INA Tiger ejector rod question

[Rafterman191]

It's a S&W knock off by the looks of it. The depth that the ejector rod sits in the rear wall of the frame seems awfully shallow. The thumb piece barely moves 1/16 of an inch and the cylinder is free. Also, with the cylinder closed, you can with just a bump of your palm, pop the cylinder out without use of the thumb piece at all. I am not real familiar with this gun, lol obviously so any help would be appreciated.

 

[waidmann]

They were the forerunner of Rossi if memory serves and not as good. Believe there may be a cat (jaguar) logo?

May be time to run it by a smith, if the basic: clean, tighten, lubricate is not sufficient.

 

[MrBorland]

Assuming it is a S&W clone, and works the same way, here are a couple o' things to check:

1. Open the cylinder open and look at that little window where the cylinder pin inserts. You should see a pin (the "bolt") from inside the gun sitting flush with the face of the frame. Now, push the cylinder release latch to the rear of the gun. There should be enough movement to the rear that the bolt clearly retracts from flush. If not, remove the screw that holds the cylinder latch release on, and remove the latch. Can you retract the bolt more now? Could be the rear of the latch boss needs to be filed down a bit. If it still doesn't retract, there could be dirt or some other obstruction keeping the bolt from moving freely.

2. While the cylinder's open, push on the center pin with your thumb. It should take a pretty good push to get it flush with the face of the ejector. If you use the end of your thumb, you may even find it a bit painful. If it depresses very easily, I suspect the inner spring can't overcome the spring tension of the cylinder release bolt.

Now, close the cylinder. The cylinder release should be in the fully rear position. Are you able to push it to the rear even more, and if so, is the cylinder locked in better? If yes to both, the center pin spring may be the culprit. If yes to the 1st, but no to the 2nd, I'd guess the center pin is too short, but I see that as unlikely.

 

[Rafterman191]

Mr. Borland
1. Bolt retracts about 3-4mm when the cylinder thumb release is pushed to rear. Seems to be working fine.
2. Sounds like this could be a culprit with the inner spring being to weak, or broke. The center pin barely protrudes from the extractor, maybe 1.5mm? Maybe the thickness of a nickle or a little more. Is this near enough locking into the cylinder release bolt hole?

 

[MrBorland]

Maybe the thickness of a nickle or a little more.

Sounds about right. Did you check how easily it depresses? The balance between the inner pin spring & the bolt spring is important. If the inner spring's too light, that'd be a problem.

 

[Rafterman191]

It actually feels like it is locking into the bolt hole better after taking it apart and cleaning and applying oil to some things. The center pin does push in kinda easy and the thumb release is far from all the way pushed back when the cylinder is closed. I can see from previous wear marks that it looks like the thumb release was back at lease 1/4 in from where it is now.

 

[oldfool]

FWIW, I have one, real nice little gun, good fit and finish

INA had no relationship to Rossi that I know of; they were a military arms supplier in Brazil, a Taurus competitor; they took a short run at the Brazilian civilian market way back when, without much success, I think. Some got imported. Some were poor quality saturday nite special 38s, but some were real decent guns

Mine a tad smaller than j-frame size, six shooter snubbie in 32, nice, no issues at all with mine. Locks up real tight; absolutely no way you could push or knock the cylinder open w/o using cylinder thumb release, it would likely take at least stout whack with a hammer.

function is as described by MrB
but it is not the least bit difficult to push the center pin flush w/ ejector, it is not noticeably stiff
the rear center bolt retracts quite far, very clearly so, as he described

with cylinder locked, you can still push thumb release quite a bit more rearward, (it is NOT in "fully" rearward position), so I would not think that a problem
though I would eyeball it at ~ 1/8" more, not 1/4" more, mine goes about halfway to rear in normal position vs. being pushed to maxed rear with thumb

Do you have excessive endshake, by any chance (rear/fwd cylinder play) ?
(which can result from a stretched frame if a whole lot of HOT loads have been run thru gun)

If not, then I suspect more vigorous cleaning, flushing with brake cleaner or CLP will loosen and smooth things right up. Some of these old guns have set in box or drawer for decades, and need some extra juicing to get 'em re-lubed well.

 

[Rafterman191]

Well you oldfool, no excessive end shake, in fact it is pretty tight end to end. What I am trying to understand is if the center pin protrudes further out when the cylinder is closed and it is engaged into the release bolt hole? Where it is now looking at it with the cylinder open, it barely sticks out like I was saying about a nickel thickness+ past the extractor. If that pin was out another 1/8in, it would lock up real well. Possible the tip of this pin is worn down. The face of the frame where it meets the center pin and guides it in to the recess hole is pretty scarred.

