22 Spur Trigger Revolver

[Johnm1]

I have another thread regarding this revolver here

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/help-me-design-a-spring.896840/

In the above thread I described this revolver as a Hopkins and Allen. I bought it as a Hopkins and Allen, and it was sold as a Hopkins and allen but in reality the only marking on the gun that can lead you to Hopkins and Allen is the name Ranger on the top strap. Hopkins and Allen was known build for other retailers and mark them however they wanted them marked. And Ranger was one of those markings. Also, Hopkins and Allen used a similar type of Engraving . Other than that, it could be any number of makers in reality. It is unimportant who the actual maker was. It was an inexpensive firearm, despite the engraving, when it was constructed. It has little value today other than to clowns like me who like fiddling with them.. it was sold relatively cheaply with the following disclosed by the seller: broken / missing cylinder pin, does not index, unsafe to fire as is. So what does a clown like me do but buy it to see if I can actually make it shoot again. I have another Hopkins 7 shot 22(suicide special). The other one actually has a side plate and this one is a solid frame. That impacts how the handspring is actuated and the other thread delve into that in depth.

So far I have removed the broken cylinder pin and turned a replacement. That was relatively uneventful though it took quite a while to do. A mixture of freezing and Heating and adding penetrating oil helped loosen the cylinder from the cylinder pin. A barh in transmission fluid in the sonic cleaner also helped. Unlike every other Hopkins and Allen suicide special I have seen, the cylinder pin on this firearm was held in place buy a screw from the bottom of the frame all the way up through the frame and into the cylinder pin Raceway. That screw had to be drilled out. So far the replacement cylinder pin is retained by friction and seems to work. But when I get access to better equipment, specifically a lathe, I will turn a new cylinder pin and I will thread it, reverse threads, to retain the cylinder pin and abandon the screw from the bottom of the frame. I also installed a shim on the front of the cylinder to remove the end shake when the gun was cocked. I need to learn how to fit a little better as I managed to file it just a hair too short. So I'll have to do it again.

What remains are as follows

The bolt still does not lock the cylinder reliably
The hand is billionth of an inch too short - and oh my God it is Tiny
The firing pin is butchered so badly it will only set off a primer occasionally
The hammer can be 'overcocked' and intermittently over rotates the cylinder when done so.

Here is a photograph of the revolver and the action parts arranged in the general arrangement that they are in the gun



The first issue I would like to talk about is the bolt not locking the cylinder reliably. Oddly, when the hammer is at rest/forward the bolt Rises High Enough to solidly and reliably lock the cylinder in place. This leads me to believe, though not entirely convinced, that the bolt is the correct dimension. Here are a couple of photographs of the bolt and how it works with the hammer. The interrelationship between the bolt and the hammer is three-dimensional, so you have to look at both of the next two pictures to get an understanding of how it works





EDIT: after I posted I noticed that my pictures didn't show all of the bolt. Here is a picture of just the bolt




In the second photograph the bolt is in the position just before the hammer reaches the forward position. As it reaches the forward position, the (edit) bolt is made of spring steel and it's Springs to the right and catches above the ledge on the hammer. When the Hammer is pulled back to half-cock the notch on the top of the bolt catches the notch on the hammer and pulls it up and the bolt pivots on its pivot/spring pulling the bolt down below the frame allowing the cylinder to rotate freely. When the hammer is pulled to full cock the bolt rides the front of the hammer. Notice that the hammer has a sloped surface, Sloped from left to right/top to bottom. As the hammer rises while being pulled from half cock to full cock the bolt reaches the sloped portion it falls back to the left dropping in allowing the bolt to rise again on its pivot / spring. As I said earlier, when the hammer is at rest and its forward position the bolt Rises high enough to reliably lock the cylinder. When the hammer is at full cock bolt does not rise as high as it does when the hammer is at rest in the forward position. This sort of leads me to believe that the bolt may be just fine, it just isn't traveling far enough down the face of the hammer to allow the bolt to Pivot and rise up further.

