8-Shot Revolver / Extractor Gears / Endurance

I believe most refer to that as the star. They are smaller,thinner features in an eight shot revolver but in my experience have not proven significantly weaker. I have thousands of round through an 8-shot revolver shooting fast double action in competition and so far it has held up as well as either of the six shot revolvers it replaced. I have no doubt it's weaker but it's going to take many tens of thousands of rounds to start seeing the issues. I suspect peening of the stop notches in the outside of the cylinder is going to be an issue before wear on the star will be in my case.

Parts wear, replace as needed. Any quality gun that gets shot to the point of needing repair is getting loved . if it costs a hundred or two to get it fixed , that's what a few hundred factory rounds cost - so really not a big deal. 8 shot star is smaller but this part isn't under a lot of stress , assume it's been properly engineered so that materials and heat treating will make any difference irrelevant between 6 and 8 shot revolvers. Not something I'd worry about, nothing lasts forever.

I'm not a fan of seven shooters, much less 8 shooters.
My seven shot 357 would not stay in time.

The most robust ejector stars I have on revolvers aren't even stars because they are the ratchets machined into a single action revolver cylinder.

The most dainty ejector star I have on a revolver is on a small diameter cylinder 9-shot .22 LR revolver, as seen below.

The best I can tell is it really depends on the hardness of the star ratchet teeth and how the edges wear when pushed by the pawl (aka hand). For instance, my Taurus 85UL (and Pietta 1860) came with relatively soft ratchet teeth and the edges of those teeth rolled a burr very soon. While almost all other revolvers I own haven't rolled the edge or cut a groove in the teeth at all.

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Not an issue unless your cylinder face is dragging on the barrel, the bolt is sticking or the ejector is seizing up in the crane. You're more likely to damage the hand first.

I have a S&W 627 that i bought late 2017, I had it tuned by a local revolver guy and have beat that thing like it owes me money ever since. I don't shoot 357 through it, just 38 spcl as I use it for steel shooting. I also dry fire the snot out of the thing home practicing. It's yet to give me a single issue.

I have a 327 Night Guard that I bought in 2012. I shoot .357, .38 +P and .38 Special out of it. I cannot tell you how many rounds and it has no issues at all. It’s a robust system.

I'd think the hand would wear down and need replacing long before the star did.
I swapped out a 7 shot for a 6 shot cylinder and it cost me all of $80 a few years back. It's not an expensive repair if ever needed.

My guess is the execution is more important than the design in this case. I have a 9 shot taurus 94 that ive shot DA extensively and the star is about the shape of a pinwheel now. Id wager that a s&w would be fine... but I can buy 4 taurus for that price and this one is still chugging.

As far as endurance goes, even the cheapest revolvers, (Heritage) last 10s of thousands of rounds which far exceeds the cost of the gun to begin with. So if you can even afford to wear one out you should also be able to afford the repairs if they ever become necessary.

There isn't enough stress or load on the ratchet to casue significant wear. It's not like the differential in your truck. It is amazing how many "gunsmiths" really don't know what they're talking about.

Drail said:

There isn't enough stress or load on the ratchet to casue significant wear. It's not like the differential in your truck. It is amazing how many "gunsmiths" really don't know what they're talking about.

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Some rimfire revolvers can be notorious for having ammo drag the cylinder rotation due to tight tolerances of the gun, varying ammo rim thicknesses, and fouling from firing. That's why most rimfire revolvers I've ever dealt with need more frequent cylinder cleaning than any centerfire I've dealt with.

Although, I've heard of this happening in centerfire revolvers too.

ontarget said:

As far as endurance goes, even the cheapest revolvers, (Heritage) last 10s of thousands of rounds which far exceeds the cost of the gun to begin with. So if you can even afford to wear one out you should also be able to afford the repairs if they ever become necessary.

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Yep, single action ratchets are usually robustly sized compared to double action ratchets.

alfsauve said:

I'd think the hand would wear down and need replacing long before the star did.

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Howdy

You would think so, since the hand rubs against the teeth multiple times for each revolution of the cylinder.

However the hand of some revolvers may be hardened to overcome this. Certainly on some single action revolvers the hand is hardened.

Good design will often include making a 'wear part' that is less expensive to replace than the part it wears against. Clearly, a hand will always be less expensive to replace than a cylinder.

Yes, single action revolver cylinder ratchet teeth are often larger than double action revolver teeth. On the left in this photo is the cylinder from a single action 357 Magnum New Vaquero. On the right is the cylinder from a double action S&W 357 Magnum Model 28. There is clearly more wear surface on the teeth of the single action revolver.






This S&W K-22 was made in 1932. It has probably been fired many thousands of times over the years. There has been more than one out of battery firing pin strike on the body of the cylinder. But it is still going strong.






Notice how much larger the ratchet teeth are on this 1975 Model 17-3. More wear surface than on the old K22. Still going strong.






This modern Model 617 has more teeth crammed into a cylinder the same size as the other two 22s. But I expect the actual wear surface of the teeth is not much different than the Model 17 pictured above, so I expect the teeth should last a long time without wearing out.







The ratchet teeth on this Smith and Wesson Schofield revolver that left the factory in 1875 are still in pretty good shape.






Here is a comparison between the shape of the ratchet teeth on a 1st Generation 38-40 Bisley Colt on the left and a 2nd Generation 45 Colt Single Action Army on the right. The Bisley left the factory in 1909 and the teeth are still in fine condition and the revolver still cycles fine.

