Revolver cylinder direction...

[grter]

From a novices random internet reading is that the Colts super tight lockup required significant handfitting to ensure cylinder to forcing cone alignment was optimum on all cylinders, the Colt lockup also involved the hand (pawl) which also required precise fitting. Colt revolvers that have Python type lockwork had some sort of dual use hammer spring in it that had to be perfectly balanced.

Lets not forget any type of glass smooth trigger pull requires a good amount of precision gunsmithing to properly restore or repair.

In a nut shell the parts were not drop in but needed skilled smithing to properly fit.

The Smith and Wessons are able to work fine with a little bit of slop in the lockwork which they referred to as "cylinder self allignment." I belive a perfectly aligned cylinder to bore will shoot better but in actual use maintence and repair seems to be a pain even for a skilled gunsmith let alone the typical layman.

I have to say the Smith is more desirable for that reason and despite the slop they often shoot more than good enough for even skilled shooters.

That is my shallow limited knowlege on the subject the Colt and Smith experts can now chime in and tear me apart if need be.

As far as direction of cylinder rotation I don't know but I lean toward intentionally making their products proprietary to prevent easy modification to accept parts from other brands. That is my impression from reading how businesses in this country (and others ?) have conducted business in the past and present regardless of the product being manufactured.

There is also the issue of patent infringement lawsuits although I don't know if thats the case here.

I have personally experienced this frustration when I have tried to repair or modify non-firearms products that I have purchased in the past. I like standardization many manufacturers do not for various reasons.

 

[yugorpk]

I owned smiths for years before someone told me they rotate backwards.

 

[45 Dragoon]

I won't argue with you grter! In fact, I've been taken to the wood shed by DJ (rightly so!) so no grievance from me.
I'll learn to keep my trap shut about these revolvers and stay with just the tuning aspects of them. I can make them run, that's about it!

Thanks DJ.

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @ goonsgunworks

 

[Tallball]

Driftwood is an awesome poster!

 

[Drail]

I always read that the direction of Colt's rotation was chosen to prevent the ejector rod from unscrewing over time. I know from experience that S&W rods are constantly loosening when the gun is fired. Colt guns do not.

 

[rcmodel]

It has nothing to do with direction of rotation.

Colt rods are staked into the ejector star, and you can't usually unscrew them without destroying them.

Rc

 

[243winxb]

1970's revolvers

What cylinder locks into position first? S&W or Colt? One of them locks just as the hammer reaches full cock, i think? Dont remember? . Have not owned a Colt revolver for maybe 40 years, now.

 

[Jim K]

I have never seen a Colt ejector rod loosen, since they were staked in. S&W changed their ejector rod to left hand threads decades ago to prevent unscrewing.

As for the initial question, it is only a matter of the design of that particular gun, mainly based on where the designer put the hand. Colt's percussion revolvers and the SAA cylinders turn clockwise (as viewed from the rear). Their first swing cylinder DA's had a cylinder that turned counterclockwise. When the design was modified, c. 1905, the sideplate and the hand were moved to the left side and the cylinder turned clockwise.

There is no real advantage to either system though Colt salesmen made all kinds of silly claims to "prove" the superiority of their product.

Jim

 

[2ndAmendmentNut]

I always thought that the rotation of the cylinder effected the Earth on its rotational axis. Notice how ever since Colt quit making DA revolvers we have had global warming.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

.....Thanks for taking your time to educate us. Your discussion above raises a question in my mind, however. And it may be one for a different thread. Why do I hear that there are so few smiths who can work on a Colt nowadays, if we're just looking at basic mechanical workings? I understand that the parts may be scarce, but is there something unique about a Colt that makes it harder to work on than a Smith or a Ruger?

Howdy Again

I am far from an expert on the internal workings of a Double Action Colt, although I do know a fair amount about a single action Colt.

But to answer your question in a general way, there simply are not a lot of gunsmiths today who are familiar with the workings of double action revolvers. I always say it is much harder to find a good gunsmith than it is to find a good car mechanic. And how many crummy car mechanics have you encountered?

Part of it is there are simply not many people training to be gunsmiths any more. Most of the large firearm companies used to have programs where they qualified smiths to work on their products. A friend of mine took an armorer's course at S&W a long time ago. The best smith I know lives an hour and a half away in another state and I will drive to see him every time, rather than go to somebody local, if I can find one. This friend is totally self taught, he was a mechanical engineer by trade and loved guns. So every time he bought a new gun he took it apart to see how it ticked. It didn't hurt that he was a mechanical engineer. He read all the journals and did lots of tinkering until he became a terrific gunsmith. He is getting on in years now but I hope he will continue working on my guns for a long time. He does say that double action Colts are not as easy to work on as Smiths. Part of it is the V shaped main spring, which is not as easy to tune as a Smith spring. And the parts for a Smith seem to be a little bit more amenable to dropping in than a Colt, but I am really not an expert on that.

