Dan Wesson 744- problem

[Palladan44]

The cylinder lockup in my Dan Wesson 744 (Monson made) isnt working. The bolt which locks the cylinder stays down, thus allowing the cylinder to turn freely while the hammer is cocked. Any ideas on what can cause this?
Its either gummed up down there, a spring of some sort is worn, weakened or broken, or another part has an issue.
The gun is from the 80s, and has not seen much use.....until now, ive put at least 200 rounds through it in the last few months.

Its not "out of time" per se, i usually attribute a timing issue to the lockwork and hand, just a bolt issue.

Let me know your thoughts before i dig into this.
Im leary about opening up revolvers to work on them, ill probably have a gunsmith look at.

 

[warnerwh]

There's a spring that pushes the cylinder bolt up. They can get weak although yours sounds broken. If you go to: danwessonfirearmsforum.com you can find detailed instructions with pictures on how to disassemble it. Being a .44 I can't help you as I've only disassembled the model 15-2's which have a side plate. I just stretched the bolt spring on my model 15 a couple of months ago. However stretching the spring won't last as long as a new spring. There are springs for sale but make sure you buy a brand new one.

 

[Palladan44]

There's a spring that pushes the cylinder bolt up. They can get weak although yours sounds broken. If you go to: danwessonfirearmsforum.com you can find detailed instructions with pictures on how to disassemble it. Being a .44 I can't help you as I've only disassembled the model 15-2's which have a side plate. I just stretched the bolt spring on my model 15 a couple of months ago. However stretching the spring won't last as long as a new spring. There are springs for sale but make sure you buy a brand new one.

Thank you, great to know.

 

[Charlie98]

Yes, the DW forum is a very good resource. FWIW, the large-frame trigger groups are unitized... they pull out as a unit from the bottom of the frame, easy peasy.

 

[hemiram]

Old lube like WD40 gumming things up would be my first guess. I've had several guns that were non functional solely due to old lube hardened or gummed up inside what appears to be a well taken care of gun. DW used some stuff in the past that got hard like plaster when it aged for decades too. One of my guns probably never had the barrel and shroud removed over it's lifetime as the inside of the shroud was loaded with that stuff, and it was pretty difficult getting the barrel shroud off the first time I took it all apart to clean the gun. The inside of the frame had a bunch of it inside too, but since the mechanism worked on it, it just filled up the empty space and didn't affect much.

 

[Palladan44]

Dis assembled today. Theres a straight longer spring which is captive in the round crane hinge, it loads the bolt, pushing it upward. Theres also a small pin/spring in the bolt itself which puts side tension on the bolt. Very strange design, but still am not able to figure out why its staying down.
Ordering a new spring kit and will reassemble and see where that leads. By the way the gun was nice and clean on the inside. And lubrucated, so im confident that dirt or gum didnt cause this failure.

 

[hemiram]

Sometimes a bad spring gets installed, or someone uses pliers on them and all it takes is a nick and it will fail there, eventually.

 

[ClemY]

CZ-USA owns Dan Wesson. If all else fails, send it to them.

I have one, too. It had very tight chamber throats. They degraded accuracy. I dreamed them and it transformed the gun. It is now super accurate.

 

[ApacheCoTodd]

The spring and plunger that share the axis of the crane pivot are what return the bolt to the upward position. If they are there, in tact, and clean - I would suspect debris or cleaner-lube goob is queering your play.

A burred bolt/frame would have been obvious to you upon occurrence - I should think.

Todd.

 

[grammontS]

There's a spring that pushes the cylinder bolt up. They can get weak although yours sounds broken. If you go to: danwessonfirearmsforum.com you can find detailed instructions with pictures on how to disassemble it. Being a .44 I can't help you as I've only disassembled the model 15-2's which have a side plate. I just stretched the bolt spring on my model 15 a couple of months ago. However stretching the spring won't last as long as a new spring. There are springs for sale but make sure you buy a brand new one.

That is a very informative forum if anyone is looking for info on DW firearms , I'm a member on there (none of the informative info comes from me though..... Hahaha).