OP
OP
BCRider
Member
I owe you guys a conclusion post. Been crazy busy the last two weeks. The final part of fitting the trigger to work well occurred about a week and a half ago and I just slide on to other things. Trying to put a nice big compressor plus plumbing into the machine shop as it happens and still do "daily" things....
So now having a feel for how touchy setting up these actions can be I opted to make a trigger from some scrap 1/8 aluminium to use for a rough fit. I copied the steel trigger I had made earlier in all this doctoring and cut it down in fairly big steps of about .01 each testing it along the way. About the fourth trial it fit with just a bit of rotational shake of the cylinder. So that was used to trim the steel trigger's sear to just a bit longer. What with angles and such I actually lucked out and nailed it. It was just a fraction tight and by the time I stoned the sear's face the action was nigh on perfect for four of the chambers. Like I mean the hammer cocked just as the hand pushed the cylinder against the bolt and the cylinder had the barest minimum of detectable rotational shake.
In fact it was so close that two chamber pawls were a touch tight so the point that even the sear trying to fight "uphill" on the hammer hook to release was binding the hand and bolt by enough to increase the trigger pull on those two. And that led to deciding to leave the trigger sear alone and very lightly stone the two tight pawl teeth until the trigger on those two matched the other four. Of course it could have been a slight difference in the cylinder notches too. But looking at how the nipple notches were lining up my feeling was that they were good and did not need to rotate further. So stoning the pawl teeth would leave them at the same position where digging out the notch would cause them to rotate further.
It was a long road from a collection of badly fitted parts to this final outcome. I've learned an incredible amount about fitting and pimping out a Colt action from working on this beast. I've also gained a great amount of respect for the workers at Colt and gunsmiths down through ages that have had to deal with these things. It really is a "train" of fittings where each step in the process affects all the others down the line. As much art as it is technology.
I'd also never make it if I relied on my gun trading to make a living
I got this gun cheap in the beginning as the seller mentioned it would not hold a cocked hammer. I sold it to my club mate for what I paid which was the princely ransome of $150. But to supply him a working firearm I've certainly put more than that in time into fixing it and finally sending it on its way. So yeah, If I were doing this for a living I'd starve.... Certainly if someone like Mike had this thing dropped on his desk he could have done it all far quicker. But then I was learning all this as I went along. I was also guilty of making way too many assumptions along the way. Such as assuming that the original hand was long enough and that it simply needed a new trigger. As it happens I'm pretty sure that a hand from some other gun got into this thing which is what led to all the trouble in the first place.
Mike, if you're still reading in and grinning ( or maybe laughing a little? ) at my exploits can you link me to something that explains what a bolt block is? I gather it's a filler and sturdy backing for the slot. But I'd like to see more of how it's done and fitted.
So now having a feel for how touchy setting up these actions can be I opted to make a trigger from some scrap 1/8 aluminium to use for a rough fit. I copied the steel trigger I had made earlier in all this doctoring and cut it down in fairly big steps of about .01 each testing it along the way. About the fourth trial it fit with just a bit of rotational shake of the cylinder. So that was used to trim the steel trigger's sear to just a bit longer. What with angles and such I actually lucked out and nailed it. It was just a fraction tight and by the time I stoned the sear's face the action was nigh on perfect for four of the chambers. Like I mean the hammer cocked just as the hand pushed the cylinder against the bolt and the cylinder had the barest minimum of detectable rotational shake.
In fact it was so close that two chamber pawls were a touch tight so the point that even the sear trying to fight "uphill" on the hammer hook to release was binding the hand and bolt by enough to increase the trigger pull on those two. And that led to deciding to leave the trigger sear alone and very lightly stone the two tight pawl teeth until the trigger on those two matched the other four. Of course it could have been a slight difference in the cylinder notches too. But looking at how the nipple notches were lining up my feeling was that they were good and did not need to rotate further. So stoning the pawl teeth would leave them at the same position where digging out the notch would cause them to rotate further.
It was a long road from a collection of badly fitted parts to this final outcome. I've learned an incredible amount about fitting and pimping out a Colt action from working on this beast. I've also gained a great amount of respect for the workers at Colt and gunsmiths down through ages that have had to deal with these things. It really is a "train" of fittings where each step in the process affects all the others down the line. As much art as it is technology.
I'd also never make it if I relied on my gun trading to make a living
I got this gun cheap in the beginning as the seller mentioned it would not hold a cocked hammer. I sold it to my club mate for what I paid which was the princely ransome of $150. But to supply him a working firearm I've certainly put more than that in time into fixing it and finally sending it on its way. So yeah, If I were doing this for a living I'd starve.... Certainly if someone like Mike had this thing dropped on his desk he could have done it all far quicker. But then I was learning all this as I went along. I was also guilty of making way too many assumptions along the way. Such as assuming that the original hand was long enough and that it simply needed a new trigger. As it happens I'm pretty sure that a hand from some other gun got into this thing which is what led to all the trouble in the first place.Mike, if you're still reading in and grinning ( or maybe laughing a little?
) at my exploits can you link me to something that explains what a bolt block is? I gather it's a filler and sturdy backing for the slot. But I'd like to see more of how it's done and fitted.