 

[oldfool]

by eyeball and "coin gauge", centerpin extensions -

(NO, the centerpin does not extend any further when closed, than when open. If it somehow even could, that would be a different problem, not unlike crud under the extractor which can tie up the cylinder.)

my INA snubbie 32 extends the thickness of a nickle, ~ 1/16"
same as my old model "LNIB" S&W J-63

a S&W k-66 about half again that much, about a nickle plus a dime, ~ 3/32"
same for a S&W k-48, nickle & dime ~ 3/32"
my Hi Standard Double 9, longest centerpin extension of any I just gave a quickie look, almost a double nickle, though not quite, mebbe ~ 7/64"

1/8" is a lot (a double nickel), no kidding... and 1/4", I would doubt any DA revolver pins are that long, unless somebody can list one
(some hefty magnums, or SAs, mebbe so, dunno)
No reason a nickels worth (~1/16") should not be plenty enough
1/16" = 0.0625", 62 thousandths, that's like 10X the b/c gap

In the bolt hole is... in the bolt hole; it would surely take a mega-monster magnum load under recoil to allow centerpin spring compression of only 1/16", if such can or does happen. There is not much inertial mass in the little centerpin.
All my S&Ws (rimfire or centerfire), again as MrB said, stouter centerpin springs, clearly a bit harder to push in flush with thumb. But I am 'hard pressed' to believe that is your problem.

Not much to cause that pin to wear down either, short of taking a file to it.

They all have a 'scar' mark, on the arc path the pin drags thru on closing. more pronounced than the drag turn line on the cylinder exterior you know. (The one on the rear frame face is not 100% 'wear', really). Dunno how to 'gauge' the depth of that observation, though, it should not be deep, seems unlikely it would be.

If is is real well lubed, with nothing about extractor, pin, or bolt being the least little bit sticky...
heckifiknow

some pictures, maybe ?

PS
TIP - the centerpin extension into the bolt hole w/ cylinder closed simply cannot be any longer than the allowable forward travel of the thumb release
on mine, the thumb release can only move just very barely more than a nickel thickness forward, before contacting the rear of cylinder shield
hence, "a nickel's worth" of movement is all you get, period
(otherwise cylinder would not unlatch, because you simply could not push the bolt/centerpin out far enough for flush-to-frame face, to unlatch)
IF yours only has that much thumb release travel, then you centerpin is not too short
you never did say what caliber yours is, though

 

[oldfool]

just some background info on these snubbies, leastways the 32 flavor, Industria Nacional de Armas (I.N.A.).

as Googled -
http://www.handgunforum.net/handgun-photo-gallery/2813-i-n-tiger-32-a.html
INA Tiger revolver. Old post comes back!!!
Long wait, but I have some information, if you still have the gun.

INA (Brazil) is the Military Arms producing company of Brazil. They made a version of the Madsen SMG (.45ACP) that I am told is very good and very reliable.
They wanted to make revolvers for police/military use, but Taurus and Rossi were already in place, and they started selling to the civilian market in Brazil. They are very popular and widespread. and they are not expensive - they are like the used S&W police revolvers of 10 years ago.
The one I have is .38 Special, about 2 1/2" barrel, blue with nice walnut grips. It looks like a combination of Smith, Rossi and Colt revolvers, and has coil springs like a J -frame S&W. Mine shows a lot of carry wear and is a bit loose, but everything lines up and it locks up alright. The bore is excellent, and the trigger is very good DA, great in SA mode. It is all steel, with a pinned barrel like my old S&W Chief Special. Finish is pretty good.
I bopught mine for pocket carry when I'm doing flea markets - I didn't want to carry my old Smiths or heavy 1911's and sweat all over them.

It seems to be pretty well made, and I think it is just what I was looking for.
Sorry I can't give you more information - They are mainly found in South America, but they were imported into the US for a while by FIE, who is no longer in business.

picture here, looks just like mine, 32 S&W/L
http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=10167&stc=1&d=1138552859

 

[Rafterman191]

Here are a few photo's. It is a .38 Special. Notice the thumb release position with cylinder closed and opened. Also the release bolt hole is shown with thumb latch pushed as far to the rear as possible and then fully released. There is also a video link at the end if it works that shows how easily the cylinder can be popped out by hand.

http://s120.photobucket.com/albums/o176/rafterman191/?action=view&current=MOV01438.mp4

 