Rugers are quite different. Part of Bill Ruger's genius was completely redesigning his single action revolvers so the parts truly were drop in parts. Ruger single action revolvers have a very different mechanism than a Colt, and the parts interact differently. So many times a part will drop in with no fitting at all. But not always.

P.S. with the growth in popularity of Cowboy Action Shooting there are now lots of gunsmiths who are familiar with the internal workings of single action revolvers and lever action rifles.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Colt revolvers that have Python type lockwork had some sort of dual use hammer spring in it that had to be perfectly balanced.

Howdy Again

Again, I am far from an expert on the internal workings of double action Colts, but I believe the V shaped mainspring was not restricted to the Python, I believe it was common to all modern Colts.

Here is a photo of the lockwork of a Colt Army Special from the 1920s. This revolver is basically the same as the later Official Police model. Please excuse the 90 or so years of accumulated hardened oil that I have not completely cleaned off.

The base of the V shaped main spring is nestled in a recess in the frame. The upper portion of the spring is attached to the hammer stirrup and propels the hammer forward. The lower portion of the spring bears against the rebound lever. Again, I am not an expert, but I believe the rebound lever has two functions; it returns the trigger to the forward position, dragging the hand with it, and it also rebounds the hammer back slightly.





Here is a photo of the mechanism at full cock.




So the two different halves of the V shaped main spring have a lot of jobs to do.



The lockwork of a Smith & Wesson is very different. ( I do know exactly how a Smith works) Here is a photo of the lockwork of an old 38 Military and Police. Notice there is no hammer block in this gun. The main spring only has one job to do, it powers the hammer. The part behind the trigger with the patent date on it is the rebound slide. Inside the rebound slide is a very strong coil spring, you can just see the spring peeking out from slot in the rebound slide. When the hammer is cocked, or the trigger pulled double action, the rebound slide is forced back against its spring. When the trigger is released, the rebound slide spring pushes the rebound slide forward, which pushes the trigger forward. At the same time, the hump on the top of the rebound slide wedges the hammer back, retracting the firing pin into the frame.



With all revolvers, it is a balancing act between the springs. One spring has to be strong enough to overcome another spring, but it cannot be too strong. With the Smith design, altering or replacing either the main spring or the rebound spring has no effect on the other spring, except for perhaps resulting in one spring being too strong for the other.

 

[Jim K]

From a mechanical viewpoint, the difference between the Colt system and the S&W system is that the former has fewer parts, but they do multiple tasks. The S&W has more parts, but each part has its own function and its own springs, so the interfaces are simpler, and the gun is easier to work on.

Take the Colt rebound lever, for instance. It is powered by the lower limb of the V spring, which also powers the hammer through its top limb. The lever rebounds the hammer, cams the bolt, provides tension to the hand and returns the trigger. Any change made in the rebound lever to correct a problem in any of those areas will affect the others.

So working on a Colt requires that the gunsmith be fully aware of all the functions of a part, and how it interacts with other parts and functions that do not seem to be related. For example, stoning the cam area of the hand will let the rebound lever sit lower, which will throw off the timing of the bolt release.

Jim

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

I'm not convinced that loading 5 in a cylinder is something that was done all that much "back in the day" . Those guys werent all that safety conscious and setting the hammer down between cylinders on fixed pin guns was more common than modern range Nazis would have you believe. They called them six shooters for a reason.

"Those guys" also tended to have a heap more sense than many people we know today because they owned, carried, and used such revolvers all the time. It was a tool they used and/or carried daily, in many cases, and you can be sure that they wouldn't be too thrilled to carry one under the hammer while working or riding where the hammer might suffer any kind of an impact from working or dropping.

Not saying they didn't have their share of retards back then for any given reason, mind you.

But there is plenty of historical evidence that it was, indeed, a common way to carry a 6-gun back then.

Now, if a particular owner knew ahead of time that it might be called for to be used, I'm sure they'd have done like any of us here would do today: load up 6 'cause they're ready to rock and roll.

It was common with the cap and ball revolvers before, to load 5 of 6 chambers, or load 6 while only capping 5.

 

[GBExpat]

... So working on a Colt requires that the gunsmith be fully aware of all the functions of a part, and how it interacts with other parts and functions that do not seem to be related. ...

Last year I bought a ~100 year old Colt Police Positive Special that was quite a bit out of time. The bolt had a major step worn into it.

I spent a lot of time with the sideplate off studying the many inter-relationships.

Once I started in on the replacement bolt fitting process, I was very aware that while it is easy to remove metal, any metal removed cannot be replaced ... also I had to be constantly aware that any changes to the bolt protrusion would impact the operation of the cylinder and pawl.

I ended up dis-/re-assembling the mechanism probably 20-30 times during that project ... it took up much of a Saturday afternoon as I recall.

BUT ... the pistol is now properly timed.

 

[BCRider]

YF, you mention "industry standards" and "even back in the day". That's a modern sort of folk talking.

