Euroarms Remington cylinder alignment

[Steve499]

I bought a Euroarms Remington .44 replica at a gun show today which shows a slight chamber to barrel misalignment an all six chambers. It is very minimal and is on the right side as you look down the muzzle, which means the cylinder has over-rotated slightly. The bolt fits precisely into the cuts on the cylinder allowing almost no side to side play in the cylinder at full cock. Can I remove a little metal from the side of the locking bolt to allow it to drop in the cylinder cut just a little sooner? I may also need to shorten the hand a smidge, too, to limit the carry up.

I haven't fired it yet, may not be any problem accuracy-wise since it is very slight. I'm sort of impressed with the dimensions on this pistol. It is notably smaller than my Pietta in the grip frame. It would be most unlikely for it to outshoot the Pietta since the Pietta is a real tack driver, but I'm liking the feel of the Euroarms better already.

Steve

 

[pohill]

Rifle (aka Wayne, Wayner, Junk Yard Dog) posted a fix for this problem a few years ago on another forum. As I remember, it involved using a shim under the bolt. Or maybe I dreamed it...
Rifle, you out there?

 

[oldelm]

Yes,....those Euroarms are a smaller frame, and do feel good in the hands , especially if you have smaller hands. They tend to have shorter front sights, though, than the Ubertis & Piettas, so you may find yours shooting high.

Like pohill says, Rifle (Wayne) is the guy who can tell you all about that possible fix for the cyl./barrel misalignment. I don't think you want to take any metal off the head of the bolt, though,....if I recall, it's the bolt's window in the frame that you want to open up, so the bolt will move over a tad ,...enough to let it lock up in the position that will allow for better cyl./barrel alignment. By filing open the window on one side, it will leave space on the opposite side which can be filled in with JB Weld and smoothed up. You're basically moving the bolt window over enough to bring the cylinder into better alignment with the barrel when in battery, and of course, this can only be done if the there isn't much misalignment to begin with.

I'm sure Rifle could elaborate on this more, but from my recollection , this is what the gist of it was.

 

[rifle]

You got it Oldelmer. One thing to look for if the cylinder turns too far is whether or not the bolt is against the frame wall. If it is the bolt can't be moved over and shimmed there without milling a very specific amount off the inside of the frame. There is another anomaly though that can cause a slight misalingment and that's if there is enough looseness of the cylinder on the arbor(base pin). The hand spring(if stiff enough) can push the cylinder sideways a bit. Take the gun and with it unloaded,of course, looking at it muzzle first take the cylinder and try to twist it sideways by pushing the front of it to the right and the rear to the left. If you can do it while looking down the barrel with a little flashlight you can see if the misalignment goes away. If it does then take tension off the hand spring by bending the spring toward the hand a bit. So the hand still works to rotate the cylinder but doesn't push on it like a bulldozer. Problem solved. Another Kitchen Table Gunsmithing Triumph. If it isn't the cylinder a little loose on the base pin and the hand pushing it over then the bolt has to be moved and the frame milled if the bolt is against it on that side or a new cylinder but....if it's very slight you can open up the forcing cone a tad if you have the tools or....just leave it alone and shoot the crap out of it because it still may shoot real good especially if you use lube pills of a good consistancy behind the ball to act as a gas check.
Oldelm is right about not taking metal off the head of the bolt. You want to have the bolt fit the notches in the cylinder. A new over size bolt can be used to adjust if an oversize new part is available. When fitted to the cylinder notches an oversize can be filed on one side or the other as long as it is just one side. That kind of moves the bolt head over without filing the frame window any. It's like the base of the bolt stays where the frame hole is,naturally, but the very top is filed to fit the cylinder notches and at the same time by filing to fit on one side more that the other that in effect moves the sized bolt head over one way or the other. Most of the replacement parts like hands and bolts used to be a little oversize so they were cheaper for the Italians to make and sell but also it allowed parts to be fit to a particular gun to cure it's individual ills. Now a days the parts are so close to the actual size they need to be that adjustments have to be more innovative aka almost madeningly difficult. With some guns opening up and lengthening the forcing cone cures some symptoms of misalignment without curing the cause which can be a cylinder that has chambers out of tune with the cylinder locking notches. Opening a forcing cone so the ball is actually unsupported,like in mid sir, at one point the longer taper to the forcing cone seems to guide the ball to the center of the bore. How could a person possibly know that? Well if the gun shoots mediocre and then shoots good after the cone is opened and lengthened it can be deduced the forcing cone change caused the improvement. Of course after the cone is opened and lengthened conical bullets may not shoot as well as the lead ball. I've worked cheapy cap&ballers that had cylinders so out of adjustment it would seem a quarter of the ball (exageration hee hee)would be hitting the flat beginning of the breech end of the barrel. Ifin the owner didn't want to try a new cylinder because of cost or unavailability I would leave the pi;ot off the forcing cone reamer and open the forcing cone a lot where the ball would hit it and lengthen the forcing cone and "bingo" the gun would actually fire good groups. A ball in mid air is easy to move to the center when it contacts something like the side of the barrel wall in the forcing cone I guess.

 

[Steve499]

The misalignment in my revolver was very little, and I got rid of it by removing a tiny bit from the side of the bolt. I had already done it before I read your post, Wayne. I knew I might screw the bolt up but I figured parts are easy to come by . There is a little more wiggle in the cylinder at lock than there was but when the cylinder locks, there isn't any misalignment when I'm looking down the muzzle. I can move the cylinder into misalignment but it indexes properly if I leave it alone. This revolver also seems to have more play around the cylinder pin than my others. It's possible to move it vertically at lock, most of the movement being at the front as if the spindle hole in the cylinder is cone shaped from front to back. Again, I've not shot it yet so all the preceding concerns go away if it shoots o.k.

Thanks for all the advice.

Steve