New member

M

Missoura Don

New member
Howdy all..been readin this post last couple of days, and just had to join. Two months ago, bought a Pietta '51 Navy, took it to the range here, fird 2 shots, and the cylinder froze up solid. No cap pieces fell in the works and I couldnt see anything else....just froze. So I had to take it back to cabellas with 4 loaded chambers!!! (uncapped of course) Have since then bought a brand new one havnt shot it yet, and bought a used one, along with a '58 rem. the rem is a tad on the rough side, but a little TLC oughtta get her up and runnin. anyways...Im really amazed at the knowledge you guys have about these guns, and I hope ya dont mind a "newbie" botherin ya with questions, cause I got a lot lol....Will try to send some pics of my pieces when I get this tech stuff figgerd out ! Great forum guys....I allready learned a few tricks just from reading last two days!!!!... Shoot safe.
 
Welcome aboard Don, glad you're here! There's a tremendous amount of expertise on here so if you have questions, ask away. If one of us doesn't know the answer, then someone else on here will know.
 
Hey LK and Gary...appreciate that..Im not really BRAND new to the shootin sports...been handlin guns prety much all my life..but just now gettin to the technical aspects of the pistolas. I can completely strip these piettas down, clean, and reasemblle em (I actually think a 7 year old could do it ), but i was readin where you guys are pretty good at tunin em...thats what i wanna learn to do first. Ive seen some of the comments about tunin em...but not clear on the techniques and procedure of it. Any tips?
 
The wedge was probably hammered in too tight.

That has happened to me after I dissassembled and reassembled my colt navy '51 the day I got it. I was the guy who hammered it in to much.
 
Wierdguy, or Wedgemeister, or whatever else they are calling you, today.

You can't hammer a Colt wedge in too tight, unless the arbor is too short.

Period.

You hammer, you stretch the frame slots, or you stretch the arbor. I shouldn't say that, if you hammer hard enough, you can, since the arbor slot and the front frame slot are now one, drive the barrel assembly back some. BUT, you would have to rap hell out of it to do that.

If you did that, shame on you. Did it not occur to you to ask if you should do that?

Ah, but, Where do you ask?

Oh, I found a forum.

Oh, my, the people on the forum said, that's a no-no.

Well, how do I fix that?

Well, we don't know.

Oh-oh, what am I doing here?

Cheers,

George
 
I don't know-- I had that wedge-jamming problem with a repro Colt Pocket Model I had once. I wasn't hammering the wedge in hard, either.

With that particular revolver a few taps too many would make the cylinder bind. It was no particular problem; I learned to tap until things seemed about right, then test to make sure the cylinder turned properly. Another light tap tighter or one looser, if necessary, until things were oll kerrect.

Don't know whether that was a problem with the original Colts, but you run into some odd things with the reproductions sometimes.

It doesn't sound to me like that's what happened here, though. When I tapped the wedge in too tightly, the cylinder wouldn't rotate properly from the start. If the cylinder worked, and then later wouldn't-- well, the wedge didn't spontaneously tighten itself, did it? It seems the problem would have to be something else.
 
Oh, yeah, I should add (lest I offend someone and get flamed at) that I wasn't HAMMERING the wedge. My technique was to put it in by hand and tap it a couple of times with an oak stick. I wanted to make sure the wedge and barrel wouldn't wiggle under finger pressure. And I didn't ask around on this forum either, since at that time I didn't know it existed.
 
Welcome aboard Missoura

By all means, ask lots of questions. It'll save me from havin to ask them myself.

I currently have an 1860. The 1851 is next on my list.
 
Hafoc,

I should save this someplace and paste it as boilerplate, I post it so often, somewhere.

If you can slip tour barrel off the pins and rotate till the barrel extension, clears the frame extension (some won't, the hole seems to be a little out of round, or the arbor), and push it back against the end of the arbor, do the extensions line up or overlap? If it's a tight fit, you might have to tap the muzzle with a soft faced mallet.

If there is an overlap, your arbor is not bottomed out, tapping the wedge in will draw the barrel back too far and bind the cylinder.

Your options are to do as you say above, judiciously seat the wedge till it is held but cyl/bbl gap exists, or lengthen the arbor, or shorten the depth of the arbor hole. If it is good at the git-go, but closes up later, after a few cylinders fired, most likely fouling. Try washing with some window cleaner in a spray bottle and see if it frees up. That will tell you whether it is "spontaneously" tightening up the wedge , or it is fouling build-up. Try to aim a stream of the liquid at the cylinder's arbor hole, too, to liquify the fouling there. That will get so gooey it will feel like the cylinder is binding, but is really the result of a tar-like goo that presents a heck of a lot of drag.

Try pulling it apart when it's in that condition, you'll probably find you have to twist the cylinder back and forth to get it off the arbor, because of the goo.

When it does get that stiff, trying to keep shooting will likely get you a broken or deformed hand, and I don't mean your own mitt. One of the parts you should keep in your emergency spare parts kit, along with trigger/bolt springs, mebbe a spare mainspring, and even a fresh set of nipples.

Cheers,

George
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top