binding problem

[kurt250]

have a replica 75 remmington in 44/40 cal. after 10 or 15 rounds it binds up pretty tight. anything i can do to fix that. have lubed pin and front of cyclinders but still binds up. thanks for any help. kurt250

[Leo Tanner]

I have heard that too tight of a  gap between the cylinder and the frame is a common cause for this problem.  Also when checking this gap, check it all the way around the cylinder by rotating it to be sure it is not slightly cockeyed.  I don't have the specific figures on this one as I don't own one of those beauties.  I'm sure someone else here can help much better than I.
     Good luck!


Leo

[hellgate]

When my Remington '58s bind up I free them with a drop of oil on the front of the cylinder where it contacts the frame. A few jiggles of the cylinder to work it down onto the pin gets it to twirling just fine. You might also see if you are getting cylinder drag on the face of the cylinder and the barrel. That could be due to a tight cylinder gap. I like about .005-.007" gap for my C&Bs.

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

Kurt250,

I'm familiar with the issue you're having. Take the below for what it's worth from a black powder shooter's perspective on repro Uberti .44 WCF Remingtons. I have two and they both had the same binding issues right out of the box. Did I send them back to the manufacturer? Heck no - probably should have sent them back but fixing them was more fun in the end.

I wrote the below in 2005 on a blog type forum for my shooting pards in case they were considering buying Uberti Remingtons. The following is the last installment of a three-part entry of my fixing binding issues and it might be of interest. If you're at all squeamish about working on your babies the below process may not be for you. However, what I did to fix the binding issues worked and if nothing else you can see the details of how mine were binding.

Since fixing them I enjoy shooting my '75 Remingtons without excessive/abnormal binding issues, beyond more or less normal BP related fouling. If you shoot smokeless cartridges I believe what is detailed below would fix your binding problem, perhaps entirely. However, as they say, take the below for what it's worth – worked well for me and my binding problems but may not for yours.

<start 2005 entry>
"The final fixes have been made to the Uberti 1875 Remingtons so they work more like they're supposed to. Here's the story on the final chapter of the adjustments I've had to make to them...

After the last shoot there were more deep witness marks on both cylinder rods where the forward edge of the cylinder rod channels were rubbing hard enough to leave more infamous scoring, though not as bad as last time after chucking them & etc. Upon further investigation there was also visible deep scoring on both frames in a crescent moon shape just above and around the cylinder rod channel, below the forcing cone. This was created by the spacer on the cylinder (where the forward edge of the bushing would be on a '73 Colt) in a hard interference condition with the frame. Interesting to note this area was interfering with everything: frame and cylinder rod. Having not noticed this scoring on the frame before I was a bit intrigued and frustrated.

Once again I chucked the long cylinder rods in my drill and went through six grades of sandpaper carefully and evenly removing metal as far down as the scoring until it was entirely gone, then steel-wooled and rouge-polished the heck out of them. To counter the crescent moon scoring on the frames I took the same six grades of sandpaper then polished the spacers on both cylinders a bit to relieve the interference condition there. Removing material only helped here and allowed for better rotation of the cylinders. The hard interference leaving deep witness marks was definitely a no-go as BP fouling builds and only makes it worse. This would not be as much of an issue if I was a smokeless shooter but with black powder it's a killer regarding fowling in that tight space.

I put 35 rounds through each revolver to see what was going on after the final fixes to note the improvements. As before black powder fowling became excessive between the cylinder faces and forcing cones on both revolvers. They were becoming a bit stiff in rotating by the 10th round though nowhere close to what they had been before so my fixes had noticeably improved function. However, methinks no matter how much I mess with the extremely long and finicky cylinder rods my Remingtons will always be more prone to hard fowling related functional issues than my Colts could ever be, even without the hard interference issues they had out-of-the-box is now fixed. Now when they get really stiff it's after many rounds fired and they're okay again with a big dollup of ballistol. This is a 100%+ improvement over the way they worked when I got them. Possibly more improvement is on the way when I use up my on-hand supply of Meister bullets and start with the Goex/Black Dawg bullets as I've understand they carry more lube and more wouldn't hurt."
<end 2005 entry>

[Oldelm]

Howdy folks,

This binding problem is an interesting subject, as I have a similar problem with my Uberti .44 WCF Remingtons, but not as bad as Kurts. I just squirt some Ballistol around the end of cylinder so it runs down into the cyl. pin and it frees things up for a bit. I've been meaning to do a more thorough and permanent fix, such as mentioned by Monterey Jack, but have never gotten around to it yet.

