When a Colt cap&baller is tuned right on the money there's three clicks. When it gets a little worn it can go to four clicks. If it gets out of time bad it can go two clicks. That doesn't mean it won't work if there's four or two clicks. Optimum is three for a cap&baller. A single action non-cap&baller with a safety notch has four clicks.
Anywhooo....when a Colt gets out of time some it still keeps on shooting well enough. I find it interesting that Old Fuff has info on the 'Old days" at the Colt factory where as the guns were timed with the hammer resting back on the backstrape like a "stop". I'd like to read that book or article.
I would think since the bolt comes up and rears it's little hard head to act as a stop for the cylinder that comes flying around with some speed and force,especially when there's the weight of the cartridges in the chambers, and the one side of the cylinder notch edge collides with the bolt that is stationary there's a good bit of force transmitted to the poor little bolt. It's a spring steel part and is hard and that's one reason it last as long as it does. The edge of the cylinder notch last a good long while too. They take a licking and keep on ticking. The parts are designed that way.
The hand takes a beating too. Even when the cap&baller is cocked fairly normal and not fanned,or whatever, the cylinder travels pretty fast and the weight hits the bolt but also the hand hits the ratchet behind the cylinder hard too. Even with normal cocking.
The hand rest below the ratchet tooth and travels a ways before it contacts the ratchet. That's so the bolt that works off the hammer cam can get the bolt out of the cylinders notch before the hand turns the cylinder. If the bolt isn't out of the notch complwetely the metal at the top of the cylinder notch on that one side gets deformed. Anyway, even with normal,non-Cowboy, shooting and cocking the parts take a beating. It's the geometry of the parts and the mechanical design that has the parts working hard and beating each other to death.
If the hammer were to reach the backstrap and stop against it with the backstrap acting as a mechanical stop with the parts timed so that everything is done and the gun is at exact "locked into battery" and ready to fire that would seemingly be the optimum scenario but......
If that were the proper way to tune and time a cap&baller then whenever the parts,that work so hard and beat on each other, sustained a small amount of wear then the gun would not be able to be locked into battery. Wear to the ratchet behind the cylinder or to the hand that pushes the cylinder around by making contact with the ratchet tooth would make it impossible to get the gun into battery if the hammer was set to hit the backstrap and stop at the instant the timed gun hit the trigger into the full cock notch and the bolt snicked into the cylinders notch. Just a bit of wear to a gun timed like that would render it unable to be drawn to full cock and locked into battery to fire. It just wouldn't be able to be fired. If it could be fired like that due to some wear to the tip of the trigger ,and the trigger hit full cock on the hammer ,then the gun would fire with the chambers quite ill aligned with the grooves of the barrel and be danged inaccurate and spit lead probably.
I'd say in my humble opinion that Colt wouldn't design a revolver that got disfunctionable with just a small amount of wear to the parts so I'd surmiss the hammers weren't set to hit the backstrap at the instant the gun locked into battery to fire.
I'd say,as I tried to explain, that really wouldn't stop the brunt of the force transmitted to one part of the gun to the others anyway since so much of it happens just before and just as the gun hits full cock. Naturally if someone was of the gorrilla evolution and wanted to yank and pull on the hammer after the gun hit full cock and was locked into battery then there would be an unusual amount of wear sustained by that gun. The hand and the ratchet and the bolt and the cylinders notch would be unduly stessed. I reckon to have the opinion that even under stress most people feel the gun has reached the end of it's cycle of the action and stop pulling on the hammer. They may pull the hammer very fast and put some force or stess on the parts of the gun if there's an enemy close at hand that is about to blow their head off but.......I reckon they'd be feeling for that hammer to stop and notify them the gun should be locked into battery and be putting the tension on the trigger at that point instead of the hammer.
Anywhooooo.....I'm of the opinion that the hammers weren't set to hit the backstrap,that was working double duty and acting as a stop for the hammer, at the instant the gun hit full cock. The reason being ,I figure, the gun would be rendered inoperable due to a small amount of wear in that case of the backstrap being a stop for the hammer as the gun hit full cock. I just can't see Mr. Sam L Colt designing the guns that way.
Well....maybe I'm wrong. I have been wrong before. Once back in 1969 when I enlisted in the Army?:banghead:
ha ha ha ha ha ha Jest kidding around! I was wrong one other time when I married a beautiful sensuous dancer that was seductive enough to give a guy a _______ from across the room. She couldn't cook worth a hoot and I was skinny as a rail then.
