Revolver timing

L

Little-e

New member
What would cause a revolver to go "out of time?" I'm not really big in to wheel guns but in three out of four I can see the bolt pop up and ride along the cylinder for the second half of its' rotation. The three guns are a Ruger Bisley in .22, a Ruger Super Blackhawk, and a S&W 29.

The only one that doesn't do that is a Colt SAA which doesn't get shot much. On that one the bolt pops up into that scalloped section right before the cylinder locks.

Any suggestions? Am I safe in just accepting this or am I walking down the road to trouble?
 
The way the Colt locks up is the way it's supposed to happen. Scratches on a cylinder are tell-tale signs of a revolver being out of time. Rugers are notorious for this. Being more familiar with Colt style actions,typical reasons for those going out of time as you describe are the wearing out or bending of the bolt legs,or the cam on the hammer wearing out.

Bill
 
The cylinder stop scoring the cylinder is not 'going out of time'. Frankly, it is normal, and the stop popping up a bit early is preferable to the stop popping up too late. If your revolver has a real timing problem, the hand will not have turned the cylinder far enough for the stop to engage the cylinder slot before the hammer drops.

The only problem if the cylinder stop popping back too early would be if the stop popped back into the same slot it started in, preventing the cylinder from turning.
 
Kind of differing answers...

Combining the two, I get the feeling that at this point I should just keep an eye on the problem and if things stay the way they are, I'm OK.

Thanks for the replies folks.
 
To be fair, we are looking at it from the perspective of different brands/designs. Bill is looking at the Colt SAA, while I'm thinking in terms of a S&W.
 
Rugers and S&Ws are designed to work that way. They have light bolt springs and bolt drag will not do any damage beyond bluing wear. The old-style Colt DAs are designed to have the bolt drop into the lead ("that scalloped place") and if it doesn't, the bolt scores the cylinder badly because of the much heavier bolt spring used in those guns. The SAA is also properly timed if the bolt drops into the lead. Tuning a SAA Colt involves both timing the bolt to drop into the lead and lightening the bolt spring so the bolt doesn't gouge that part of the cylinder.

Jim

[This message has been edited by Jim Keenan (edited March 25, 2000).]
 
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