Hopkins & Allen XL No. 8 Army Half Cock Notch

[Johnm1]

I have posted about this pistol before. https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/hopkins-allen-xl-no-8-army.880718/

Function is nearly perfect except when in half cock the hammer will fall if the trigger is pulled. This is a solid frame and I have been hesitant to remove the lock works until I was more familiar with the arrangement of parts hidden inside. @driftwoodjohnson displayed the action of several of his Merwin Hulbert actions and being Hopkins & Allen produced revolvers for MH I assume the lock works are at least similar and I now have the confidence to remove the hammer for inspection.

So the first question is to confirm that hammer should not fall from half cock when the trigger is pulled? That seems like a no brainer but the design is from the 1870's and I don't want to investigate/fix something that isn't broken from the original design.

Below are @driftwoodjohnson 's photographs from another post.

This photo shows the lockwork of my Pocket Army chambered for 44-40. This is the revolver pictured above in the photo of the book.

In the below photograph it appears that the half cock notch is almost a straight 90 degree angle.

Here is the lockwork of one of my top strap Frontier Armies.

In the below photograph the half cock notch is shaped to allow the trigger/sear to fit into the notch and block the hammer from releasing when the trigger is pulled.



Once I get the hammer out the second question is if I should shape the half cock notch to look like the second picture and are there any pitfalls in doing so?

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Here are some more photos, if they are any help.

If I recall correctly, this revolver does not have a 'safety cock' notch on the hammer. Only the '1/2 cock' loading position and the full cock notch.

In this photo, the hammer is all the way down as it would be when the revolver fired.






In this photo, the trigger sear is in the '1/2 cock' notch on the hammer. The hammer must be pulled back this far in order to operate the button in front of the trigger guard that allows the barrel and cylinder to be rotated and pulled forward.






This is the hammer at full cock. Pulling the trigger when the hammer is in this position allows the sear to slip out of the full cock notch so the hammer can fall.






In this photo of my Pocket Army MH, the hammer is all the way down. Notice the '1/2' cock notch is much less pronounced on this hammer. Just like the Frontier Army pictured above, the hammer must be at the '1/2 cock' position in order to open the revolver to eject spent rounds. With this particular revolver, the 1/2 cock notch is shaped so that pulling the trigger will pop the sear out of the notch and the hammer will fall the rest of the way. The notch is fairly deep, but its shape does not truly capture the trigger sear as on the 1/2 cock notch on the other MH. Notice too how tiny the full cock notch is on this hammer. Everything works fine, I suspect these two different hammers had relatively different geometry. The Pocket Army is a 2nd Model and would have been made before the Frontier Army, which is a 3rd Model. Perhaps MH decided to change the hammer geometry slightly? I really don't know.






I really don't know if reshaping your hammer will adversely affect anything else.

On second thought, I have the feeling the 'non-sear-capturing' feature of my Pocket Army hammer was the way it was designed. If not, the notch would have had a bit more of an overhanging lip to capture the sear.

 

[Blue68f100]

I would not change it. Doing so may change the position enough that the cylinder release may not work. I think yours was built that way. One thing I would do is confirm that it will not set off a round from the 1/2 cock/down position.

 

[Johnm1]

I really don't know if reshaping your hammer will adversely affect anything else.

On second thought, I have the feeling the 'non-sear-capturing' feature of my Pocket Army hammer was the way it was designed. If not, the notch would have had a bit more of an overhanging lip to capture the sear.

I would not change it. Doing so may change the position enough that the cylinder release may not work. I think yours was built that way. One thing I would do is confirm that it will not set off a round from the 1/2 cock/down position

A lot more thought would be needed before I took a file to this one. I do have some primed cases I can try. If I can safely carry it this one may join me on my elk hunt this year.