We'll discuss all of the issues that remain in this thread. But for now, lets start with the bolt.

 

[Johnm1]

Time to move on to the next issue. I polished the slope the bolt rides on (on the hammer) and that appears to allow the bolt to drop further down the face of the hammer and now the bolt rises and locks the cylinder in place reliably. It now comes up quicker and with more force.

FYI - the second picture of the bolt/hammer above is looking from the front of the hammer. It was obvious to me but may not have been obvious to anyone not familiar with the firearm.

It appears that the combination of replacing the shim on the front of the cylinder and reducing the end shake (thus pushing the cylinder back) and polishing for the bolt allows the hand to time the cylinder properly. So two issues resolved.

Now I'd like to address the hammer overtravel. On occasion if the hammer is over cocked the bolt will miss the slot and the cylinder will not lock. If I am careful and cock the hammer only as far as full cock the cylinder locks everytime. There seems to be several ways to prevent the hammer from travelling further than full cock. Here is what comes to mind:

- add an overtravel screw to the back of the hammer. Not sure i want this one, but it seems easy enough

- add material to the frame at the back of the hammer slot. I can braze/gas weld nickel silver and fit/file to work.



I'd appreciate opinions or other options I haven't thought of.

 

[Johnm1]

As I mentioned in other threads, I tend to go slow and evaluate things over time. And that is the case here. I have cycled the action many times since my last post and what I find is a better description of what the problem is. If I cock the hammer normally (slow) the bolt reliably locks the cylinder. If I cock the hammer quickly sometimes the bolt doesn't reach the slot in time and the momentum of the cylinder causes the slot to pass where the bolt engages. I have a similar problem on a Colt police positive. And I don't know exactly what the issue is that causes the symptom in either. But possibly the two are related. What are your thoughts?

If I cock it slowly the cylinder locks 100% of the time. If I cock it quickly it locks about 70% of the time. Also, if I put slight pressure on the side of the cylinder, only enough pressure to slow the cylinder's rotational speed, the cylinder will lock everytime no matter how fast I cock the pistol.

In the other post referenced above I made a new / replacement hand spring. That handspring applies pressure to the back of the hand only at the at rest position and for a short distance as the hand travels up. I was unable to fabricate a new spring that applied pressure to the back of the hand continuously. The hand functions but when the action is at full cock the handspring does not apply pressure to the back of the hand. I wonder if a correct spring would apply pressure to the back of the cylinder and possibly slow the cylinder down. All conjecture at this point, but I would appreciate some commentary from the group.

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

Hi John, is there room to put in an action stop screw? Since this thing doesn't have much value to destroy my thoughts are put a screw in under the hammer like you mentioned above, this gives you an adjustable stop and you can set it where it works the best then lock it in place. It should also help with the throwby issue as long as the pistol is cocked slowly.

 

[Johnm1]

is there room to put in an action stop screw?

I believe there is. It would be short and I'd have to remove the head. I have 2-56 screws and the tap for them.

I had to put it down for a while. It was functioning nearly perfect but I disassembled it to examine the bolt and when reassembled will not lock the cylinder and now sometimes locks up. Bolt is sometimes not dropping before rotation starts I believe. And I currently have no idea why. It is 150 years old and has lots of wear. Heck, I turned the cylinder pin using an electric drill and a file. So it isn't a tight fit.

I'll come back to it in a couple of days with fresh eyes.

If I were a gunsmith charging gunsmith rates I'd be over $500 in time. Fortunately I'm just a tinkerer and don't have a customer waiting for me to figure it out and then presenting a bill for 5 times the value of the firearm. These are the reasons a reputable gunsmith doesn't want to deal with an old worn-out low-cost firearm. And rightly so.

 

[Johnm1]

If I cock it slowly the cylinder locks 100% of the time. If I cock it quickly it locks about 70% of the time.

I had to put it down for a while. It was functioning nearly perfect but I disassembled it to examine the bolt and when reassembled will not lock the cylinder and now sometimes locks up.

I'll come back to it in a couple of days with fresh eyes.

