Uberti "51" problem

[OldCrow]

I have a slight problem with my Uberti Navy, nothing that keeps it from shootin but is a pain. Whenever the cylinder is put on the safety pins ya have "a hell of a time" gettin it to "unlock"and rotate..When it's not on the pins it seems to work just fine. Now when I fired it for the first time I had it do the same thing a couple of time but at that time I thought it was just cap jams but now I'm not so sure, anyway it seems after working it that it now work better..If ya cycled it while keeping your thumb on the hammer it worked just fine but if ya dry fired it then it would lock up..I worked a little on the hand and that seemed to clear it up.I still think the problem is there in the hand. It looks like it "sticks" out more  around the shield area as compared to my 1860 Pietta..Any ideas?

[Goody]

I'd love to see an answer to this. I have two 60 Army's, both Uberti's. I have installed the gated Kirst, which by necessity is a 5 shot. After loading you must go to the safety pins. One gun is no problem, the other does just what you describe. The only way to get it to cock into battery is to back off the cylinder just a hair with the off hand. I'm thinking a little long on the hand as well, but would like some intelligent input before I start dremeling anything.

Oh yeah, with your permission I will ask the moderators to move this to the STORM portion, more appropriate there.

[Pettifogger]

Whenever someone asks a technical question you have to take what they ask literally.  Guessing what they meant usually does no good.  Seems that when I ask for clarification folks often get upset.  For example, the original poster stated, "Whenever the cylinder is put on the safety pins ya have "a hell of a time" gettin it to "unlock"and rotate."  How do you put the cylinder on a safety pin?  Now that the post seems somewhat clarified by the second post, and with pre-apologies to anyone that is offended, I'll suggest something to look for.  On a Colt action whenever the hammer is lowered without going to full cock the bolt does not reset.  The same goes if the hammer is prevented from going all the way to its fully forward position.  Photo one shows the bolt leg over the hammer cam.  Sometimes the bolt leg is very close to the top of the hammer cam and if the hammer is not fully down, for example by sitting on the safety pins, the bolt will not reset as shown in photo two and you cannot cock the gun.  You can see if this is the problem by removing the trigger guard and watching the parts move as you cycle the gun.  Sometimes all that is necessary is to grind a LITTLE clearance into the bottom of the bolt leg so it will reset.

[Goody]

OK, first off, there is certainly no offense from my point of view. 

Is what you are saying is, that because the hammer has not traveled all the way forward, the cam is not all the way rearward in the arc? And further that this causes it to not release the bolt since the cam is in the way? If this is correct then your fix is to grind the lower portion of the bolt leg. To clarify that, looking in the first picture, I would remove some material from the bolt leg where it resembles a crescent moon, directly above the cam. I do not want to remove any material from the back (flat) side of the bolt where it actually rides on the cam, correct?

[Pettifogger]

Correct.  You absolutely do not want to remove any material from the flat portion at the rear of the bolt.  That determines when the bolt drops off the cam and when the bolt will rise.  If you remove material the bolt will rise quicker and this can lead to a ring around the cylinder.  On some guns there is no where near the amount of clearance between the top of the cam and the bottom of the bolt legs as shown in Photo 1.  Before you remove any material take the backstrap and trigger guard off and cycle the gun and use a flashlight to watch the hammer and bolt.  Put the hammer on the pins, put on a cap and gently push the hammer forward until it touches the cap, etc. to see if this is indeed the problem.  If it is not resetting, then remove a small amount of material from the bottom of the bolt let (the part above the cam in Photo 1).  Often we are only talking a couple thousands (.002) of an inch to make everything work right.

[OldCrow]

No this problem is with the hand. as when the hammer sits on one of the safety pins the bolt is not engaged in any slot do the cylinder is not locked. You cannot or rather you can just barely get the hammer to pull back when it is on a pin, like the hammer is catching on something..I removed the bolt and held the cylinder in place and it still locks up the hammer..I think the hand is too short and it is catching on the bottom of the teeth of the ratcheting part of the cyliinder..anyway I ordered a replacement hand and I'll give that a try...Good post though the pics help explain on how the bolt worked..I have tried to imagine how that all worked together in the ole noggin and I had it figured out almost right..Thanks.

[Goody]

Often we are only talking a couple thousands (.002) of an inch to make everything work right.

So ixnay to the Dremel. Have to find them needle files.

[Hoof Hearted]

Old Crow
It is simple enough to verify the length of the hand on your pistol if you disassemble it and put only these parts together. The barrel, frame, cylinder, hammer, hand and backstrap. The backstrap is your hammer stop on a Uberti and if you hold it upside down (like a cat on it's back) and provide friction on the cylinder with your off hand while cocking the hammer all the way to the rear, you will see the cylinder stop notch through the hole in the frame (we call that part of the frame the water table). It should line up. If it over rotates the hand is too long, under rotates, the hand is too short. This is the first thing to check for all timing issues (then the correlation of bolt stop to notch width). Pettifogger is probably spot on with what the problem is on your pistol but one thing affects the next in Colt's "swinging arcs" design so start with the first and soon you'll be making moola working on pistols!

HH

No this problem is with the hand. as when the hammer sits on one of the safety pins the bolt is not engaged in any slot do the cylinder is not locked. You cannot or rather you can just barely get the hammer to pull back when it is on a pin, like the hammer is catching on something..I removed the bolt and held the cylinder in place and it still locks up the hammer..I think the hand is too short and it is catching on the bottom of the teeth of the ratcheting part of the cyliinder..anyway I ordered a replacement hand and I'll give that a try...Good post though the pics help explain on how the bolt worked..I have tried to imagine how that all worked together in the ole noggin and I had it figured out almost right..Thanks.

[OldCrow]

Thank you all for the info. I did get the problems fixed awhile back with a new hand I got from Dixie..A lot of hand filing, putting together and taking apart. Seems the hand that came with the gun was too short. It is amazing what you can learn by making little repairs like that of course I like to tinker anyway. As a kid I was always getting into trouble taking things apart to see "how they worked". My brothers would NEVER let me play with their toy guns for that reason..lol Anyway "Faith" turned out to be a fine shooter, only other thing I discovered was that there is a very small pinhole in the side of the frame that I found while shining a light into it, nut it is not something I can see any problem with.. My latest project was a Walker kit from the Possible shop and it too turned out pretty well, amazing the accurcury and range of it, I named it "Old Crow" after my dad, he would have loved it if he were still alive. I still am tweaking it somewhat, looking for a 1934 penny to set in the grip on one side..Anyway thanks again for all the advice.