Cocking Richards Mason without cylinder

[OD#3]

I'm working on a friend's Uberti Richards Mason conversion in .38 Spl.  When I'm checking things with the cylinder off, it is very irritating to have to push the hand back into the frame just in order to cock it.  If I don't do that, the hand jams in its slot.  With the cylinder in place, the hand is held back by the ratchet star and doesn't jam.  Is this typical of these Richards Masons, or do I need to do something to the hand?

[Abilene]

It is fairly typical, not unusual.  One of mine does it but the others don't.

[Back Roads]

Was slicking up and doing the arbor "fix" on two of a friends RM Conversions from Uberti recently. The one made in 2015 had the same problem. The one manufactured in 2017 had no problems of this nature. Upon tearing down and checking the hand on the offending revolver I saw that the left top end of the hand was worn or filed down. I put in a new factory fresh hand in and the revolver would not function at all. When I tried to cock the hammer the top left of the new hand would hit the frame and stop all movement. In order to get it to work properly I would have to file on the hand a little at a time to find the sweet spot. The owner did not want me to spend the extra time to correct the problem.  Since it worked fine with the cylinder in place he said he could live with it. Wish you luck correcting yours.

Back Roads

[45 Dragoon]

  Part of "slicking up" a S.A. is breaking (removing) the front outside corner of the hand to prevent what you're experiencing (especially on a 2 fingered hand). They tend to bind there from spring tension.
  New hands are long and need to be fitted. A "too long" hand will try to turn the cylinder (carry up) before bolt pickup releases the cylinder.

Mike

[OD#3]

I can see where Uberti did a suggestion of a bevel there, but it obviously didn't do any good.  Shame.  This Uberti is the only one I've ever encountered that was timed perfectly at full cock, so it makes me reluctant to do anything to the hand.  I keep seeing people post on here about their new Uberti open top acquisitions--percussion and cartridge--and about how pleased they are with them.  Every single new one I've ever handled has had issues.  I either have the worst luck, or most folks don't mind rough actions and short arbors.

[45 Dragoon]

OD#3,
   I guess you mean the bolt locks the cylinder when full cock is reached (simultaneously)? The bolt should drop fully in front of the locking notch (preferably 1 bolt width in front of). Some folks think the bolt should drop off the cam and directly into the notch.

Mike

[OD#3]

No Dragoon.  The bolt completes its lockup precisely as the hammer reaches full cock.  And the bolt initially rises in the leade, so that is good.  It is what the bolt is doing at half-cock that has been problematic.  Probably the half-cock notch was cut incorrectly, or the trigger sear was too short, but Uberti timed it for perfect full cock like that anyway, and I'd hate to replace the trigger and/or hammer.  On half cock, the bolt still protruded up through the water table enough to drag on the cylinder and create a turn line.  Had that turn line begun when I was first examining his new revolver, I'd have advised him to send it back.  But it just felt a little rough and sluggish, and I attributed it to rough or burred lockwork.  When I was removing some metal off the top of the bolt, I accidentally positioned the bolt too low in the vice, which allowed the vice to squeeze the bolt leg, bending it.  Then it broke clean off when I tried to bend it back out.  New bolt arrived from Taylors and Company yesterday, and I finished fitting it last night.  Took me forever to dress it down far enough to keep from dragging on the cylinder during half cock.  I'd already fixed the short arbor and lapped the barrel assembly deeper to correct the endshake.  Then, even though the bolt was no longer dragging, I still felt drag.  It wasn't until I started seeing finish wear on the high spots of the rolled engraving on the cylinder that I realized that the cylinder was also dragging some on the water table.  And to top it all off, despite fixing the endshake and short arbor, it started developing endshake again as the cylinder bushing started wearing against the barrel assembly.   That also caused the nice barrel cylinder gap I'd established to disappear, so the cylinder face then started rubbing on the barrel breech.  So I've faced the barrel breech back a little to correct that, but I'll still have to pull the frame pins again and lap the barrel assembly back a bit more to correct the endshake again, and I'll probably have to adjust the arbor shim again too. The wedge was fitting fine, but it is starting to get close to bottoming out now, and I REALLY hate making wedges.  Although I'd purchased the appropriate drill bit and tap some time ago, I've held off trying your adjustable wedge set-screw mod on any of my revolvers, because I just wasn't convinced it was as strong as the factory setup, given that the set screw can't have as much bearing surface against the wedge as the full wedge slot would.

But I think I may actually try it this time.  I've called my friend, and he's agreed to my trying that.  I'm still a little skeptical about it, despite your advocacy.  Wish me luck.  

Just once, I'd like to see a Uberti gun from the factory that was good to go.

[45 Dragoon]

WOW!!!!

  Ok,  easy first - the wedge is roughly an 1/8 of an inch thick. The set screw for the bearing is a 1/4 inch. The contact patch for the wedge is actually fairly small. If you'll look at an original 1st gen. arbor, the wedge slot is straight cut (no angle cut like Uberti does). The contact patch is the front left hand side of the slot (except for Walkers), so it's not a full width fit. This is another reason why Uberti's have a tough time with wedges loosening. Too much contact .  .  .   too much to explain here but it has to do with triangulation points, not points and a slant surface.  .  .   Anyway, the Pietta slot is cut from both sides leaving a contact patch in the middle which is fine because it's still a point of contact. So, the 1/4" bearing is more than sufficient for replacing the patch in either app.

