51' navy problems

[will52100]

Well I finaly got my 51' navy back from cimmeron, it's only been 4 months   They promised to do an action job for the trouble, ect.  I got it back a week ago and tried it out.  First thought when cycling it empty was "what action job?"  Not that it has a bad action and I'm a little releived as I don't want reduced power springs in it.  Same problem as before, binding after first shot.  Mainly with black powder, but with smokless also.  I can rotate the cylinder a bit by hand then it's freed up and can function.  I took the gun down to clean and inspect it and it still had the bore butter I put on the cylinder pin when I sent it too them.  I took the guts out and and cleaned everything up and found no evidence of an action job or anything other than replacing the hand spring that was broke when I sent it too them.  I would not send a gun back for a broken hand spring as I figure that's part of the price of having that design.  Needless to say I was not a happy camper.  This time I took a set of calipers to it and checked headspace and everything.  The endshake is a little excessive, and the barrel cylinder gap is a bit more than I'd like, but would otherwise worked fine.  The hand is still binding in the window.  I basicly told them that if they can't do better than that to send my money back and I'd take my buisness elswhere.  This is unbelievable.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

I'm not an expert, but have you checked to see if the wedge is too tight?  That can bind a Colt Cap'nball up.  I've heard talk of setting the wedge with a shim between the barrel & cylinder.

[will52100]

It's not the wedge, if any thing I can't get the wedge tight enough.  I finaly broke out the calipers and the measured everything and the cylinder is moving to far farward and is alowing the hand to bind into the breach plate window.  any one problem would not cause what I've got going on, but with excessive endplay and barrel gap and a too narrow hand it all adds up.  I could pien the gas ring and turn it down on the lathe to remove the head space, but if I screw it up there's a 70 dollar cylinder.  Pluss it's a new gun and they can dang well fix it.

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[Major 2]

You didn't state , so I'm thinking 51 Navy conversion  (see as how you mention smokeless)
I have first hand experance with several of these and they worked well out of the box.
I'm surprised Cimarron did not solve the problem ....they are quite responsive.

Assuming you bought it NIB from them, I'd give them the chance to replace the gun.

[will52100]

Sorry, yes it's a conversion in 38 special.  This is the third gun from cimmeron in a row that I've had problems with.  The first was a 72' opentop that I don't realy count because I knew about the firing pin before buying and had one ready when I got it.  The other was a 60RM and it came with a  cylinder and 45 barrel.  They replaced that one no problem, but the replacement rubed a ring around the cylinder and a high spot on the water table rubed everybit of blue off the cylinder.  I took a hair off a high spot on the bolt, took the high spot down on the water table and rust blued the cylinder, now it's my favorite pistol.

The thing with the 51 is that I sent it back and told them to test fire it as it only does it after fireing.  Aparently they replaced the broken hand spring and sent it back after four months of waiting and run around.  No matter what they do, this is the last time I buy from cimmeron.