Revolvers are machines that require proper machining, fitting and timing to operate well, and over time they can fail to maintain the specs that the factory gave them, but IMHO you're more likely to peen the cylinder stop and associated holes before the teeth on a cylinder star (or in the case of a single-action, the teeth on the cylinder) wear out.

Stay safe.

That and the trick to get the cylinder stop to lock up tite.
The star gets you onto the right street, the cylinder stop is the driveway to the house.

The indexing ratchet, or cylinder star, is under exceptionally small load during normal use, so we’re really not talking about a high galling service. Abusing the revolver CAN damage the indexing ratchet and hand, but if you’re abusing a revolver, you would know it.

HOWEVER...

Given the same frame size, a cylinder with MORE chambers will 1) have lighter weight because of addition chambers, and 2) have to rotate LESS during each advance. It will ALSO have the exact same size of hand interface - the driving contact surface of the hand against the ratchet. So it’s actually easier to roll the cylinder of a “high cap” revolver than to roll that of a 6 shot. Think about it this way - advancing a 7-8 shot cylinder instead of a 6 is like pushing a LIGHTER car a shorter distance: which is easier, pushing a heavier car farther, or pushing a lighter car shorter? Pretty simple.

Many folks see all of the material behind each tooth on the ratchet which simply was not milled away - because it’s impertinent to do so - and they assume it is structurally contributing to the mechanical strength of the system. It is not. That extra steel on the back side of the tooth, the comparative extra steel which has to be killed away when adding an extra tooth or two to the ratchet, is just extra, and does not add any strength to the design.

We’re talking about a mechanical system in which only a few thousandths of galling on the SURFACE of the tooth will constitute “damage” or “failure.” You’ll have timing issues with only a few thousandths of galling on that surface. These teeth do not bend, they don’t break, but rather they gall. The tips of HANDS can and do break, but the indexing ratchet durability and strength is really a matter of material hardness, not structural integrity through physical mass.

In parallel, when people see tiny teeth on a gear - which the indexing ratchet is NOT a “gear” anyway, they tend to assume fragility. But often, this is a gross misunderstanding of mechanical design. In gears - which the indexing ratchet is NOT - increasing tooth count can increase durability by increasing the mesh contact between the driven input and slave output gear. Simply, more teeth means smaller teeth, but it also means less stress on each tooth - so when I hear the common misconception regurgitated by anyone that smaller teeth will mean lower durability, I challenge their true understanding of the mechanical system. But again, none of this actually applies, because indexing ratchets are NOT gears, and indexing ratchet teeth macro strength is absolutely not a measure of the revolver’s durability.

Such, it is an absolute fallacy to say a 7 or 8 shot revolver is a weaker design due to the smaller “teeth on the gear.” A 7 or 8 shot revolver will experience LESS stress in each cycle, so that theory is backwards is best, notwithstanding the fact it’s simply NOT an apt analysis of the mechanism in the first place.

For the sake of discussion, would y'all say that the size of single action ratchet teeth were originally due to early machining methods, iron cylinders, and black powder fowling?

Armored farmer said:

My seven shot 357 would not stay in time.

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I doubt very much that the fact that the revolver "would not stay in time" has anything to do with it having a seven-shot capacity (as opposed to a six-shot one?).

chicharrones said:

For the sake of discussion, would y'all say that the size of single action ratchet teeth were originally due to early machining methods, iron cylinders, and black powder fowling?

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I doubt such.

The radius of the indexing ratchet is determined largely by the space available in the interior of the cylinder within the perimeter of chambers. It behooves the designer to use the largest radius available within the perimeter of chambers, such the leverage to index the cylinder is minimized. Using a set of teeth exterior to the chamber would require less force to index the cylinder, but would require considerably more travel, so it’s not really an option. So we’re stuck back with the ratchet being smaller than the perimeter of chambers, and as large as it can be there within. Again, we’re talking about an operation which is not advantaged by unnecessarily removing extra material, so the file cut is made to set the ratchet tooth, and the thickness is what the thickness is behind it.

We know the tolerances for headspace, gas bushing, b/c gap, etc have been massaged over the years in concession to powder fouling or manufacturing tolerances, and it’s certainly convenient that indexing ratchets are effectively self cleaning by the sweep of the leading tooth of the pawl, but I don’t believe there’s any magic to the design inherent to the material and powders used, other than the common magic of mechanical engineering.

I believe a lot of wives tales exist about the origin of a great many things, as folks have speculated the reasoning behind many things for many years. But in this case, the design is pretty simple, and the machining/manufacturing operations are straight forward. No need to make it seem any more complicated than need be.

SwampWolf said:

I doubt very much that the fact that the revolver "would not stay in time" has anything to do with it having a seven-shot capacity (as opposed to a six-shot one?).

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Ok
Doubt on then.

Armored farmer said:

I'm not a fan of seven shooters, much less 8 shooters.
My seven shot 357 would not stay in time.

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What in particular was happening to your 7 shot? Which model? “Not stay in time,” isn’t very descriptive, and as a wannabe Revolversmith, I’m inteigued to hear which specific timing problems - multiple - you experienced. Did the same breakage/wear/galling recur multiple times, or were there multiple issues at both ends of the cycle which only each needed to be rectified once each?

Armored farmer said:

Ok
Doubt on then.

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That is interesting. I don't think I have seen a increase in timing issues when USPSA went from 6-shooter to 8-shooters. I have not had any timing issue with either my 6-shot N-frames or my 8-shot N-frame.