My long awaited Uberti Schofield Russian finally got picked up in the last week or so. Before making the deal I failed to ensure that I could even get 44 Russian brass and almost hit the wall on ever getting to shoot it for that very reason. Fortunately I did find some and got it shipped in a few days ago.
With Black Dawge bullets from Powder Inc and 23gr of Swiss we were off and running right?? Wrong!!!
Given the fact that this is a factory new gun, I took it on good faith that somebody in Italy had the sense to at least drop some brass in this thing and rotate the cylinder, obviously not and niether did I.
Anyway, I got a box of 50 Black Powder cartridges loaded up and headed out to the desert with a CB pistol as well for some smoke and experimentation with the beloved Schofield. Unfortunately the love affair lasted right about until I loaded the cylinder with brandy spankin' new brass and closed it. It turns out, the cylinder won't rotate with the gun loaded, period.
Here's what I've figured out so far. On the recoil shield of the Russian in the area where the firing pin protrudes through to strike the primer, there is what I call a "Doubler". This is an area of the recoil shield that is elevated slightly, ostensibly I believe to hold the brass tight into the cylinder at the point in rotation where the firing pin strikes it. The "Doubler" is just a few thousandths thick and is shapped in a rectangular pie shape, dimishing as it gets closer to where the arbor would be on a Colt. The "Doubler" itself extends upward and all the way to the top of the tangs which hold the closing lock of the top break.
This "Doubler" obviously serves an engineered purpose, but the unintended consequence is that the head of the cartridges are too thick to pass between the "Doubler" and the cylinder. At first I blamed the "Top Brass" brand of brass that I had gotten but, after posting on the Reloading Forum a gentleman replied that he had mic'd his Starline Brass and come up with the same measurements for the case head thickness, which by the way are between .051 & .054 on both Starline and Top Brass. Therefore I have at this time ruled out the problem being the brass.
I don't have a set of feeler gauges with me in the RV but I suspect that the distance from "Doubler" to cylinder is probably .050
Now, on to how I'm gonna fix this without sending this gun back to Italy and kissing it goodbye for 4 or 5 months. By the way, if you've got any other ideas, please don't hold back, I want to shoot this thing BAD!!!
I took it back to the local GS where I purchased it to have the cylinder lock screw loosened (some Italian Gorilla puts the screws in these things) as well as the barrel pivot screw. I meant to take some 44 Russian brass with me to demonstrate the problem but screwed up and grabbed 38 S&W by mistake, oops.
The GS owner who also smiths' looked at it and declared that there looked like plenty of room for the case heads and if there wasn't it was probably because the gun is new and the bluing is too thick to allow clearance. He suggested that I get a piece of Crocus cloth and polish off the bluing and it should work. I went down to the hardware store and picked up some fine Crocus cloth and went to work.
The first thing I did was to remove the bluing from the end of the blast collar in front of the cylinder. This still left me with clearance between the cylinder and forcing cone but didn't make any appreciable difference in rotating a loaded cylinder.
I then went to work polishing the bluing on the "Doubler", which I might add is like trying to saw a piece of angle iron in half with a butter knife. At this point in time I have given my hands a rest and the bluing on the "Doubler" is nice and smooth polished, but still intact. Needless to say, the gun is still only a decoration.
Give me some ideas here guys, I'm at a loss. Keep in mind, I had to have the GS owner explain to me what Crocus cloth even was, so I'm not a gunsmith or a metal worker, keep it simple please.
Thanks,
With Black Dawge bullets from Powder Inc and 23gr of Swiss we were off and running right?? Wrong!!!
Given the fact that this is a factory new gun, I took it on good faith that somebody in Italy had the sense to at least drop some brass in this thing and rotate the cylinder, obviously not and niether did I.
Anyway, I got a box of 50 Black Powder cartridges loaded up and headed out to the desert with a CB pistol as well for some smoke and experimentation with the beloved Schofield. Unfortunately the love affair lasted right about until I loaded the cylinder with brandy spankin' new brass and closed it. It turns out, the cylinder won't rotate with the gun loaded, period.
Here's what I've figured out so far. On the recoil shield of the Russian in the area where the firing pin protrudes through to strike the primer, there is what I call a "Doubler". This is an area of the recoil shield that is elevated slightly, ostensibly I believe to hold the brass tight into the cylinder at the point in rotation where the firing pin strikes it. The "Doubler" is just a few thousandths thick and is shapped in a rectangular pie shape, dimishing as it gets closer to where the arbor would be on a Colt. The "Doubler" itself extends upward and all the way to the top of the tangs which hold the closing lock of the top break.
This "Doubler" obviously serves an engineered purpose, but the unintended consequence is that the head of the cartridges are too thick to pass between the "Doubler" and the cylinder. At first I blamed the "Top Brass" brand of brass that I had gotten but, after posting on the Reloading Forum a gentleman replied that he had mic'd his Starline Brass and come up with the same measurements for the case head thickness, which by the way are between .051 & .054 on both Starline and Top Brass. Therefore I have at this time ruled out the problem being the brass.
I don't have a set of feeler gauges with me in the RV but I suspect that the distance from "Doubler" to cylinder is probably .050
Now, on to how I'm gonna fix this without sending this gun back to Italy and kissing it goodbye for 4 or 5 months. By the way, if you've got any other ideas, please don't hold back, I want to shoot this thing BAD!!!
I took it back to the local GS where I purchased it to have the cylinder lock screw loosened (some Italian Gorilla puts the screws in these things) as well as the barrel pivot screw. I meant to take some 44 Russian brass with me to demonstrate the problem but screwed up and grabbed 38 S&W by mistake, oops.
The GS owner who also smiths' looked at it and declared that there looked like plenty of room for the case heads and if there wasn't it was probably because the gun is new and the bluing is too thick to allow clearance. He suggested that I get a piece of Crocus cloth and polish off the bluing and it should work. I went down to the hardware store and picked up some fine Crocus cloth and went to work.
The first thing I did was to remove the bluing from the end of the blast collar in front of the cylinder. This still left me with clearance between the cylinder and forcing cone but didn't make any appreciable difference in rotating a loaded cylinder.
I then went to work polishing the bluing on the "Doubler", which I might add is like trying to saw a piece of angle iron in half with a butter knife. At this point in time I have given my hands a rest and the bluing on the "Doubler" is nice and smooth polished, but still intact. Needless to say, the gun is still only a decoration.
Give me some ideas here guys, I'm at a loss. Keep in mind, I had to have the GS owner explain to me what Crocus cloth even was, so I'm not a gunsmith or a metal worker, keep it simple please.
Thanks,
