1851 Navy conversion cylinder rotation problem.

[panhead pete]

Howdy folks,

I shoot black powder in a pair of 51 Navies in 38 special/Colt by Cimmarron and it seems that after the first shot, the cylinder jams and needs to be indexed by my offhand.  Sometimes they will shoot the other 4 rounds fine and sometimes it will shoot all five fine.  I have used Pyrodex P and Goex FFFg.  Still the same results.  When I shot blanks it really jammed up on me!!  I have tried increasing the cylinder to barrel gap to .008" and they still bind almost every time. I had no problem shooting smokeless, but alas an OT needs the holy black!  I use a dollop of SPG lube on an over powder card under the bullet and I have seen a good "lube star" at the end of the barrel.  I will be ordering a mold for big lube bullets from D.D. here shortly but I still have a bunch of regular bullets to use up.  Any idears would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Panhead Pete

[Abilene]

Howdy Pete,
I have four '51 Richards-Masons, and one of them acted like yours with BP.  On that one, it seemed to have a good cylinder to barrel gap, but several things were happening.  First, there was a fair amount of cylinder endshake and a strong hand spring.  At full cock, the hand spring was pushing the cylinder forward almost to the barrel.  Also, the wedge was somewhat loose in this gun.  When holstered the wedge would tend to push ia llittle tighter which moved the barrel back a bit.  What I did was to bend the had spring a tad so it isn't pushing forward quite so much, and take a bit off the rear of the barrel so it would still have a gap when the wedge was set properly.  That fixed mine.  A more proper way might have been to adjust arbor length and shim the cylinder, I dunno.  They shoot great.  Good luck

[will52100]

I had that problem with a 51 navy conversion from cimmeron.  It arived new like that and after 9 months of sending it back and forth finaly decided to fix it myself.  I wound up having to pien the gas ring to make it a little longer and mill a bit off the back of the barrel lug to tighten up the endshake.  I can't remember the barrel/cylinder gap but it was way excesive.  Out of three cartrige opentops that's the only one that had the problem, other than a 60 army RM that had a 44 cylinder and a 45 barrel!  When there rite there nice guns, but you learn to work on them to get some of them there.

[Mako]

Panhead,
By your post it looks like you are having equal problems with both of them.  If it is just with one (check them anyway) you need to check your hand spring.  Many times a pistol will still index sporadically with a broken spring.  The hand seem to wedge or move out of position under recoil unless you have good spring pressure.

Take a quick look and let us know.

Regards,
Mako

[panhead pete]

Thank you Gentlemen!

I have a bit of work ahead of me of the winter. 

Kind regards,

Panhead Pete

[Hoof Hearted]

Howdy folks,

I shoot black powder in a pair of 51 Navies in 38 special/Colt by Cimmarron and it seems that after the first shot, the cylinder jams and needs to be indexed by my offhand.  Sometimes they will shoot the other 4 rounds fine and sometimes it will shoot all five fine.  I have used Pyrodex P and Goex FFFg.  Still the same results.  When I shot blanks it really jammed up on me!!  I have tried increasing the cylinder to barrel gap to .008" and they still bind almost every time. I had no problem shooting smokeless, but alas an OT needs the holy black!  I use a dollop of SPG lube on an over powder card under the bullet and I have seen a good "lube star" at the end of the barrel.  I will be ordering a mold for big lube bullets from D.D. here shortly but I still have a bunch of regular bullets to use up.  Any idears would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Panhead Pete

Pete

By the statements you made (highlighted in red) I think you may also be piercing primers, or maybe they are backing out on you. Try shooting the pistol again and after you "indexed by my offhand" remove the cylinder and look real close at the primer from the offending round. It will appear "smeared".

Good luck!