In revolver class, two of the students are using the gunsmith's revolvers to learn on. He wanted some modifications on his revolvers, so the students had the fun of doing them.
A ball detent for the cylinder crane. Like you see here.
Instead of locking the cylinder closed with the catch on the underlug, a hole is drilled into the crane. Into this is set a spring and a ball bearing what just fit the #30 bit sized hole. A simple peening with the special enclosed punch and the ball stay in place. Then you mark and dremel out a corresponding hole under the barrel.
Why do this? As it is the normal catch at the end of the ejector rod can bend the rod over time. If you disable this catch and rely on the ball detent catch you won't have this bending problem. So if that is a concern, consider this.
I didn't do this on mine. Just my preference.
The danger is you drill too far into the crane and come out somewhere else. Bad. Hard to get S&W to send you replacement cranes without sending them your gun and have them install it. Parts for revolvers are difficult to procure, but they are out there.
Colt parts? Gah! I don't know. Lots of 'sold out' signs...
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2 comments:
I'm no longer a Colt Detective Special owner thanks to the lack of parts.
My gun was skipping one chamber consistently on double action and dropping the hammer between chambers.
I sent it off to Cylinder and Slide to learn that the cylinder was too far gone to fix. No replacements available for less than the price of a completely different non-broken gun.
Ron Power credited the late Fred Schmidt with the ball detent modification. Power himself mentioned that if he had his way, he preferred to disable the lockup at the end of the ejector rod once the ball detent modification was added. It isn't the catch in the barrel that is at risk of being bent, but the ejector rod itself. When the ejector rod is not perfectly straight, the front lockup keeps pushing the cylinder in and and out of alignment with the forcing cone as the cylinder rotates.
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