Dave Sample
member
These double action revolvers are pretty good shooters for the most part. I always think of the intended purpose for owning the handgun when I think of how tight they are fitted. I am still in the business of tuning SA revolvers and I do work on the bolt to bring it up into the full depth of the notch in the cylinder and also to come up at the right time. Most double action's pop the bolt up right after they start the cylinder rotation and let the bolt ride the cylinder all the way around. Hence the shiny ring on the cylinder. If we see this on a SA we know the gun has been mis-handled by dropping the hammer from 1/2 cock to lower it. We always try the bolt in the cylinder notches to see if it is too thin and then replace it with a new one if that is the case. The bolt is what holds the cylinder in postion while the round is fired and it should be tight in a SA with no rotation. The bolt has to be up in the notch and fill the notch for the maximum accuracy of the fired round. DA's are not as easy to achieve this with and the bolts are flimsy compared to a SA. I never bothered working on DA bolts because the results were not there. I also would guess that a new cylinder is a cheaper way to fix notches that have been abused rather than trying to repair one.