Taylors Armi Sport 1865 in 45 schofield

[Big Whiskey Jim]

Well after almost a year and a half of searching and waiting I finally became a spencer owner today.  It is a used Taylors Armi sport in 45 schofield.  Looks almost unfired and well taken care of.  It has a few issues that are described as common here on the board and after I pick up some tools they should be easy enough to fix.  The extractor has a large bur on the tip which is gouging the bullets.  There is also a large bur in the magazine tube.  I plan on loading up some 200gr lrnfp with APP and hitting the range.  I have read through all the sticky posts and do need a little advice.  While function checking the gun I ran into a problem where the upper breechblock gets stuck on the frame where is protrudes just in front of the forward trigger guard screw on the rounded part.  It has actually cut 2 grooves into the trigger guard.  It also will jam up is levered too vigorously.

Here is the trigger guard.


Here is the part of the upper breechblock that rides the frame.


And here is the gap in the upper and lower breechblocks when it is open and functioning normally.


The upper breechblock can be pushed down to close the gap with the lower breechblock.  I think this might be the culprit since it lowers the travel stops which allows it to wedge into the frame.  I assume the mechanism that stops the over travel is the trigger guard riding on the upper breechblock and catching where the grooves turn flat.  Before I do the drill and tap gap fix outlined in the FAQ I would like to get some opinions being this is my first spencer.
thanks
Jim

[Two Flints]

Jim,

Why not join SSS if the info you found may be of value to you.  Sent you two Emails about joining the Spencer Shooting Society   No obligation to join.

Two Flints

[PvtGreg]

Hi BWJ,

You can look at this post.  It Chronicles my efforts with armisport spencers.

http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/topic,38682.0.html

Join up with us - there will never be a better Spencer group to join.

Pvt Greg

[Drydock]

I had a .45 Schofield Spencer, did the same thing.  Easy solution is to cut a circular shim from an old credit card, and place it around the block post, between the block and carrier.  This prevents the block from dropping too far, allowing the carrier to rotate out of the bottom of the reciever.  My current .56-50 is shimmed as well, mostly as a preventive measure.

I once saw an original in a museum with a leather shim in the same place, for the same reason!

[Big Whiskey Jim]

Well I have it broken down into a pile of screws and parts to begin polishing a de-burring.  Quick question does the magazine tube need to come out before the stock comes off?  Thanks for the tip on using the credit card as a shim Drydock, that should stop the top breachblock from coming down too low and allowing it to wedge on the frame.  PvtGreg I reviewed your post and mine needs some of the same cleanup you did on yours thanks.  Two Flints, sent you an email.
Jim

[Big Whiskey Jim]

I polished and removed the burs, it now feed and ejects very smooth with no issues.  I am still having problems with the breech over traveling and grinding into the trigger plate.  I filed down and polished the sharp edges that the breech dug into the trigger plate.  I tried to shim the gap but it has to close all the way to clear the frame to open.  I think I have discoverer the problem.  On the original spencers the groove on the top of the breech block seems to be wider and come to a more abrupt end in the shape of the trigger plate.  On mine it comes to a narrower slopped shallow end which allows the breech block to ride up the trigger plate and grind to a halt as opposed to stopping when it comes in contact with the trigger plate, if I understand how the mechanism is supposed to work.  I have attached a larger picture of the section I am talking about.  The shiny part at the front is were the shallow ramp groove is.


I think if I re-contour the groove making it deeper and wider like an original it should fix the issue.  Anyone know if the 45 schofield and 45 colt models take the same upper breech block in case I need a spare?
Jim

[PvtGreg]

Big Whiskey Jim,

You may have over shaped the trigger bar.  I did this and had to buy another trigger bar.

I think drydock is dead on - the upper block and lower block to prevent the upper block from bottoming out against the lower block.  There are a number of way to do this.  I added about 1/4" of washer in the spring hole (the hole the spring goes into in the lower block.  Some do as drydock does shim the area between the two blocks with a slim metal or plastic  shim.

I'm not sure i'd mess with the trigger bar again.

My two cents.

