1873 Revolver Lock Up

Loyer

Loyer

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What actually causes the bolt to lock the cylinder in place ?

Is it a spring or does the trigger play a part in holding the bolt firmly into the cylinder ?

Currently I am getting some play in the cylinder.
 
a spring pushes the bolt into the cylinder notch.

a weak spring, a worn bolt or notches or a worn cylinder pin/bushing, or a combination of those things could cause play.

just guessing of course... :)
 
It's easy to check your bolt spring.

Take out the cylinder, #### the hammerer all the way back and then push down on the bolt where it comes through the frame.

It should be fairly stiff and should pop back up.
 
GaryCaine said:
It's easy to check your bolt spring.

Take out the cylinder, #### the hammerer all the way back and then push down on the bolt where it comes through the frame.

It should be fairly stiff and should pop back up.
Click to expand...

Mine is firm but "fairly stiff" is so subjective. I don't have a force meter to actually measure it.
 
I think you may find the problem may be your hand is worn or the hand spring is also worn, I had a SAA that would not lock up tight and had cylinder rotation play and on examination the hand and it's spring were very worn, with about 1/8" of the tip of the hand worn away and the spring was worn almost paper thin on it's friction point and had lost a lot of it's tension.

I had a new hand and hand spring fitted and the revolver locked up tight again with no more movement. I also replaced the bolt spring at the same time as it was also very weak but that was to be expected from original parts on a antique revolver made in 1882.

My revolver was good to go after changing out those worn parts.

This is the part, it fits on the hammer -

 
And before you ask these are not a drop in replacement. They come slightly overly long and need to be fitted by a gunsmith or someone that knows their 1873 setup options.

For example the lockup on an 1873 is also related to where the hammer rests when at full ####. If someone did an "action job" on the gun and altered the hammer's hook or stoned the sear tip of the trigger or if these spots have simply worn badly over the years then this will also affect the lockup. The Colt action is a miracle of using the least number of parts to perform a multitude of actions. But with that comes a high degree of dependence on everything being exactly "just so". Any change at all in the parts affects all the rest.
 
There a really good book that describes the inner working of the saa and how everything works together and how to tune and
smooth up the action and how to track down timing issues ect.
Home Gunsmithing The Colt Single Action Frontier Revolver by Loren W. Smith
it's a reprint of a older book from 1955 you can find it on Amazon and ebay it's definitely worth buying about $35.00
 
Loyer said:
What actually causes the bolt to lock the cylinder in place ?

Is it a spring or does the trigger play a part in holding the bolt firmly into the cylinder ?

Currently I am getting some play in the cylinder.
Click to expand...
1. When the hammer is in the loading notch, is the locking bolt below the frame (if above frame height it will drag on the cylinder and wear the bolt).
2. When the hammer falls (pull the trigger while holding the hammer and let it go all the way down to fired position), does the locking bolt "bounce".

The cam on the hammer operates the locking bolt.

The length of the trigger (assuming the hammer notches are in their proper positions) changes the loading position of the cylinder and sometimes at what point the locking bolt operates.

Hammer notches, hammer cam, trigger length, locking bolt spring arms, locking bolt height, cylinder locking slot wear/damage, and hand wear.

Cylinder bushing wear, cylinder arbour pin wear...

Each area comes into play with a SAA...
 
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