent or loose arbor, Mike
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top