Pvt Greg

[Herbert]

All the early AS spencers had this problem it is caused by the block stop on the trigger bare being to short,I fixed it by adding metal to the stop and reshaping it,the newer AS Spencers have a proper shaped stop so this is not a problem so geting a replacment triger bare from a recintly made batch would be the easyest fix

[Big Whiskey Jim]

Well it has been too cold to go to the range so been in the playing with the spencer some more.  My thought was correct and it was groove on top of the upper breech that was causing my issues.  I re-contoured the groove to look more like pictures of the originals by widening the track and making the width the same until it ends.  Does not hang up on the frame anymore no matter how fast I throw it open.  Still need to do a bit more polishing on the internals, the sharp edges are still catching the lead bullets and eating them up some times.  I also widened the rear sight notch so you could see the front sight in it.

Loaded up some 200gr LRNFP bullets over a full case of FFG APP to see how it shoots.  Hope the weather breaks soon.

[Big Whiskey Jim]

Weather was great today and I made it to the range.  Only bad part was I only made 20 rounds to fire.  The 45 schofield I loaded up, 200 gr LRNFP over a full case of FFG APP, Fed LP primer, worked very well, no kick and lots of smoke.  Only issue I had was when the gun was levered open sometimes the right extractor would travel too far back and not ride up before the rim of the shell causing it to wedge between the bolt face and the back of the shell.  To get it into battery I would have to lever the gun open again and re-close it.  Sometimes it would have to be opened up all the way causing a new shell to pop onto the follower, which caused me to have to remove the magazine to let the sell fall back into the tube so I could close the bolt.  All-in-all happy with the work I have done so far, should be able to solve the extractor issue before the first match in April.

[Big Whiskey Jim]

Well, after disappearing into the man cave for over a month I got the spencer out to the range.  When we last saw our hero he was having issues with the extractor and was out of ammo.  Trying to diagnose the reason why the extractor was over traveling was tricky.  I ended up removing the extractor all together.  After running my dummy rounds through the action I could not recreate the issue I was having at the range.  I loaded another 100 rounds and headed out to the range to see how it would shoot again.  I ran 3 full magazines through and had no issues with extraction or the shell jamming up.  As far as accuracy goes I set out the targets at 50 yards and was able to keep them all on a paper plate.  I was shooting with a friend who brought his henry rifle to shoot and we decided to have a shoot off.  We moved the targets to 25 yards and began.  After the black powder smoke cleared the spencer won out on accuracy and we decided if I had a blakeslee box the spencer would also win out on a sustained rate of fire.  So after 100 rounds with no jams I guess I would call the problems I had with the spencer, cross your finger, fixed.  I will be shooting it in a 4 stage CAS match on the 13th.

[paledun]

Thanks for the update, BWJim.  I really want to know your times in the stages when shooting a Spencer.  I have a friend who believes he is really having fun if he breaks 100 seconds.  Let us know.  Paledun

[Big Whiskey Jim]

Well match was today.  The good, the spencer drew a lot of attention, it looks real good.  The bad, it jammed up during each stage so bad I had to hand it off.  Not sure what the issue was, I had issues with extraction and feeding.  On the first stage the first 3 rounds fed fine and the fourth locked up.  I had to remove the magazine dump the rounds out and shake the jammed round loose.  Took 5 misses on that stage, didn't look at my time because I was so flustered by the rifle I missed half of my pistol shots.  Second stage made it to the fifth round before it jammed.  This time it jammed up so bad I had to drop the bolt out to remove the round.  Third stage I tried again, just about every posse member was offering me rifles, and was able to fire 4 shots before it jammed up.  Last stage shot my wife's rifle and was able to finish under 50 seconds.  I checked my OAL on my ammo and it is the same as the previous rounds that I used in the last range session.  I can recreate the issue but could not see what or how the round was jamming the action.  I took the stock and magazine tube off and tried feeding the rounds in 1 at a time so I could see how they are interacting with the bolt.  It would seem that the rounds are not going in far enough so the end clears the breech face and it is catching it just in front of the rim and pinching it against the top of the receiver instead of pushing it forward.  I see maybe three things causing this,
1.  The bolt travels to far back and the round cannot travel far enough forward to clear the breech.  Could try a new trigger bar and see how that works.
2.  The bullet stop on the bolt (the shark fin shaped thing) is too far back not letting the bullet travel far enough forward to clear the breech.  Could shorten the OAL or shorten the bullet stop.
3.  The magazine spring is not providing enough tension on the bullet.  This could explain why the first couple of shots are fine.  Try a stronger magazine spring.

