This thing showed up, late for the party.. Indeed the top strap was skewed and needed attention, as did other pts of the gun as well. Exterior though in way better shape than expected, as is the rifling.
From the barrel rearwards towards the hammer.. Just where the barrel ends you can see how the top strap tilts downwards then to just where the cylinder end tilt upwards. Like sort of a Z. Mark the rather profound difference in angle between the barrel and cylinder and you get a good idea..
Some careful attention with heat and a small breaker bar later, that i basically just twisted in my hand - least force imaginable really, made short notice of that deal.
As you can imagine the barrel lines up WAY better with the cylinder after that stunt, again. In short..good to go, which feels nice seeing what was involved here.
Front face of the cylinder got trued with the world in general HOWEVER the front pivot/bearing point for the cylinder was another matter.
Worn, to say the least.
That and a rather hefty wear to the entrance cone of the barrel. Well. I turned a bearing for the front bearing point for the cylinder out of bearing bronze and basically reamed that to size.
Then welded up the entrance cone and cut for a forcing cone while at it. End result? Axial as well as radial play of cylinder is now about non existant and the gap between the cyl and barrel at under 1/10mm - where it needs to be in short.
Timing of the piece tho, for a joke. Control arm of the bolt was like a good 5-6mm short (approx 1/4") why it didn´t even TOUCH the cam for it.
..and see this is where it turns... "different".
The hand has its pivot/bearing point on the lower part of the hammer per usual. As on a Colt you have a pin part of the hand that just sticks into the corresponding hole in the hammer.
All good.
However.
The short end of that pin.. is the cam for the bolt
All that is in good working order, the bolt is not. Have started playing around with this and..have come up like maybe 75% correct thus far and have no worries what so ever that i´ll get on mark.
Just a matter of practical geometry to be applied i´d say.
That said this piece.. ATM i´m unsure where to pull the brakes. Ie; giving thought to reblueing the thing, and this due that it is a relatively pitting free gun while at the same time a rather worn piece and then again not.
In short i have a hard time getting my head around the wear it shows as.. It´s like this injury to the top strap made the gun end up on someones table that dry fired the thing to death.
Speaking of which though the nipples were in at least decent shape but DAAAAYYYYYUUUUUM were they ever in there!
To be blunt i don´t believe i´ve ever had cones on there that tough. Took a crapload of heat and patience to get them outta there in one piece a pop.
Anyways. Out they came and of course i´ve run a 225-32 tap through each hole, and indeed have handed the piece a fresh set. Striking face of the hammer shows wear.. while the nipples that were in there didn´t.
It´s just that the nipples have FOR SURE been in there for a good while.?
You guys tell me!
That said the thing, as you can imagine, is coming up on full circle and i will of course go try the thing before making any final calls.
I´ll get back to you guys on the internals before that though.
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