If you look into the history of screw thread standards you'll soon find that it was only in the later 1800's that diameter and pitch standards were even suggested. And there was a fair amount of back and forth warring between sets of suggested standards. It wasn't until WW1 and the need for arms made in one country to be compatible with the tooling and parts from another that we finally got everyone to adopt the Unified Thread Standard and our UNC and UNF thread standards.

Even then England in particular held on to their BA, BSF and Whitworth standards for well into the 20th century. For all I know the home hobbyists might still be using the BA standard for their model building.

And let's not forget that at that time the rivalry was so hot between makers that one company would refuse to market a gun chambered in another company's round if that round had that name on it. Or they'd change some slight insignificant dimension so that it would be compatible and then call it by their own company name.

So it's really not any sort of mystery why the two biggest revolver makers would never get together and agree on a cylinder rotation direction.

 

[Mk VII]

The Unified thread system never gained much traction here, (though some Fords had it) most manufacturers stuck stubbornly to their English threads and when they changed in the 1970s it was to the metric system.
If you find something these days with UNC/UNF threads you will struggle here to find anything that will fit it.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

I'm not convinced that loading 5 in a cylinder is something that was done all that much "back in the day" . Those guys werent all that safety conscious and setting the hammer down between cylinders on fixed pin guns was more common than modern range Nazis would have you believe. They called them six shooters for a reason.

Range Nazis???

Are you not aware of the lawsuits that made Bill Ruger decide to change the design of all of his single action revolvers back in the 1970s?

I will continue to only load five in all my old Single Action revolvers that do not have a transfer bar.

Liker John Wayne said, 'if you think you are going to need six, then load six.' But I really doubt if I would be in that situation with a single action revolver.

 

[Jenrick]

Some excellent explanations on the topic here. I'll simply toss in a few details on action work on S&W's and Colts.

Primarily even for a full time professional gunsmith, working on a S&W revolver is a matter of changing the spring weights (either by shortening/changing a spring, or the the in case of the main spring the screw that tensions it) and cleaning up any drag areas. Only for a true competition gun that is going to be shot exclusively DA is there much work on the sear area beyond just a general light polish. This is work that anyone who can get the gun opened up without messing up the screw slots or slide plate can do at home. Even for the sear and hammer work a simple fixture to get the right angles and a light touch with a stone and 90% of the weight reduction is done. The other 10% involves centering the hammer and trigger in the frame, ensuring the hand is clear in the frame cut out, etc. Stuff that contributes ounces (if that) in trigger weight reduction, but can provide a noticeable increase in smoothness.

In a Colt as noted, everything is connected to everything else. There is no simple spring change and polish you can do, as even changing the spring weight without changing the angle the rebound lever engages the trigger and the trigger might not reset. Suddenly every change requires hand fitting.

The opinion for a long time was that if you could afford it, a true master gunsmiths work on a Colt provided a better trigger then then on a S&W. On the other hand pretty much anyone could make a S&W's trigger pretty dang good, while very few could get a Colt's a similar level of improvement.

-Jenrick

 

[rcmodel]

One could argue that the older Colts came from the factory with better triggers then the average S&W to begin with.

Due to much more hand fitting in the first place.

So they often didn't need trigger work until they got out of time way sooner then a S&W.

rc

 

[Jim K]

"The day of setting the hammer between chambers as a safety measure ended with the last cap & ball revolver Colt made."

But it didn't and was a fairly common method of carry with both the SAA and other revolvers for many years. As mentioned, it won't work well with the SAA in .45 Colt, but it worked better when the guns had the more pointed firing pin that was later changed to a rounded tip. It works OK with other calibers.

There is no doubt that in the "old days" gun accidents were both common and accepted as normal. Much of our concern today is not only about preventing accidental injury or death but also about keeping the anti-gun crazies from using accidents as another argument for gun confiscation.

An interesting facet of safety with percussion revolvers is that the safety pins used by Colt are missing on most repros, yet they have the hammer notch for them. This has led some folks to invent all kinds of fanciful theories to explain the hammer notch, like the supposed need to "vent a cap blowout".

Jim

 

[yugorpk]

Range Nazis???

Are you not aware of the lawsuits that made Bill Ruger decide to change the design of all of his single action revolvers back in the 1970s?

I will continue to only load five in all my old Single Action revolvers that do not have a transfer bar.

Liker John Wayne said, 'if you think you are going to need six, then load six.' But I really doubt if I would be in that situation with a single action revolver.

Yeah. A guy shot himself and Ruger got sued. . Ruger over reacted and decided to print the entire book on the barrel and redesigned the whole lockwork. Yep. Well aware.

Your'e welcome to load 5 . No ones stopping you. If I was going to load a SAA cylinder and walk around holstered I'd probably do the same thing. If I'm shooting cans and loading on my tailgate at "the range" I load 6. Range being "The range" as in home on the range wide open sage brush desert. If I'm walking with a holstered gun its a modern Ruger fully loaded. If I was shooting at Comanches or Johnny Reb or US Marshalls with an SAA from the back of a horse I'd load 6. I don't get occasions to do either much.