Need a Little Help

I usually get around to fitting oversized cylinder latches or locking bolts to my Ruger Single Actions. As with all other Single Action work, I find this task to be infinitely easier to do on the Old Models as opposed to the New Models. I have previously fitted this part to two Bisleys, and though it was more taxing than installing a comparable part on an Old Model, I got very good results with those two installations.

In the last two days, I have spent a number of hours trying to get an oversized locking bolt fitted into another full sized Bisley Stainless Convertible. I am only interested in having the bolt mated to the ACP cylinder, as I have another gun of the same type, which is a dedicated .45 Colt gun, so I'm only dealing with a fit to one cylinder here.

More to the point, I have the bolt fitted to the notches in the cylinder, and the gun seems to be timed OK, but the trouble is the operation of the loading gate. When the cylinder is not in the gun, the loading gate works fine, and smoothly enough, and lowers the locking bolt to a point below the cylinder window as desired. When I install the cylinder, however, the loading gate will not open without a tremendous amount of pressure being used to do so. The bolt itself is not binding in the window, or in the notch, nor is the cylinder binding on the end of the spring where it engages the loading gate. Initially I wondered whether the axle of the loading gate might be binding on the transfer bar, but can't visualize how that could happen, as I have the base pin fully installed when operating the loading gate without the cylinder installed, and all runs smoothly there.

Curiously, if I close the loading gate such that the locking bolt rests on the cylinder between the notches, it will open and close easily, but if I try to open the gate when the bolt rests in a notch, it is very hard to open, this in spite of the fact that the bolt is not binding in the notch itself. I'm wondering whether it may have something to do with the different points and angles at which the bolt's cross pin and the loading gate spring are engaging when the bolt rests in or outside of the notches.

I just don't know what's going on with this thing. Due to the design of the action, what may or may be occurring between the loading gate, transfer bar, or other parts are obscured from view. I have ordered another Power Custom Locking bolt, and two more loading gate springs, and will attack it again, starting over from scratch once they arrive.

Like I said, I've done this before on the same model gun to very good effect, but there's something about this one that I'm just not seeing.

Any ideas?

My guess is that the relationship between the bolt pivot and the bolt-notch in the cylinder is not quite plumb....or if you prefer, the bolt aint hitting the notch "90 degrees square".
Everhow ya put it though, what I'm getting at is that sometimes we get a revolver which aint quite right from the factory, but exibits no symptoms untill we try to tighen stuff up.......

.....you know, one of those "it ran good untill I fixed it" sort of things. :wink: .

DGW

DGW,

Interesting. I will look for that, and see if I can make that determination.

Thanks!

DGW,

Thanks! You nailed it. After a lot of hair pulling and head scratching I got it sorted out. The ball on the locking bolt was askew due to the window in the frame being not plumb with both the trigger pivot and locking notch in the cylinder. It was dragging in the locking notch at the left rear, which made it very hard to open the bolt, and also caused a wee bit of resistance when cocking.

It took a lot of slow tedious work to get it to function smoothly, and still remain tight enough to keep me satisfied. It's not quite bank vault tight as I normally get them, but still very good, smooth to cock and open the bolt, and generally a whole lot better than before, and it still ranges great with the largest pin gauge that will transit the bore. No thread choke either!

Took a lot of work, but I finally got it.

You got it right. Thanks for the tip!