Say, Monterey....thanks for posting your info on how you successfully dealt with your binding problem, as those details you wrote help explain the crux of the problem to begin with,...which helps one approach the fix with a clearer sight of what needs to be done. Do you have a link to that blog type forum where one could find your entire entry about this? I'd like to read the first two parts, ifin that's possible.

There's another longtime memeber of SCORRS , I think it's "Steel Horse Bailey, who did a fix for binding on his '75 Rems by grooving his cyl. pin with a small file......here's a photo he posted....



.....it allows for the pin to capture lube, and with some metal filed away I would imagine there's less bearing surface for friction.

Maybe I'll give that a try, too, in addition to the cylinder rod polishing in the drill trick.

Thanks, Pards!

[Hoof Hearted]

OldElm

How the heck are ya?
Been missing you some here and was beginning to think you had sold the Rem's and moved on or something

I agree, the first two parts might help with the understanding a might bit.

One thing that concerns me though is his continued reference to "crescent moon scoring" to me this denotes something askew. and I would look to see if the face of the cylinder is exactly perpendicular to the cylinder pin (easy enough to do with feeler gauges and rotation), many of these Uberti cylinders are out a couple of thousandths. If the front on the cylinder extension (bushing ala colt) has too much play, and many think that giving it some play will eliminate binding, then the cartridge case and the face of the cylinder (if it's wobbly ((technical term)) can cause the cyinder to tilt by the amount of clearance that is present and necessary at the cylinder pin. Especially if there is a burr or high spot at the firing pin area on the recoil shield.

Cornfusing to write and follow but it is prudent to be thorough and to move slow here because it is difficult to put metal back on these remington cylinders short of installing a bushing of some sort.

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

Oldelm,

Can't for sure say if what I did took the revolvers out of nominal or put them in nominal. But it appears all the work paid off as they fire well now. No matter what, the hard interferences they had from the get-go tells me something was out of whack someplace straight from the factory and it seems that the minor metal work I did remedied the problem.

The mini 'blog' was on a yahoo e-group. I'll dig up the other info and forward to you - kind of boring reading and the third installment really sums up what I did for the most part. Some here might have an aversion to files, dremels & drills being used on nice, new revolvers so it might be good to spare the details of the surgeries. I also installed the lanyard loops on mine and here is a picture of my beloved, persnickity, and now fairly smooth Uberti '75s:



YMH&OS,

Brass

[Oldelm]

Yo Hoofie....

Did ya ever get that PM I sent ya?...I responded to yours not too long ago. No, I'd never sell my Rems, they bring me too much joy!
I generally shuffle on into the VOY BP forum when I been outa touch for awhile,...but the SCORRS site here will always keep me checkin things in here , too.  I gots chronic "Remingtonitis", ya know, just like all of us here,...

http://www.voy.com/60048/55573.html#post

Good points you make about being careful of taking metal away , especially aroumd that front cyl. collar/bushing.

Monterey Jack,......those are mighty fine looking Remingtons. The Lanyard rings are a nice touch.
About posting details of using files, drills & dremels,.....we can appreciate how some folks would be hesitant about using them on new revolvers, but as Hoof says, it is prudent to be thorough and to move slow when removing metal from or around that front cyl. bushing. Having said that,...from your good description of how you remedied your Rems, it sounds like you were very careful and successful with your work....good job!  I know there are many of us here who welcome the detailed discussion of any & all modifications, alterations, or fixes that make it more pleasurable to shoot these replica Remingtons. So keep it coming,....we love to see & hear about ALL the details of the surgeries.

I think the key to  smooth, foulfree spinning of the cylinder is that front collar/bushing on the face of the cyl. I had a discussion on this forum one time with "Mo Smoke",...a lover of the '75 Rem .44WCF,...he had a brace of 'em, and he said that the early Uberti Navy Arms '75 Rem .44WCF had a longer cyl. bushing, and they would shoot all day with no problem. I'll see if I can find that thread in the archive.

[Hoof Hearted]

Oldelm....er

Kewl post over there on voy.

I reread my post after reading yer post and I think my description was lackin a bit
When I described checking to see if the cylinder is perpendicular to the cylinder pin I was trying to describe a situation where:

If the cylinder bushing is not close to the forward part of the frame, under the barrel (because it has been "clearanced" for BP) then you allow the cartridge heads and the breech of the barrel to regulate head space.

