Hand spring broken.

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Tomahawk674

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Had a great time shooting the Uberti '61 Navy today, taking cans down at 25 yards, benchrest, I was very happy. Meanwhile I couldn't hit anything with the little .380 semi-auto at 12 yards, I couldn't even scare them cans.

Probably put about 50 shots through the navy, I'm guessing the total must be close to 500 shots total if not more. When I got home and started cleaning it the hand spring broke off. No big deal as I've read this happens here and there. The surprise came when I saw the new hand assembly runs for 17 dollars, add 4 for shipping and it's 21 bucks, for something so little and simple? argh...

I hope I don't have to size it any when it gets here...
 
well, not to be a wet blanket, but keep that old hand. When the handspring on my Uberti 1860 broke I had to file the new hand down. It was useful to have the old one to compare to.

--T
 
Yep, I understand I'll need the old for refference.

About buying the spring alone, it looks like the hand and spring were welded, I don't see how I could pull the remainder off... :confused:

Never mind, I did a little bit of reading from past posts, the hand spring welding is common.
 
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thats why i keep telling you guys. buy parts now. before they break and fit them to the gun file them down hone them what ever it takes so that when and if the orignals break you will have a spare ready made. put them in a ziplock baggy with a paper so you know what gun they fit.
 
I'm not really good with modding guns; I just refenished one and I'm done with gunsmithing for a while... until I get the new hand and I have to fit it...
 
You can make a new spring out of a feeler gauge. If you have an old feeler your cost is 0$.

Mike
 
Well, a new spring wouldn't be very unuseful to me, as the old hand had the spring welded, and it would take more work to remove the spring bits, and weld a new spring, than just grinding down the new hand assembly.
 
you know what when the new one comes in you still have to file it down to get to how the old one looked. After that you otta take the old one and see if you can indeed fix it. if you do not have a dremel. to grind a slot use a hack saw blade. a very fine tooth one.
 
I fixed it!

I was very dissapointed with VTI parts. I used their website to order the part, and clearly made a distinction between billing vs shipping address. The next day I called to verify the order and they said there was a small error in the address (their fault) and sent me another one, after confirming the RIGHT address with me. So too many days pass by and I call again, turns out they shipped it to the wrong address (billing) :banghead: It really isn't that complicated.

Either way I finally got the new hand assembly and started to trim the tip to make it match the old one. It didn't take much filing, I put in the piece and reassembled the gun. I checked for timing issues, and I got the "full moon" from shining the light over the barrel/cylinder gap; mind you that's the first time I've stared down the barrel of a cocked gun ;)

Can't wait to go to the range on Friday!
 
Glad you fixed it!!

I had a similar problem with my Dragoon whereby the hand & spring broke after my first 24 shots with it.

Ordered a replacement from Dixie Gun Works. (which came within a week – very impressed). I had to make some minor adjustments here and there with some old modelling files I had – took about an hour to get it just right.

I’m taking scrat’s advice though, and buying spares for all my BP revolvers now and sizing them before they break.

Here’s a pic of the offending item!
misc4025-1.jpg
 
Broke after 24 shots? that's dissapointing...

So did you fine tune it or an hour? I just filed mine (with a big old file, mind you) and tried it twice; the first time it seemed as if the hand was pushing too hard against the cylinder during full cock, and also was making the cylinder drag hard at half cock. This wasn't the behaviour of the old hand so I filed it some more, and tried it again. It seemed to work smoothly, and it behaved like with the old hand so I left it at that.
 
I had one break on a remington. For $10.00 my gunsmith replaced it with one he fashioned from piano wire and guaranteed that it would never break. So far so good!
 
A common modification on cartridge revolvers used for SASS competition is to replace the leaf style hand/pawl spring with the coil spring and plunger Ruger uses on its single actions. Is there any reason this wouldn't work on a C&B? CAS gunsmiths like Long Hunter Shooting Supply make this conversion as a part of action jobs on SSA and clones. Obviously requires drilling a hole in the frame, nothing I'd want to attempt on my own.
 
Tomahawk674 wrote: Broke after 24 shots? that's dissapointing...
Click to expand...

‘Tell me about it! … the supplier was no help at all in getting a replacement. The gun took 10 months to arrive and I wasn’t going to return it! – DGW to the rescue! In fact it was cheaper to buy it from them, including shipping costs, than it to buy it here in the UK and get it posted!:mad:

Yep it took in total about an hour as I recall - mind you that included lots of stopping every so often to try and get it to slot nicely into the frame without success, this despite getting it to look identical to the original (or so I thought). Eventually, with a little more filing here and there, it slotted in beautifully and worked flawlessly first time - so I was pleased with my first attempt at a bit of basic gunsmithing.

Mind you I couldn’t feel my thumb for ages afterwards where I’d been holding the ‘hand’ against it for leverage whilst I filed away. I’ll get small vice next time and use a Dremel!
 
and use a Dremel!
Click to expand...

NO! NEVER use power tools on these guns. You've already noted that it took just "a little more filing here and there" to make it work; imagine doing just a little too much, because now you can't fix it. The difference between just right and too much is very, very easy to cross over with a Dremel.
 
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