MCB,
Those "lo-temp" "silver solders" are "silver bearing", any where from .7% to 3 % silver. or they are "lead free" solders, 99.3 % Tin and .7 % copper. Either way, they would have the non-deformation of lead, just a tiny bit harder.
Silver solder would probably help. You would have to unscrew the arbor, clean the threads, inside and out, flux both, screw back in in the proper orientation, heat over 1000 Deg for most alloys. I think, too, that you CAN unsolder it, do it over.
As to the shooters driving the wedge in too tight because the arbor is not bottomed out, I don't think so. It only takes a little bit too much force to lock up the cylinder. More likely those WITH a bottomed arbor will bang it in too hard. Jammed.
If you have to hammer it out with more force than a gentle tap from a loaded spare cylinder, you are making it too tight. My own, if I can't thumb it out at first, I smack the muzzle with the heel of my hand. Usually looses it enough to thumb it out.
They do NOT need to be hammered in, whether bottomed out or not.
Forged instead of today's investment cast is not all that much better. Forging can be used for scrap steel products or the best grades of steel. Investment cast scrap tin will make a poor casting. Forging of scrap tin will make a bad forging.
Both forged and investment cast products with the correct metallurgy will make superior product.
Color case does not necessarily have "soft as mush" metal inside. "Color case" is decorative. Most case is to make a harder surface on a hard piece of steel. A wear surface, such as the trigger, hammer sears. Glass hard on an already hard piece of steel. That is the criteria that gunwriters consider when they determine how "crisp" a trigger release is. "Crisp as glass", as in glass breaking right now.
Hawg,
You got a very good point there. 150 years ago, unless in combat, I doubt that a shooter fired 2 cylinders per year. It was a tool. You didn't shoot it unless you needed to. We grew up on TV westerns where they shot 500 rounds per episode. Unless in combat, they never stressed their firearms as much as our weekend warriors do.
We go out and try to shoot 100 or more in a Saturday shoot. That is probably 5 times as much as they were used in their era. Maybe a 100 times as much. There have been stories of people needing their BP finding that it is rusted solid.
Regardless, there is no proof at all that the Colt method was less good than the Rem model. I own both. I like both. I do not think that one is better than the other FOR THAT DAY.
If you are talking 50 cal. Smith, and 44 Mag Smith, the topstrap PROBABLY is best. I don't think anybody has ever tried to make a strapless 44 Mag. It might be feasible. Metalurigacally correct steels used.
If that collectible Browning Auto 5 is what you are looking for, you got a bargain. I don't like them. Not that I don't wish I had back the one I traded in 40 some years ago for a Rem 870 BDL trap gun. Trade in was about 125. THAT sumbitch kicked the hell out of me after 7 25 shot rounds of Trap.
Bought the 870 the next day. Have shot Rem 870's, Rem 1100's and Browning Lightning O/U's ever since. Have 2 Rem 870's and one Browning O/U, right now, my Browning a 1951 model.
With all of them, I have shot up to 400 rounds of 12 ga. 1 1/8 oz loads, trap loads, without the bigass shoulder bruise, per day at ATA shoots.
Hell, I'd like to have every firearm I have gotten rid of over the last 50 years. I go to gunshows and see 1500 bucks for something I sold for 200, way back then.
By the same token, bought a 7 mm Rem Mag for 115 bucks in about '68, with scope and the rest of the box of shells the guy couldn't handle. 40 years ago, again.
That was then and this is now..
Cheers,
Geprge