Then if the face of the cylinder "wobbles" because it is not true, it will cause binding (on an angle because the breech face is at the top).

This could cause a "crescent moon" wear pattern at the recoil end of the frame from the ratchet.

I encounter this quite a bit on "open top" style revolvers (BP and conversion).

I re-calibered an ASM pistol last evening that was a 357. I installed a Uberti cylinder and barrel in 44-40 into it. The Uberti cylinder was close and actually rubbed on a 5 thousandths burr at the bolt stop opening! I fit everything real close before final cylinder gap was set and the face of the cylinder was out of round 3 thou. This meant that once cylinder gap was set at say 5 thou at the tight side then it would be 8 thou when turned to the loose side. Needless to say I had to dress the cylinder face on a brand new cylinder

[Oldelm]

Hoof Heart..yes I follow what you are saying.  Sounds like you're doing some good gunsmithing. What is the ASM? A Colt clone?

Monterey Jack was referring to his "crescent moon" problem occurring at the muzzle end of the cyl., beneath the forcing cone. The "crescent moon" effect you describe is at the breech end, but I figure you must realise this.

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

Oldelm – following is the mini 'blog' info referenced earlier. I took out some extraneous info and kept the apropos stuff. Also, for brevity's sake, the 'crescent moon' info was removed from the below – suffice it to say this deep scoring was carefully removed from both revolvers with a dremel, file, sandpaper &c and the metal taken down far enough that these marks have not returned.  Hope the below is of interest. Of course, the final installment is already posted above.

Also - thanks Hoof for the good info, always nice to get good data on fixing things.

<start info>
"For anyone interested in the idiosyncrasies of shooting new Uberti Remingtons, the following is for you. We've all been through some level of new-gun related issues with our '73 Colts but the Remingtons are a bit different. Seems like most of my issues stemmed from the super-long cylinder rods/axis pins, which are twice as long as the Colt equivalent. Interesting to note that my revolvers are consecutively numbered - pure luck as I didn't order them that way. One would think that they would not vary so much as they are sorta/kinda a 'matched' set but they do in some minor ways. Following are observations and shortcomings from last Saturday's shoot and subsequent corrective actions to my new '75 Remington Army revolvers.

The cylinder rods turned out to be a bit longer than they should be so I shortened them on my grinder. In design position the rods worked okay but when they moved to maximum rearward travel allowed by the rod traverse pin there were issues, especially with one revolver. The excessive protrusion through the rear of the frame (about 1.5 mm in 'worst case'/max travel position) acted as a stand-off to the hammer. Therefore, when the hammer fell forward during firing it struck the rear of cylinder pin instead of the cartridge primers (hence the metallic 'thuds' of the hammer against the rear of the cylinder pin stuck too far in the frame when I was attempting to shoot the last stage: the gun was loaded but the firing pin never engaged the primers to fire). This worsened as black powder fouling worsened. The hammers even had light marks showing where they had contacted the cylinder rod. Now, after this slight reduction in cylinder rod length, both revolvers should work as they are supposed to regarding the rear frame/cylinder rod interface when in worst-case rearward position. Additionally the cylinder rods needed a lot of polishing. They had somewhat rough surfaces that made them a bit difficult to move in fore/aft for cylinder removal and also made for increased friction during normal cylinder rotation that only worsened with normal fouling. Additionally the right hand gun cylinder rod had some deep scoring where the cylinder was in a hard-interference condition with the rod. This appears to be due to a very slight misalignment of the rod channels between fore and aft frame - just enough to cause a minor misalignment issue but thankfully not bad enough to make the guns a write-off. This misalignment and subsequent hard inference/contact of parts is what made cocking the revolver/cylinder rotation difficult. I removed enough material from the cylinder rod that had the scoring/witness marks and polished both with jeweler's rouge/polishing wheel on the dremel. Both cylinders now turn much easier. The rods also move easier within the cylinder rod/ejector rod housing assemblies when sliding them forward to remove the cylinders. Now the rods pull out by finger pressure alone and no longer require a turn-screw blade or other assist to pull them out after firing for awhile. Aside from the cylinder rods I still need to polish the cylinder chambers, especially on the left hand gun, as cartridge cases were sticking a bit and need to be smoothed. Will do this on both guns as the tolerances are tight and could use a wee bit of slop. Hopefully all of the above measures will have worked out the problems by the next shoot but if not then with a little more tuning I'm confident they'll work like they're supposed to work a few shoots from now and with careful work. I know there are unually issues with new guns but was expecting more of something like hand spring breakage (ironically I had to replace a broken hand spring on one revolver right out of the box...!) but had interesting parts-fit and interference issues to deal with instead."
<end info>


YMH&OS,

Brass

[Hoof Hearted]

Hoof Heart..yes I follow what you are saying.  Sounds like you're doing some good gunsmithing. What is the ASM? A Colt clone?

