Favor from Colt BP owners

Hello everyone, could I ask a favor from the colt/uberti repro owners that have their gun handy?

If you take your barrel off, look at it from above with the muzzle pointed up, and insert a straight object through the wedge slot, pressing against the end closest to the cylinder, where the wedge pushes against the barrel, is the slot perfectly perpendicular to the barrel?

On my repro (which I'm having fitment issues) the slot alignment is off. The right side where the wedge goes in is closer to the cylinder than the left. I am attaching a drawing of a "cutaway" with the top being the muzzle end, bottom being the cylinder end.

Does your colt have that? how pronounced? it's so bad in mine now that the wedge is having a problem clearing the slot on the left side of the barrel, so it doesn't want to go through. This gun is 10 years old and has at least 1200 rounds through it.

Thank you so much. This means my barrel slot is streched on the right. Very odd; it's a uberti navy with lots of rounds through it, but never conicals and no full loads. The angle on the slot is pretty noticeable, the wedge is not going in straight at all.

I could try filling in the slot on the other side. Perhaps a new barrel is in order.

Take a look at my little diagram; I took a straight object (brass punch) and slide it into the slot, touching both ends near the cylinder. The angle it created was not perpendicular at all, I did this with the barrel alone, no frame. When the wedge goes in with the frame, it goes through the slot on the right, the arbor, then crashes against the other slot. It used to go through better, but now it's terrible. It looks like the wedge would have to roate a few degrees to successfully go thorugh. The problem had been worsening over the last few years. I have 2 wedges handy, old and new, same problem.

I'll try to take a picture and show you guys.

I'll try to describe what happens. I hold the gun with the muzzle facing away from me. I insert the wede on the right. It innitially goes to the left. When I push it through, it starts to straighten up, then it hits the inner side of the left wedge slot. I can't wiggle it much in after that.

If I can think back ot when the gun was new, the wedge never really rotated that much, it just went in. I think the right slot is the problem. I am attaching pictures. Look at the difference in the slot shapes.

Yes sorry, I inverted my statement exactly. I'll try to measure that distance when available. I appreciate the help so far.

PS: Apparently wedges cost $23 to $28 now???

44 Dave said:

View attachment 236854
Take a close look at the barrel behind the wedge on the top Navy and you will see that it was badly beat out of shape. This gun now has barrel/cylinder gap of.003 the arbor shimmed and the screw to take up the wedge and a few other tune ups to make it one of my favorites.

Click to expand...

Hello, what do you think causes the wedge slot to deform like that? soft steel?

I tried doing some correcting on mine. I had to shim the wedge slot because the gap was over 0.021. I wouldn't want to shoot it that way. I tried jb welding a super thin steel shim, and then I had to file it to size. I was able to get the wedge to go through and the gap is more like 0.005 now. With the shim, the wedge doesn't seem to be going in with a strong angle anymore. I hope the JB weld holds up to the pounding of shooting.

Either way, I know the original colt design didn't have in mind someone running thousands of rounds through it. I'm already thinking about an 1858 or other solid frame. The 1861 looks so good though, I may need a new one from Cimarron to shoot every once in a while.