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Single Action Problem

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DenmanShooter:
This summer I purchased a Pietta Colt Clone SAA with transfer bar safety.  It was a really good price and I liked the style -- 4-3/4 inch barrel, kind of like a Uberti Cattleman Hombre.  Makes a great combo with my Henry Big Boy Carbine in 357 magnum.

It's a sweet little shooter and way more accurate than the pic shows.   :D

I had put roughly a hundred rounds through it and it began misfiring about every 6th round or so.  The firing pin would strike just outside the primer on the case.  It seemed to be timed right and was advancing correctly.  I chalked it up to the ammo at first since I usually use Federal and this was some Winchester white box 38 special I was using when it started acting up.

I disassembled, checked everything, cleaned it up real well and reassembled.  However I never completely reassembled and checked the action internally.

I went back to try it again and I noticed I was having indexing problems.  The bolt would not drop at the proper time to allow the cylinder to spin freely.  I had to stop the hammer just before the first click (this one has actually only 3 clicks, not 4) for the bolt to stay down to allow the cylinder to spin free.  Basically it was a 2 click now instead of 3. But, dry firing, it would cycle the cylinder correctly.

WITHOUT CHECKING, I ordered a spring and bolt figuring one or the other had failed and put it away and waited for the parts.

I could have returned it to Pietta but really didn't want to pay the shipping and wait.

The parts arrived and excitedly I disassembled everything anticipating this would do the trick.  However, on disassembling the spring was perfect.  The bolt looked fine also.  Hmmm?  What could it be?

I noticed when I removed the spring, the bolt was a little sticky and didn't move smoothly in the frame slot for it.

I went ahead and pulled the hammer, hand and transfer bar and cleaned everything thoroughly and reassembled.

Same problem.

Back to square one, I really looked over the slot for the bolt and noticed the bolt was just barely dragging in the slot.  So I filed it down smooth (the slot, not the bolt).  I also noticed the bolt arm was bent inward on itself just a tad.  I bent it out (or in) toward the hammer cam just a tad.

I reassembled everything and it works better than it did new.

I don't know why it took a hundred rounds for the problem to show up and maybe after another hundred I will need to rework it again but at least I have spare parts now.  :)

SemperFiGuy:
The above information might be generally useful to other Pietta owners.

If you think so, you might wish to consider posting it on one of the Single-Action Shooter forums, such as:

http://forums.gunboards.com/archive/index.php/f-97-p-3.html

Might save Other Folks some runaround time.

FWIW,

sfg

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