Ive been putting a steady diet of .44 mag through my Dan Wesson that I picked up last week and had a question:
So far ive put about 300 rounds of .44 mag through it. Maybe 4-5 times in those rounds, I found that when i went to cock the hammer, the cylinder wouldnt rotate with ease. I could rotate the cylinder a tiny bit by hand and it would solve the problem, but I had a few questions/observations:
Observations:
-This doesnt happen with any reproducability: I have never ever had binding when dry firing and from what I can tell, is not related to any particular single chamber. I have yet to be able to reproduce the problem outside the range even turning the cylinder with spent brass loaded.
-This seems to only happen when the gun is loaded and after a number of rounds have been fired, but is certainly not due to high primers or the rounds themselves sticking. In dry fire, the action is smooth and consistant and the cylinder gap appears consistant as it rotates, so I dont think its the front face being out of true.
1. Cylinder gap: I will re-adjust this using the tool provided, but I believe the current cylinder gap is fine and set to approximately .06 as designed. I will re-seat it just to make sure, though.
2. Ratchet: Could these cases of binding simply be due to crud getting caught in the ratchet and interfering with the pawl trying to turn the cylinder? I read somewhere about someone saying to carry a can of gunscrubber and to clean that area every so often during a long shooting session. I may apply some dry lube to the ratchet to avoid crud getting stuck in oil-based lube but 100 or so rounds didnt seem excessive enough to cause the problem.
3. Grip screw. I dont know why this makes sense but I read elsewhere that this could be due to an overtightened grip screw....why would this affect the action?
4. Heat: Could the issue be cause by the actual gun being a bit hot after some rounds are fired? Could the heat cause the tolerances between parts to change slightly enough that I get infrequent binding when I never do with the gun cold?
The issue is a very minor one as this is a "play" gun but i'd like to get a little better handle on it. Its a very minor nuisance in an otherwise fantastic revolver and may just be something I need to live with given that the gun is almost 30 years old.
So far ive put about 300 rounds of .44 mag through it. Maybe 4-5 times in those rounds, I found that when i went to cock the hammer, the cylinder wouldnt rotate with ease. I could rotate the cylinder a tiny bit by hand and it would solve the problem, but I had a few questions/observations:
Observations:
-This doesnt happen with any reproducability: I have never ever had binding when dry firing and from what I can tell, is not related to any particular single chamber. I have yet to be able to reproduce the problem outside the range even turning the cylinder with spent brass loaded.
-This seems to only happen when the gun is loaded and after a number of rounds have been fired, but is certainly not due to high primers or the rounds themselves sticking. In dry fire, the action is smooth and consistant and the cylinder gap appears consistant as it rotates, so I dont think its the front face being out of true.
1. Cylinder gap: I will re-adjust this using the tool provided, but I believe the current cylinder gap is fine and set to approximately .06 as designed. I will re-seat it just to make sure, though.
2. Ratchet: Could these cases of binding simply be due to crud getting caught in the ratchet and interfering with the pawl trying to turn the cylinder? I read somewhere about someone saying to carry a can of gunscrubber and to clean that area every so often during a long shooting session. I may apply some dry lube to the ratchet to avoid crud getting stuck in oil-based lube but 100 or so rounds didnt seem excessive enough to cause the problem.
3. Grip screw. I dont know why this makes sense but I read elsewhere that this could be due to an overtightened grip screw....why would this affect the action?
4. Heat: Could the issue be cause by the actual gun being a bit hot after some rounds are fired? Could the heat cause the tolerances between parts to change slightly enough that I get infrequent binding when I never do with the gun cold?
The issue is a very minor one as this is a "play" gun but i'd like to get a little better handle on it. Its a very minor nuisance in an otherwise fantastic revolver and may just be something I need to live with given that the gun is almost 30 years old.