Pietta 1860 Army Revolver Issue

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Chrismusa91

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When I put firing caps on the cylinder of my brand new Pietta 1860 Army revolver I have an issue where the hammer will not cock back. When I first pull the hammer back 2 clicks and pull the trigger everything works fine. But when I bring the hammer back two clicks and then with my finger on the trigger and hammer put the hammer back down as not to fire, the hammer will not pull back up again. The only way to free the hammer is to pull the barrel off. What am I doing wrong? Could the issue be the firing caps? I use 11 caps which work fine on my 1851 navy. Would switching to 10s on the army fix the problem? Thanks!
 
Sounds like you are not fully seating the caps on the nipples, and one or more are falling into the action, preventing the cylinder to rotate freely. It also sounds as if you are firing one chamber and then the problem occurs, most likely because of spent cap fragments. There is also an easy-buck thing you can do: after firing the revolver, turn it 90* to the right and then cock the hammer for the second shot. This will most likely allow any spent cap fragments to exit the revolver through the cap groove in the recoil shield not to drop down into the hammer/frame area.

I don't understand why pulling the barrel off the frame mitigates the situation, unless the loose or spent caps fell down into the hammer/cylinder/frame area and disassembly clears them, and that should be obvious to you when you do that.

If cap fragments are sticking to the hammer face in the area of the notch (which is for the cylinder safety pins), judicious use of a needle file can be used the round the sharp corners in this area to preclude the spent cap sticking to the hammer.

Regards,

Jim
 
Could be caps aren't seated on the nipples or the hand is short causing the cylinder to lock, not real likely on a new gun but possible. Try it without caps and see if the problem stays or remains. If it works fine without caps then that's the problem.
 
Seems cap jam is it if it started after shooting. If memory serves the hammer has to fall completely before the hammer paw will move the bolt then hand moves.
If not after shooting then timing from a part not in spec.
 
Another thought is the cylinder stop timing could be off as well.

The OP does not show any photos, but I would think cylinder stop timing would show up on the cylinder stop slots. If the cylinder won't move when cocking the hammer on the second shot, I do not see why the bolt not retracting as a problem unless the hammer cam is very bad, and if on the first cocking of the hammer it works well, I can't see as that is the problem.

I still maintain it is cap fragment problems. The somewhat spendy solution is a cap rake/cap post. I have done neither as I go with turning the revolver and have had no problems. YMMV.

Regards,

Jim
 
It sounds like the leg of the bolt is not going on top of the hammer cam as the hammer is stopped from going forward enough by the caps on the nipple. Try seating the caps with a push stick to see if that cures the problem.
 
It sounds like the leg of the bolt is not going on top of the hammer cam as the hammer is stopped from going forward enough by the caps on the nipple. Try seating the caps with a push stick to see if that cures the problem.

This sounds correct. If the bolt leg is not on top of the hammer cam when the hammer is being cocked then the cylinder will remain locked. If the cylinder can not rotate then the hand/pawl can not move upward because the ratchet can not move. So, in turn, the hammer can not be cocked since it actuates the hand/pawl.
 
Denster is correct. It is a bolt reset problem. The caps aren't sufficiently seated which keeps the hammers forward movement short enough to not allow bolt arm reset.

If it's not too bad of a situation, the OP may reduce the face of the hammer which will allow more forward movement. Otherwise, it will involve deepening the hammer cam cut in the bolt arm and/or reduction of the cam circumference. No big deal if you know what's going on.

Mike
 
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Get a little wooden dowel, like 1/4" , put the cap on the nipple then push it with the dowel to seat it fully. Push, don't shove ;-). Enjoy!
 
I wonder too if the primers are properly seated and this persists maybe the nipples are too long just enough that when actually fired the hammer energy moves to the proper position but when the hammer is relaxed it's just a hair prior to the proper position.
If all is proper with primers and nipples it could be out of spec hammer stop face. It would have to be so small amount out of spec though to fire but not move when relaxed. Possible but unlikely. The test would be does this happen without primer?
If it does then hammer stop face, maybe fairly heavy burr on hammer stop face or frame stop. A thicker than normal area on either face, something like that. Seems if so it would be very small because the timing puts the bolt arm on the hammer paw right at zero or dang near it at end of hammer throw. I would also inspect the hammer paw for burr or slight deformaty just to be sure.
If #11s were being used I don't see seating an imminent issue unless it has wrong nipples. I don't see how the #11s would stay on considering #10s are typical.
 
Just a thought. Are you by any chance using #11 magnum caps? The charge in those is greater will not seat on the nipple as low as a standard #11.
 
One other thought. It is not a good idea to lower the hammer on a capped nipple in practice. Load five and lower on the empty cylinder or if you load six lower on one of the safety pins.
 
FWIW, 10's and 11's don't mean anything except within the specific brand. So, if no.10 Remington's fit, no.10 CCI's won't but no. 11's will.
Rem. caps pop easy, CCI's don't. It's all pretty much apples and oranges.

Mike
 
I have an 1860 Pietta with a wierd locking problem, which might be the same as the OPs.
Pull the hammer back to full cock the first time, then let it down on the next cylinder. Then if you try to pull the hammer back to full cock again, you cant even pull it to half cock. Well after playing around with it for a while, I discovered that if I loosen the "bolt screw" abount 1/8th to 1/4 turn, from snug, it will operate normally, with no jams, so I leave it a little loose.
Maybe that is the OPs problem.
Dave
 
Thank you all for your answers. This is not a spent cap problem because this happens without having fired off the caps. And the caps seat perfectly.
 
Denster is correct. It is a bolt reset problem. The caps aren't sufficiently seated which keeps the hammers forward movement short enough to not allow bolt arm reset.

If it's not too bad of a situation, the OP may reduce the face of the hammer which will allow more forward movement. Otherwise, it will involve deepening the hammer cam cut in the bolt arm and/or reduction of the cam circumference. No big deal if you know what's going on.

Mike

This is exactly the issue. Thank you!
 
Chrismusa91, you are more than welcome! Denster definitely had the right idea.

There are other things that make this very problem slip into the "tuning" equation as well. One such way is needing to extend the bolt head protrusion so that it gets full extension into the cyl. locking notch. When you do that it moves the bolt arms further back which usually impeads bolt arm reset or at least a "too late" reset situation (which is what you have).
I try to have bolt reset happen when the hammer face is flush with the recoil shield.

You can check where reset happens by listening to the 2 "clicks" as you let the hammer down to rest. The first click is the hand falling over the next ratchet tooth and the second is the bolt arm resetting.

Mike
 
Had a few issues with my Pieta 1860 that were related to learning curve. The 1860 nipples are tapered and a #11 cap is longer than the #10 and would always slide back. Using #10 caps helped this a lot but I had to make an engineering change to get rid of the problem. I agree with other comments here about the resolution of barrel removal; this is radical. The ONLY time I've ever had to do this is when I didn't seat my balls properly (bad choice of words). Another really annoying issue was the jammed percussion cap problem where the gun would jam up every other round because a blown cap would lodge in the safety pin notch of the hammer. Filled the notch with JP Weld as suggested on other pages here and the problem mostly went away.
 
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