51 RM has lose base pin

[eli hawk]

can it be tightened or does it have to be replaced, i can see that it has a barrel pin to hold it in, am not real confident about doing the work myself, if it is real involved, am very familiar with the gun and its parts, do all my own work

[Goody]

Glad to see you here, Eli. Hopefully Hoof Hearted will read this, I don't think he is very far from you. You're around Weatherford, right?

[Pettifogger]

If it is just a little loose and the gun functions OK, I'd leave it alone.  If it is real loose and/or the backing plate is loose you need to drill out the staking pin and then unscrew the arbor.  If the arbor threads are basically OK and the arbor hole is in decent shape, I would thoroughly clean and degrease the threads and put some red loctite on it.  Screw it back in, put on the barrel and wedge and let it sit.  After everything is set and straight, you can put in another staking pin, but the red loctite will keep it from backing out.

[Fox Creek Kid]

If it is just a little loose and the gun functions OK, I'd leave it alone...

Amen. I had an Uberti '51 Navy with a loose arbor pin and it would shoot nickel sized groups dead nuts on benched at 15 yds. all day long with the stock brass bead sight. One day I thought that I would "fix" it and boy I did. 

[eli hawk]

got hold of hoofhearted in my area and he will handle my problem thanks

[Montana Slim]

I've encountered the similar problems on C&B (Pietta & Uberti) & conversions (Uberti). In each case, the culprit was a loose locking pin.

In two instances, I recall tipping the revolver, muzzle up while it was cocked & the pins would nearly fall out. I removed them with  a needle-nose plier, then bought the next larger size dowel pins at the hardware store. These were next trimmed to the same length as the old pin, then I drilled the hole out to the new standard (US) size for the new pin. They tapped in snuggly, I then peened around the edges. End of problem.

Several other revolvers with slightly loose pins were cured by seating the lock pins tight with a pin-punch, then peening the edges around the holes, same as above. End of problem.

Slim

[Hoof Hearted]

Eli

Just checking in to see how my repair is working out for ya!
I'll bet you've been to a couple of shoots since then............

HH