Monterey Jack was referring to his "crescent moon" problem occurring at the muzzle end of the cyl., beneath the forcing cone. The "crescent moon" effect you describe is at the breech end, but I figure you must realise this.

Oldelm

I read his above referenced blog reference more than a couple of times. I had the recoil end on my mind (too many opeb tops). BUT........the situation is the same, ie; if there is wear in a "crescent moon" shape than something is askew

ASM = Armi San Marco Lots of fellers like to say they are of poor quality. Just depends on how well the quality was controlled on the importers end. I have many that are crisp, clean, and here's the part that's important to me ; they are 100% Colt compatible!

Thisun was the first Navy Arms marked one I have ever seen. By the way the Uberti bbl screwed in fine. The shoulder was about 3 thou too proud but was easy to correct. The Uberti cylinder is also larger in circumference but worked perfect after stoning the burr from the bolt window. The 44-40 case hung up on the ejection trough so that had to be recontoured also. I have about 2 thou cylinder gap and it runs like a clock! I'm gonna see how tight I can get away with running a Swiss BP test.

Did you see the new Lyman Rem Army I posted about?

[Oldelm]

Monterey Jack, ....thanks for posting the rest of your info from that blog. Very interesting.
  Yes, I've heard in one other instance like yours where the cyl. pin was too long & hitting the hammer. Guess you fixed it ok , though. 

Hoof........

Thisun was the first Navy Arms marked one I have ever seen. By the way the Uberti bbl screwed in fine. The shoulder was about 3 thou too proud but was easy to correct.
The Uberti cylinder is also larger in circumference but worked perfect after stoning the burr from the bolt window. The 44-40 case hung up on the ejection trough so that had to be recontoured also. I have about 2 thou cylinder gap and it runs like a clock! I'm gonna see how tight I can get away with running a Swiss BP test

Do you have any pictures of this project, or did you post about it somewhere?

Yes, I did see the post of yours about the Lyman Navy Remington. Very Nice!

[Hoof Hearted]

Oldelm

Pm'd ya soas to return this hijack back to it's owner

[Dead Eye Dave]

Forgive my lack of technical terms here but here I go.  I had a problem with mine binding up.  Turns out I had a burr that was on the hole where the firing pin comes through.  I dremeled it out and no more binding.  Now its reliable and never binds up.  Its my Dad's favorite when we go shooting.

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

D.E.D.,

Excellent point – the burr you mention was a problem I had with several of my repro revolvers as well, some worse than others. But as a rule it's something that needed to be addressed with the guns I've purchased.

To fix I did the same thing – eliminate the sharp metal protrusion that's proud to the frame and comes in contact (sometimes severely) with cartridges bases/primers upon cocking or turning a loaded cylinder. In my case I use a dremel tool to remove such burrs and more or less chamfer the firing pin hole just around the edges so it's completely sub-flush to the frame, then polish the metal to make the dremeled area very smooth without any scratches or mars. Before I caught and fixed this condition on a couple of my revolvers score marks on cartridge bases were very deep and visible even after numerous reloads, cleanings, tumblings. Made for hard cocking and extra wear on the internal parts to push that cylinder to the next chamber. Definitely a no-go.

Good catch – this is certainly something to fix straight away as it seems to be a more or less common problem with repros. Makes one wonder why this issue isn't remedied at the factory before it's shipped out.

YHM&OS,

Brass

[Leo Tanner]

Good catch – this is certainly something to fix straight away as it seems to be a more or less common problem with repros. Makes one wonder why this issue isn't remedied at the factory before it's shipped out.

     Mebbe enough letters to the factory will remedy this.  The Italians have come a long way in recent past and seem to care about building a good product these days.  Learning gunsmithing is fun, but so is getting a new one and just going out ta shoot it with no problems.  I think they'd listen to feedback as they have in earlier days.  They are shooting for number 1 in the cowboy market.  They've got the affordability down, they just need ta tweak the reliabilty a tad.  Quality Assurance is everything in mass production.
      BTW, I've learned a heck of a lot in this thread.  Thanks!


Leo