I will try the magazine spring and load up some shorter OAL rounds to see if that fixes it.  Frustrating that just the week prior it was working like a champ.  I really want to get this reliable enough to use in matches and not just fun at the range.

[sharps1863]

Sorry to hear that the Spencer didn't preform like you had hoped. Jim when you were on the line firing, how did you cycle the rifle.  Did you leave it up up to your shoulder and work the lever like you would a regular lever rifle. If you did, this could be some of your problem. It seems the Spencer does not eject/work well if it is held against the shoulder and the lever cycled. At least mine does not. I have a 56-50 carbine. This is not going to win any speed competitions. But I have to bring the rifle off of my shoulder after firing, thumb cock one click and as I move the lever forward I tilt the muzzle up this allows gravity to help eject the empty case and when I close the lever I bring the muzzle back down to reverse the angle to allow the loaded cartridge to be pointed slightly down when its chambering, back to my shoulder and then thumb cock hammer to firing position, Plus I work the lever rather briskly. I did have the bolt over travel problem but the spacer shim fixed that and I also reload all my shells so I experimented with different O.AL. bullet lengths and when I found one that cycled the best. I stuck with it. I hope you get all the bugs worked out on yours. I know it can be frustrating. Keep us up dated on your progress and remedy's to the cycling problem.

[TheRev]

I've been watching with great interest.  I have the same in 44WCF and have tried to shoot it in several SASS matches and always end up having to use my back-up rifle.  I'm not mechanical, so I have printed all these emails and am going to take it to my gunsmith and let him try.  Nice looking, and draws a lot of attention but just doesn't function woth a c#$p.

TheRev

[Big Whiskey Jim]

I broke the spencer down to all it's parts, the only thing I didn't remove was the barrel.  Cleaned it all real good, removed anything that remotely resembled a burr or rough spot.  Lubed it up nice and good and put it back together.  I stretched the magazine spring to apply more pressure on the rounds feeding into the breech.  Went to the range today and ran 32 rounds through it without a hitch, functioned flawlessly.  Going to cross my fingers and see how it runs in the next match.  I ordered a new trigger plate to see how much different it is than the one that is on the spencer now.  It sure is a head turner at the range, especially with a full case of APP covering the line in smoke.

[Big Whiskey Jim]

Shot the spencer in a match today.  Was a nice overcast day with an inversion so the BP smoke just hung in the shooting bay.  I think I finally have the spencer running right.  Shot the whole match with just a few hiccups.  At this club we only shoot 8 in the rifle so it was made for the spencer.  I am shooting frontiersman so my pistols are an 1851 and 1861 navy and my shotgun is an older russian hammered SxS.  First stage I shot it clean, I was cautious with the spencer not to lever it too fast or too slow as not to cause any feeding or extractions problems.  If I lever it too fast I can sometimes cause the round to outrun the extractor and it ends up behind the rim.  With my success on the first stage I was feeling froggy so I sped it up a bit on the second stage and wouldn't you know I outran the extractor but was able to do a quick fix and finish the stage with only one miss on the pistols.  Third stage no problems except for a miss on the pistols.  Fourth stage the action was getting a bit dirty, shooting a full case of APP under a 200gr lead RNFP.  The extractor got a bit sluggish but was able to finish the stage.  I was feeling real froggy and decided to shoot gunfighter and missed 4 shots with my left pistol, oh well.  My times were I did not have the extractor problems were both both right around 70 seconds, the 2 stages with the malfunctions were around 105 seconds. 

So no major malfunctions and it seems I fixed the issue with the breech block locking up on the incoming round.  All in all very happy.
Jim