Looking for a revolver gunsmith

If you can't get the revolver to jam with fired brass, but it jams with unfired brass
1. the chambers are probably slightly oversized and
2. the ejector star (on which the "hand" operates) is loose

All fired brass swells, but it should only be a few thousandths larger at the most. If spent brass makes your revolver cycle reliably, your chambers are slightly oversized. Your ejector star is most definitely loose. Your timing issue is as described by others, the cylinder locking lug isn't dropping out of the way when the hand engages and tries to move the cylinder. This results in the cylinder locking up tight. With spent brass in the chamber (chambers?) the extractor star is held firmly in position, and apparently in time.

Try this: with no brass in the cylinder, can you move the extractor star from side to side with your fingers when you hold the cylinder still with one hand, and try to turn the extractor back and forth with the other?

Most revolvers that copy S&W have a couple of little pins in the cylinder, which poke through matching holes in the extractor star. I have seen those pins (one is enough) loosen and fall out (in the much vaunted, clean and well-maintained Smith & Wesson, no less). If your pins are loose, it may be enough. If one or both are missing because they were under-sized, you can get them replaced by any decent gunsmith.

In the Smith & Wesson revolver where my pin fell out, I installed a new one made of the right gauge spring wire, ground to length, the business end cleaned up, and a judicious quantity of red Loc-Tite to keep it where it belongs. My home-made cylinder pin is still there today, several years and many hundreds of rounds later.

No, making parts and gluing them in isn't part of regular maintenance. This is failure, pure and simple, and of a type that doesn't exist in an auto-loader. I'm not saying revolvers are unreliable. I'm still saying they fail. These little cylinder pins are just one of many points of failure.

The average revolver has many more parts than the average auto-loader. Part of the reason auto-loaders are popular and comparably inexpensive is the smaller number of fussy parts. I love revolvers, but you do have to accept their limitations. Some myths die harder than others, but the absolute reliability of the revolver is a myth.

Let us know if your extractor star is loose, and where the little pins are that should be holding it still. The holes could be over-sized, which means you need a new star (or bigger pins) ... again, if you have warranty, it might be better to let someone else fix it. I find if you send the broken thing in with the right diagnosis, you get it back a heck of a lot quicker, with a bit more respect.

Best of luck!
 
Interesting. If I push on the extractor and hold it, I can rock the star back and forth slightly. I would describe it as a lock to lock feeling. Like when you turn your handlebars all the way one way or the other on a motorcycle. It is very slight, perhaps not even 1/8" if I had to estimate. If I hole the extractor rod firmly, the star will not move. The two pins you talk about are tight. One appears to not stick out at exactly 90 degrees from the cylinder. However, the star sits firmly and flush. It does not stick up higher than the cylinder. Perhaps the holes for the pins in the star are a bit big. I'm thinking I may have to send it in to a gunsmith. The gun is clean as hell, so I can say with confidence there's no crud causing a problem.
 
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Jonny_Cannon said:
Interesting. If I push on the extractor and hold it, I can rock the star back and forth slightly. I would describe it as a lock to lock feeling. Like when you turn your handlebars all the way one way or the other on a motorcycle. It is very slight, perhaps not even 1/8" if I had to estimate. If I hole the extractor rod firmly, the star will not move. The two pins you talk about are tight. One appears to not stick out at exactly 90 degrees from the cylinder. However, the star sits firmly and flush. It does not stick up higher than the cylinder. Perhaps the holes for the pins in the star are a bit big. I'm thinking I may have to send it in to a gunsmith. The gun is clean as hell, so I can say with confidence there's no crud causing a problem.
Click to expand...

There should be next to no movement, 1/8 is extreme. Can you straighten the pin (gently)? Look for where the slop comes from. Do the pins move, or are the holes big? A gunsmith can replace your pins, but if they're simply loose, red Loc-tite could be your friend, if you are careful, and use a bit of acetone to clean the holes first...
 
If you have warranty, now's the time. The holes are big or the pins are small, but as previously, there should be next to no movement.

If you have no warranty, a gunsmith should be able to fabricate new pins and install them, but I would be curious as to why there is a problem like this. Let us know what happens!
 
So, before I proceed, I wanted to get it straight - if I open the cylinder (and hold the cylinder firmly), and push the extractor, I can rock the star back and forth. When I do rock the star back and forth, the extractor rod also moves (ie the other end at the front of the cylinder). The star does not move independently of the extractor rod - it is indeed firmly attached to the rod. When it rotates back and forth, the extractor rod does as well.

It still sits flush to the cylinder. If I may ask the revolver experts - if the star sits flush in the cylinder, and goes down over the pins, how does this affect the timing and create lock-up? This is my only revolver and I'm trying to understand it. I will indeed get this rectified, and I appreciate the advice and help I have received.

Cannon
 
Cannon,
In the centre of the star is where the "hand" operates on the cylinder in a ratchet fashion to rotate the cylinder when you pull the trigger or draw back the hammer.

If the extractor star is loose at all, when it is in position on those little pins (not when it's extended) then the revolver's timing is affected. You provided the diagnosis when you told us that the revolver worked fine with spent brass in the chamber. Spent brass is bigger, and holds your extractor star firmly in the right place, so that the complicated mechanism which disengages the cylinder lock can do that BEFORE the hand engages the star and starts to turn the cylinder. If the hand engages while the cylinder is still locked in place, the revolver locks up as you describe.

The cylinder needs to lock and unlock in time. If it fails to lock before the hammer falls, best case there will be parts of the bullet shaved off and jamming the revolver between the forcing cone (flared, chamber end of the barrel) and the cylinder. An unlocked cylinder, when the revolver fires, is not a good thing. If the cylinder fails to unlock, which appears to be your timing issue, then you're holding a jammed up revolver.

The cylinder star ratchet has to be exactly in the right place. That's the purpose of those pins. Other revolver models use other schemes, such as V cuts at the end of the extractor "fingers" and matching V cuts in the cylinder edge. This is harder to do than placing a pair of pins in a pair of holes, but is probably more durable. Regardless, your timing problem sounds like a reasonably simple fix, as long as there isn't something wrong with the metal of your extractor, where the holes are. If the holes have gotten too big through use --worn out-- then putting in bigger pins will not buy much time. Getting a new extractor star may not fix the problem if your pins are under sized, so the reason for this failure needs to be assessed by a component gunsmith who is at least mildly interested.

Someone else may be able to explain this with fewer and better words. You have given us excellent detail, and have proven that the star moves when it shouldn't. You could leave one spent casing in the cylinder and have a five shooter, but that isn't a great fix.

Best of luck with it!
 
Actually that was a perfect explanation. I understand exactly what you are talking about, and now I understand the timing issue and how it relates to the cylinder/star.

Thank-you. I will take it to a gunsmith.

Or, I could buy the Colt Python I see advertised in the EE for two grand, lol

Cannon
 
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