Annoyed by a Uberti

[DeaconKC]

Picked up a Uberti 1873 5 1/2" .44-40 a while back because it was just GORGEOUS, the CCH was just beautiful. Today was the first day I took it to the range and it is misbehaving badly. Will not turn to full lock when loaded, needing a twist on the cylinder to fully set. I suspect the hand/pawl is the culprit. Gonna tear it down this weekend and check for burrs, etc. Anybody got any suggestions for any thing else to look for?

[Black River Bill]

Be careful not to lose the tiny screw and/or spring that puts pressure on the hand.  Ask me how I know.

[Kent Shootwell]

Any chance of high primer? You said "when loaded" it needs help to turn.

[DeaconKC]

Hadn't considered high primers as the stuff I was shooting was from Choice Ammo and ran perfectly in my Vaquero. I will go look at the remaining stuff.

[Pettifogger]

First thing to do before you go all nuts is to remove the cylinder and drop a round into each chamber.  If they are not freely dropping into the cylinder all the way to the rim your ammo is the problem.  .44-40 varies all over the map as far as chamber size.  Your bullets could be to large for the throat.  Also it is very common for the dies not to be setting the shoulder back far enough when the rounds are resized.  Out of four sets of .44-40 dies I have had to have the sizing die shorted by about .060" so they could be screwed far enough down to set the shoulder back.

[Cap'n Redneck]

If the problem surfaced after the first round was fired, then it could be that the spent primers are cratering around the firing pin and then dragging on the recoil shield.  Then you have too large a hole in the frame/firing pin-bushing.  My easy-fix was to switch from soft Federal to harder Winchester large pistol primers.

[DeaconKC]

Okay, this morning went and grabbed some more ammo. The Choice stuff dropped right in and would spin the cylinder and rotate by cocking. This is from the same batch of what was hanging up yesterday. No sign of high primers on the remaining 200 rounds. Fiocchi and Winchester also cycled fine. I even tried some HSM .38-40 to see if the cylinder would go around and it did. Now none of this was live fire [especially with the 38, just curious as it has the same lower half dimensions] so I will have to open the gun up I guess. There was no obvious cratering of the primers in the fired stuff.

[Abilene]

So ammo spins in the cylinder fine, but then only hangs after shooting?  That sure sounds like backing out primers, but shouldn't happen with factory ammo (or in this case, Choice Ammo is maybe "factory reloads"?).  Look at the fired brass for any scrape marks on the back of the fired primers or the brass base.

[LongWalker]

Years ago, I had a Colt that behaved in a similar manner.  Solution was to wipe the chambers and ammo with acetone on a rag.  Once the brass was fireformed to the chambers, the problem ceased.  Might be worth a shot. . . .

[DeaconKC]

Years ago, I had a Colt that behaved in a similar manner.  Solution was to wipe the chambers and ammo with acetone on a rag.  Once the brass was fireformed to the chambers, the problem ceased.  Might be worth a shot. . . .

Thanks, will try it out.

[cpt dan blodgett]

Just got a Case Hardened Charcoal Blue 5.5 Inch Cattleman in 44-40.  Will be interesting to see how it works.  I have some once fired brass from my Miroku 73 44-40.  Plan on making some dummy rounds for Dry Fire with the Revolver and the rifle.  New Loaded rounds won't really tell me anything as the New Starline brass has a straight taper and needs to be fire formed to look like a 44-40 case.  If I have extra once fired brass will also load some up.  Will use my cattleman cylinder as  a case guage.  Still waiting for the twin brother.  I may get sucked to the dark side once both are in the house.  Damn, I really hate to load shotgun shells but that could be in my future.  Hopefully the Goex/Olde Eynsford Plant gets up and running soon.

[DeaconKC]

Okay, forgot to ever update. The problem turned out to be a sharp ridge  that had not been smoothed at the factory where the cartridges would turn against it while the cylinder turned. A few minutes with a file smoothed it up and it worked just fine. So good in fact another CAS shooter bought it from me and is now running it with BP loads.

[cpt dan blodgett]

Just got a Case Hardened Charcoal Blue 5.5 Inch Cattleman in 44-40.  Will be interesting to see how it works.  I have some once fired brass from my Miroku 73 44-40.  Plan on making some dummy rounds for Dry Fire with the Revolver and the rifle.  New Loaded rounds won't really tell me anything as the New Starline brass has a straight taper and needs to be fire formed to look like a 44-40 case.  If I have extra once fired brass will also load some up.  Will use my cattleman cylinder as  a case guage.  Still waiting for the twin brother.  I may get sucked to the dark side once both are in the house.  Damn, I really hate to load shotgun shells but that could be in my future.  Hopefully the Goex/Olde Eynsford Plant gets up and running soon.

Made it to the range and did some load testing all went well something like 15 rounds down range, thought ok this is a keeper.  Fast fwd about a month and I attempted to shoot my first match with said pistole.  4 Stages great.  Stage 5 first round in cylinder Bang next for nothing.  Ground pistol pull second a $410 shipped uberti cattleman with new model frame 5 rounds bang.  Stage six fire the $419 shipped used pistole 5 bangs, pull the New Uberti Bang Click click click click.  Pretty obvious the floating firing pin is not functioning as it should.  Started the return for warranty work from Taylors.  In the mean time have given gun a good cleaning and will attemp to fire some more rounds in the next few days.

[lv2tinker]

On some of the floating firing pin models the main spring is too light. Just swap it out with one of your other Uberti's man spring and see if that doesn't solve your problem.

Al

[Coffinmaker]

  Capt. Blodgett 

While I would agree you are owed "Warranty," I would personally be more inclined to invest in the Parts Set to convert your "retractable" to the old standby form of Hammer/Trigger/Firing Pin.

Play Safe Out There

[cpt dan blodgett]

Made it to the range and did some load testing all went well something like 15 rounds down range, thought ok this is a keeper.  Fast fwd about a month and I attempted to shoot my first match with said pistole.  4 Stages great.  Stage 5 first round in cylinder Bang next for nothing.  Ground pistol pull second a $410 shipped uberti cattleman with new model frame 5 rounds bang.  Stage six fire the $419 shipped used pistole 5 bangs, pull the New Uberti Bang Click click click click.  Pretty obvious the floating firing pin is not functioning as it should.  Started the return for warranty work from Taylors.  In the mean time have given gun a good cleaning and will attemp to fire some more rounds in the next few days.

I did the good cleaning and just fired 50 rounds with no problem, I am thinking a bit of grit got into the firing pin hole in the frame and was stopping the firing pin from fully protruding resulting in light primer strikes.  The 50 rounds that just functioned flawlessly were all loaded at the same time using same settings on all the dies and primer seater that the light primer strike rounds were produced.  Looks like it may well be a keeper.