One other thing I did when I disassembled it. I had this idea that if the bolt came up just a tad more at lock up that might fix the throw by. All I had to do was to remove a little bit of material on the face of the hammer on the bottom to allow the bolt to move a little more in that direction and allow the bolt to rise a bit more. It wasn't how it was designed but should have worked at least to allow the bolt to rise more. It may not have fixed the throw by but it seemed to be a worthy effort either way. NOT. Well the upper part of that surface performs a different function of the bolt. When I removed a little bit from the lower part of that surface I inadvertently removed some from the upper part of that surface and rendered the action non functional. The only cure was to add material back to that surface. I've been doing that for 8 days. I didn't want to post until I made it work. I accomplished that this evening.

The exact details of my cerebral flatulence aren't terribly important as most wouldn't have taken on this project and even though there were millions of similar revolvers built, there aren't many left and none with the exact features this one has. Basically the issue dealt with the surface on the face of the hammer that the bolt 'extension', for lack of a better term, rides on. Notice the hook on top of the extension. It hooks on a ledge on top of hammer face to lift the extension upward and rotate bolt down around its pivot pin. The bolt/extension is made of spring steel.



It also rides against the triangular face of the face of the hammer as the hammer rotates upwards, keeping the bolt down, and falls off to the left side of the triangular shape as it reaches full cock allowing the bolt to rise and lock the cylinder. As the hammer rotates down as the trigger is released the extension rides the left side of the triangular shape until it reaches the top where the spring action of the bolt/extension snaps it back over the top during trigger reset. The hook extension not only hooks onto the ledge on the face of the hammer, but also must be tall enough to allow the vertical portion of the extension to pass over the higher portion of the Triangular area during reset.



The lesson here is that it is a 150 year old firearm that occasionally didn't lock up. I should have accepted it just that way and left it as it was. As it is I have another 20 hours in building up the face of that hammer.

 

[Johnm1]

Basically this post is to test out if I can link to photos/videos Google photographs. Here is the link

Shared Album - Google Photos

It locks up well though I need to 'over cock' it a tick to index correctly. I may well fabricate a new hand to get that little bit more movement of the cylinder earlier in the cycle.

I haven't figured out how to turn off the repeat or slow down the video. It is only 1 second long and is faster than the original. Please give me feedback if you can see the video and you don't have to log in or something along those lines.

 

[gobsauce]

Video works, great job.
You're really bringing it back to life.
The loop isn't an issue in my opinion.

 

[Johnm1]

Video work

Thanks for the feedback. I can never tell if it works for just me or not. I had given up on photo hosting sites after the photo bucket debacle but couldn't post videos to sites like this one.

I still need to add material to the firing pin to make ignition more reliable. I have 2 options available to me. Gas weld a tiny bit of steel and shape it or mill the surface flat and drill and tap for a 2-56 screw, epoxy in the screw, fill the driver slot and shape.

I had to stop working as I finally got fed up with the disarray in the gun room that I pulled everything apart and am still putting the room back together.

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

That 2\56 screw seems pretty tiny, is there room for a 6\32? I prefer 8/32 s for the action stops I install. I cut the head off and file a slot in the shank. Once it's installed and adjusted a drop of super glue seals it in place.

 

[Johnm1]

is there room[..../QUOTE]

I hadn't really considered exactly what size to use. I was more trying decide between the two methods available to me. I probably should have said a screw of appropriate size. It's either grind off whats left of the firing pin and installing/shaping a screw or gas welding a tiny bit to the face of the hammer. Gas welding a tiny bit has its hazards and I most often end up with a lot more material than I need.

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

Better to have too much than 2 little.

 

[Johnm1]

Better to have too much than 2 little.

Agreed. But the big question is what method is best. My skills with gas welding are minimal. At best I'll end up with a blob of steel 10X the size I need. Bad things happen with a file. Worst case is I burn the steel of the hammer.

Scewing in a stud and shaping is easier but seems less than `correct' But it does have fewer/less severe consequences.