Single Action Puzzle

B

berkmberk1

New member
Your mission, if you so choose to accept, is to solve the puzzle of the malfunctioning single action. The victim - an EAA Bounty Hunter. Caliber 45, 7.5 in barrel. The symptoms - when shooting smokeless powder loads the victim has had nary a hicup. When firing blackpowder loads, however, it will almost immediately jam up (within a shot or two) and jam sporadically during the course of fire. The jam may take the form of a hammer/cylinder refusal to budge unless various parts are manipulated by hand, or as it was observed during the last outing - the hand receded back into the recoil plate and would not come out (from fear of the smoking beastie???) for nought. This caused the cylinder to not rotate as usual unless turned by hand.

A post-mortum complete tear down for cleaning revealed the following evidence - NOTHING!!! No parts are broken. All parts function as they should. The hand spring is well formed and stout. The internals were no dirtier after 31 rounds of BP than my 9mm auto after 100 rds!

In short - a mystery Mr. Phelps...........errr.......whoever........

Any ideas? Is my EAA allergic to BP? Is it possessed? :eek:
 
It's possessed. Just send it to me and I'll exorcise it for you. May take a year or more and results are not guaranteed.:D
 
Another non-clue

Just in case someone thinks of this.........no.........no primers were unseated nor any other sort of case problem. :confused:
 
If it's not fouling I have no idea. My Ubertis don't have any of those symptoms. What are you lubing the cylinder pin with?
 
Could it be a high pressure situation? I read a good piece a while back ago about blowing the side out of a vaquero by creating a high pressure situation by using a reduced ,thought to be safe load.
 
Olive oil.

There was absolutely no fouling on the cylinder pin on it or my 1851 and 1858 (other than a tinge of dirt). All three were shiny slick. The two CPs each had 24 or more rounds through them. I don't remember what the SAA internals were lubed with last....probably the proverbial "light coat of oil" from TM days. But as I said earlier.......I got the barest amount of "dirt" out of the action. A few Qtips and a swipe with a rag, and it was nice and clean.
 
had the same problem with my SAA a while back. the little spring on the ratchet paul was broken. will it rotate by itself when you tilt it down at a 45 degree angle? that will let gravity work the paul. just a thought. I am not an expert.
 
I'm thinking of buying a new hand/spring assembly as that was the part that was not working right. The strangest thing was, at the range when it was really acting up, it would not function when holding the pistol upside down. Right side up it would engage the cylinder and work. But not the other way. This makes me believe in the normal orientation, the hand would usually fall out of its notch under its own weight. Inverted, it would seem it would fall the other way (inside) under its own weight IF something was impeding the spring.
 
had the same problem with my SAA a while back. the little spring on the ratchet paul was broken. will it rotate by itself when you tilt it down at a 45 degree angle? that will let gravity work the paul. just a thought. I am not an expert.
Click to expand...

Once I had washed the barrel and cylinder it worked fine. I tried to not get much if any water in the action, but a little did. When everything was dried and wiped down.........and cooled down from the oven......the hand was sticking right out there! Push on it and it pushed right back. Now, this would seem to indicate a bit of fouling that got washed out, but remember, this problem started with shot #1 from a clean gun! Also not much if anything was washed out, as I believe only the barest amount of water ever got in the action. So I don't think it was fouling but I could be wrong.

Anyway...this shouldn't be a major malfunction after only 31 rounds! Right?:confused:
 
You said it worked fine with smokeless. Has it worked with smokeless since the problem showed up? Maybe you need to remove the hand and see if there are any wear marks on it or if there's a burr in the slot. Anything that would indicate where the problem might be. How hard are the empties to eject? Could the cases be getting pushed back against the recoil plate and binding there? There also may be a burr where the firing pin comes through the frame. Look for a shiny arc on the recoil plate and the case heads.
 
I disasssembled it completely. The hand is fine and so is the spring. Ejection was easy. Some of them fell out! No case problems such as bulging primers.
 
Not enough lube ..or wrong kind of lube ...you didn`t say what kind of bullets you were shooting ??? what kind of powder too ??
Anyhow ..its a lube problem .
 
This is frustrating.........there is absolutely, positively, nothing apparently wrong mechanically. There is no evidence, what so ever, of cartridge/pressure problems. No out of the ordinary fouling. It doesn't happen (as of yet) with smokeless. I usually shoot 8gr of Unique. The BP loads are 30-32 gr of 3fg (accounting for the courseness of the powder and the difference in each "dip" with a Lee dipper.) From the specs I've read, they are approximately equal loads. At least not grossly different!

Like I said earlier......I will try a new hand/spring.......just in case, but, I am wondering if maybe German engineering is so precise that the LEAST bit of BP fouling will jam it up!
 
Last edited:
Some of the SASS shooters use them with bp and no problems I've heard about. I guess I'll stick with my Uberti's.
 
Any difference in recoil between the BP and smokeless cartridges?

Check the window and see if there's any burrs that can catch the pawl. I'm thinking that it happens during recoil. The difference in recoil may be the stronger recoil may give the pawl enough momentum to bounce forward whereas the lighter one may be just enough to push it back for it to catch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top