JP Sauer and Sohn "Western Marshall" (Imported by Hawes) repairs

[TheVeteran]

THR,

A had a good friend come to me with a pistol of great sentimental value, and long story short I'm trying to repair it. I identified the pistol as a JP Sauer and Sohn "Western Marshall" model. There's a lot of others floating around quite like it, since it's your basic .22 single action revolver. I haven't worked on a revolver in a while, so I was wondering if I could ask the knowledgeable if I'm going in the right direction in my attempt to repair it.

Here's the best picture of a schematic I can get for free. I'm trying to order a better one online.





The Problem

The pistol's issue is that, in the process of cocking the hammer back, more often than not the Cylinder locks inside the frame. Usually you have to remove the Base Pin (part 11) and take the Cylinder out manually, but every once in a while by exerting slightly more force on the hammer it will free itself. Every once and a while, the entire action assembly works perfectly fine for about 20 rotations, but winds up it locking up.

Observations

So clearly there's a few issues that might result in this type of malfunction. I firstly ensured the weapon wasn't flatlined by checking that there was no metallurgical or Chamber Gap malfunction happening. After inspecting the piece I noticed whenever the hammer is at half cock (which means the Bolt Cylinder Stop (part 10) and the gate (part 3) are NOT exposed, the Cylinder will spin freely; so thankfully there's no barbs, shavings, or damage done to the Frame that's causing this problem. This would logically leave the Bolt Cylinder Stop, or the Gate assembly (or perhaps the cylinder itself, as it may have something that prevents the gate from smoothly engaging it).


Solution?

Now that I believe I've consolidated the problem into one of those three parts, I figured I'd post here with my song and dance hoping someone may be familiar with this discrepancy. I'm considering just replacing the assemblies in question, but it seems more responsible to positively identify the problem before spending cash on it.

Can anybody offer any valuable information? I'm trying to find my camera to post up pictures or maybe a video of the actual action seizing. I haven't worked on a revolver in quite some time and any constructive input would be very helpful.

Thanks,

TheVeteran

 

[David E]

I'd check the springs and what-not associated with those parts as well.

I'd number the chambers and see if it's the same chamber that causes it to bind up.

 

[TheVeteran]

I checked that earlier today and it doesn't seem that the action is locking on any one particular part of the cylinder. In fact, I've identified the actual problem - the gate (Part 3) and Bolt Cylinder Stop (10) are locking - but it seems like they're locking together, as all of the parts act dependently of each other. So something locking inside.

I thought I would have gotten more responses than this. I think I maybe should have posted this in gunsmithing, but I figured I would get more hits here as this entire page is dedicated completely to revolvers.

 

[dagger dog]

The action of the Hawes is a reproduction of the original Colt SAA, it is one of the best actions to start your gunsmithing hobby. It is very simple in construction, and that helps in grasping how the thing works.

Don't be hesitant to disassemble the gun and give it a detailed cleaning, watching how the parts fit, sometimes a cleaning is all it takes to get the gun working properly,and with carefull inspection you can see the problem.

The single action revolver of the Colt SAA design gains its reliability by the simplicity of the action and is one of the easiest to diagnose.

 

[David E]

The "Gate" is part #4. Part #3 is the "pawl" or "Hand." This turns the cylinder each time you cock the hammer.

Again, number the chambers to see if a specific chamber is always the one being advanced when the problem occurs.

It could be the bolt isn't getting completely out of the cylinder notch. You don't mention where in the cocking process the lockup happens, so it would help to know how far back the hammer is, or isn't, when it locks up.

 

[dogngun]

Numrich used to have parts for these revolvers - I owned about 4 over the years. Try: www.gunpartscorp.com.

They are well made solid shooters and worth fixing. JP Sauer is now SIG, used to make Kar98's in WWII and superb sportering guns before and after.


mark

 

[TheVeteran]

Thanks for all the replies and sorry about confusing those part numbers (it's been
a long few days).

Although I had been pretty sure that I confirmed the pistol wasn't consistently
locking on the same spot, I took David E's advice and numbered the chambers anyway.
Again - this is not the problem. It seems that the position of each chamber is
irrelevant to when the firearm locks up. I also checked the springs and parts to
each assembly and could not identify an obvious problem. A thorough cleaning helped
clear out a decent amount of carbon built up in the housing of the action, but this
isn't the cause of the jam.



I have however, identified the problem.

There are two consistencies when the revolver locks. Firstly, 99% of the time the
hammer will refuse to cock back even a single click. When I wiggle the hammer, I
can look through the frame and see that the "Pawl" (part 3) isn't engaging the
grooves in the cylinder. This is also the case on the very few times the hammer
will click once but still jam - It appears as if the grooves are out of reach from
the pawl, so it's rising up but making no connection and therefore seizing up.

Obviously I checked the Bolt Cylinder Stop to ensure that this wasn't
malfunctioning by locking the cylinder before the pawl could reach the grooves, but
this doesn't seem to be the case. I can push the Cylinder stop down manually with a
tool and the cylinder will still lock up.

I am still reading and working on this piece pretty hard but I cannot identify WHY
a revolver would do this. As far as I can tell it appears the pieces are where they
should be and do not show signs of any damage. The revolver only has this malfunction when the cylinder is in the frame. When the cylinder is removed it operates with no trouble whatsoever.

Any helpful advice would be really appreciated, as I think I've narrowed down the
problem. The fact that this only happens when the cylinder is in leads me to believe there's a problem with this part, but I don't see shavings or barbs or anything that would cause this. This will be a very rewarding piece to fix and will be checking back every few hours for anything you guys might have to contribute.

Thanks,

TheVeteran