[oldfool]

good photowork that, Rafter

yeah, that one looks mighty rough overall in more than one respect
(as the little bit of info found in Googleland suggests, they were not known for producing a lot of high quality revolvers; I guess this be one you posted on about a year ago, bought used, in part to help a gent in financial need)

That firing pin area on frame sure has been battered hard by the brass
and where the pin slides into rear shield sure does look all banged up
and, as pictured, that centerpin sure do look mighty short
bolt and thumb release look pretty much normal, though

good MP4 vid work linked there, too

No way should a revolver cylinder open thataway, that easy.
Might be a new centerpin could help, if such could even be found, but slim odds of that I suppose. I would not be real inclined to range test that one myself, but maybe I am pickier than most.

Mostly, I cannot help but think (now having seen your pics) that you got a "too typical" example of what economy price Brazilian revolvers too often are, new or old, though not always; just poor fit and finish, and poor tolerances on parts and assembly. 'Support your local gunsmith', maybe, but I suspect most smiths could have trouble finding parts, and it may just not be worth it.

Sincerely wish I had something more encouraging to say, friend.

Happy with our own little 32, still in far nicer condition even now, bought used from a LGS shop owner (decades ago) who was a for-real-gun-person; his wife/shop partner had used it in bullseye competition. It was milady's "my very 1st CCW". She liked it a lot, carried it a lot, and shot it a lot, before she graduated to 380/38/9mm/357. Fit her hand better than the LadySmiths et. al. we had been looking at together. Ain't been shot a lot since, for other than the occasional newbie 101 session.
'tis only a 32, not magnum factor anything, ain't much batter factor in SW32/L loads, and mostly just S&W32 for range fodder at that, with some but fewer Ls

PS
I guess you know you are going to get "hammered' some yourself for wrist flipping that cylinder closed like that in that video... a major no-no that one, friend

 

[MrBorland]

I agree with Oldfool - doesn't look to be enough center pin extension from the ejector. Can be pushed forward a wee bit from the other end when open? IOW, it's possible some dirt is keeping it from coming fully back. If it moves too freely, it could mean the spring's kaput.

Try this: With the cylinder closed, push the cylinder release forward, then open the cylinder. Is it noticeably sticky now? If the rod were too short, and the bolt face, in it's fully-forward position, was flush with the frame face, I'd expect the other end of the inner rod wouldn't sit flush with the outer rod, in which case the plunger under the barrel would catch on the outer rod a bit. You can also check length by pushing the inner rod flush with the ejector, then look at the other end to see that it sits flush with the outer rod.

If the inner rod needs to be replaced, perhaps a S&W rod would do? It looks like a S&W clone, after all.

If the rod's too short, and a replacement can't be found, it's possible a gunsmith can lengthen the rod a bit by carefully peening it to length.

 

[Rafterman191]

Yes, those close ups were not very nice to it were they? It actually doesn't look that rough at a glance, in it's defense. Well guys I am glad I asked because I don't know much about wheel guns and looks and sounds like it's not range worthy right now. I tried to get the center pin and cylinder rod apart, but couldn't figure out how it was fastened in there. There is definitely a little spring inside the rod that pushes on the pin. I wanted to check that spring and clean it.

 

[oldfool]

dunno, never had mine apart, no need, but if like most, you unscrew the ejector rod from cylinder/star the opposite hand turn you would 'normally' expect to unscrew, you know
(if you meant taking the ejector/rod ass'y out of the cylinder)
Must not let the ejector star turn whilst doing it; there is a pin that locks into a tiny hole in the ejector 'star'. If you just hold the star in place with thumb whilst turning the rod, easy enough.

but I-R-No-Smith.. just like 'em and shoot 'em

MrB could have a prime suspect there, if the internal spring is kaput
That bit about pushing the centerpin foward to flush with (internal) end of ejector rod, yes, but be sure you push the pin all the way in with like a fingernail, because it's harder to do with the soft pad of your thumb, and may not go full travel

PS
no offense, but don't be wrist flipping 'em open like that either
(though we understand why you were in this case)
good mention of that in a current THR thread, clearly titled, better advice than you been getting from me here

 

[Rafterman191]

Bought this off Gunbroker (item description below). Should I have any issues fitting this cylinder as a whole or using the pin to replace the old one? It definitely protrudes out more than the one in mine, just as suspected may be the problem.


Item description: INA cylinder 38sp#896. 5 round.Complete and functional.Couple of rust spots on the outside.Inside looks good.Will ship in a padded envelope for 3.00. I do combine shipping.I don't take any sort of electronic payment.