  The half cock notch is probably where it's supposed to be, the problem is a bolt not retracting into the frame or the bolt dropping before half cock (which is it?). On every S.A. you work on, the notches are the guide line for events that take place. If at half cock the bolt head is in contact with the cyl, that's a problem!!! Fix that first before anything else (or you may damage things .  .  .  .  like cylinders .  .  .  ) it's a cam problem, bolt problem or combination of both. You can't "time" or "adjust timing" if it's already happened!
  The full cock notch is the stopping point. That defines the length of the cycle. I still can't understand what you are defining as "perfect" timing but it sounds like anything but perfect.  You need to have the hand adjusted for lockup and full cock happening simultaneously (the last click) first. After that, you'll know where/when bolt drop should be.

In general, the only dressing of the bolt head is done for locating the contact in the notch/ approach. One exception for height may be fitting a 5 shot drop cylinder conversion. Lengthening the trigger sear and setting it up for "conversion only" operation will remove that need though.

Ok, I gotta get .  .  .  .

Mike

[OD#3]

I guess I haven't done the best job describing this.  In many--if not most--of the Uberti revolvers I've received or examined, the timing at full cock of the hammer is off.  In my experience, most commonly the hammer reaches full cock before the cylinder has fully rotated into position.  Functionally, it still works, as further rearward cocking of the hammer finishes rotating the cylinder, but this late carry-up is wrong, self-worsening over time, and difficult for me to correct.  Sometimes I've been able to stretch the hand successfully, though as you know, sometimes lengthening the hand to correct this also causes the cylinder to begin its rotation too soon, before the bolt has dropped all the way out of the notch.  Very difficult for me to fix on a single-toothed hand, which is why I prefer the two stage hand.
Everything is interrelated. 

On my friend's revolver, the hammer reached full cock precisely when the bolt locked into the cylinder notch.  I was very pleased when I saw this, because so few Uberti revolvers I've handled did this.  But when placed on halfcock, the bolt was allowed to rise up through the water table enough to rub on the cylinder.  When one first starts cocking the revolver, the bolt disappears into the frame, but the half cock position is a notch on the hammer, so when you reach half cock, the hammer moves forward again slightly, and this lowers the bolt tail a little and allowed the bolt head to start protruding slightly through the water table.  As you know, there is a lot less room between the cylinder and the frame on these open top designs than in the SAA, and it doesn't take much movement of the bolt to make a big difference.  Also, the cylinder stop notches are more shallow. 

So I don't know exactly what Uberti got wrong on this revolver.  At hammer rest, the bolt tail sits just on top of the cam lobe and begins to move the moment the hammer starts to move back on cocking--just like it should.  So it doesn't look like the cam is mis-positioned or shaped.  And the tail drops off the cam when it should, positioning the bolt head about midway in the cylinder stop notch leades.  Timing-wise, everything appeared to be on the money, except that the bolt head rose too far during half-cock, and it rubbed on the cylinder.  The new bolt I fit was the same, and I took no metal off the bolt leg.  It drops when it should, and it moves the moment the hammer starts to cock.  BUT, it, too, rose too far during half-cock and rubbed on the cylinder.  All this leads me to believe that Uberti got the sear or hammer notches wrong but managed to time everything anyway, ignoring the fact that the bolt was now rubbing on the cylinder at half-cock.  So I had to dress the bolt down until it no longer contacted the cylinder during half-cock.  There is still plenty of protrusion into the cylinder notches after the bolt leg falls off the hammer cam, so I think I'm good there.  I could take a little metal off the ledge on the bolt nose if I need it to rise further, but then I'd have to take some metal off the bottom of the bolt tail to compensate, since it is already resting on the cam as is.  And for all I know, that might have a neutral effect, because a thinner bolt tail will cause the bolt head to rise higher during half-cock, and I'd be back to dressing down the bolt head again.  No free lunch.

So right now, the bolt fitting has gone well, and the revolver behaves as one perfectly timed.  Even the chambers are lined up well with the ejection rod and gate at half cock.  But it took so long to accomplish dressing down of the bolt, because one can't really see the bolt working on these open top designs, as it is hidden by the curve of the water table.  And I didn't want to take off too much metal and have it fail to lock the cylinder when it should, so this became one of those "fit-n-try" marathons.  I bet the action was disassembled and reassembled 25 times.  The cylinder was spun by hand so many times to try and discover exactly where it was rubbing and by how much, that there is now a bolt turn line on the cylinder completely devoid of finish.  And some finish has been rubbed off of the roll engraving where the cylinder was inexplicably touching the water table there as well.  And all of this disassembly, reassembly, and cylinder rotation evidently was enough to wear the gas ring portion of the cylinder into its corresponding seat in the barrel assembly enough to develop endshake again and close the cylinder gap completely.  And that necessitated facing the barrel breech back a little to achieve some barrel cylinder gap again.  So when I get done re-lapping the barrel assembly back a little to eliminate the endshake again, I fear I'll run out of wedge.  So I'm now seriously considering your mod., despite some misgivings.  My short arbor fix uses the Dillon locating button (ala Pettifogger), and that is much easier for me to adjust incrementaly by just chucking the tail into the drill press and dressing it will files, stones, and sandpaper.  With your mod, I'm going to have to switch to washers.  It is straightforward enough, but I haven't done it before, and I don't like learning on my friend's revolver.  He ponied up the cash for the new bolt and chocked that up to really inexpensive action work, since the bolt cost $27.00.  But if I mess up this adjustable wedge mod, I'll have more or less ruined his revolver.  Right now, it functions well, and I think the average Joe would like it as is, but my friend wanted a smooth-cocking but tight revolver, and right now, with that endshake having developed again, it just isn't tight.

[45 Dragoon]

P.M. sent.

Mike