forensic photos: 2.5 ported armoralloy python

It's been a while since I opened a python side plate, which at my age means I'm just about to forget everything. So, to counter that my dad and I went through a 2.5 ported python has that someone went through some trouble for to make into a very (very) nice carry gun with a great trigger and excellent porting.

Here's what we have to work with:

Forensic photos: Cylinder and Slide python

I bought a CR-B ($312) and CR-C ($466) package from C&S so I could see how they work on things. The CR-C is their premier colt package; I got it done for an SS python. This post is to dissect the work they did. As they describe it:

CR-C - Colt Revolver - Package CR-C

Colt Python, Diamondback, Detective Special, SF-VII, DS-II Revolver Super Tune Up. Customer Must Specify Whether this Weapon is for Duty/Carry or Target Use Only.

Super Action Job on Python, Diamondback, Detective Special, SF-VI or DS-II
Chamfer Cylinder Mouths and Polish Chamber - 38/357 and 44

The following items will be checked and corrected as necessary: Crane and ejector rod straightness, barrel to cylinder chamber alignment, barrel turned up square with frame, barrel forcing cone square, re-cut forcing cone as needed, barrel muzzle crown

Test Fire for Function and Adjust Sights for Zero at 15 Yds.

Return Shipping and Insurance - Will be Arranged with Customer at Time of Shipment.

They did a couple of very interesting things I hadn't seen before. And they did one very surprising thing I had seen before but didn't realize was still being used (hint: "Austin Behlert" action job).

Unfortunately, despite the novelty, the end result --- how the DA actually feels --- was not worth the money. The SS python feels better than stock, but no where near as good as the colts I have that were done by Frank Glenn or Reeves Jungkind (or even me!). It sounds like there has been a change in personal, since other people have had excellent results w/ C&S previously.

As on additional warning, they corrected the barrel cylinder gap on both guns, but did not clear it with me first. The total bill was over $1200!

In any case, let's get to it.

Here's the SS with it's clothes on:

how to break a bull barrel python

I have a bull barrel python that has a big aristocrat rib on it, seemingly setup for PPC.

I thought that this meant it was fine for near max 357 mag loads. Unfortunately I was informed that PPC ribs were in fact designed to keep the front sight on the X ring when doing powder puff 38spl loads and using them for 357 was going to cause problems.

This is unfortunate since I only learned this useful fact after the rib flew off my gun tonight and whacked me on the head when shooting 357. The empirical record suggests that the rib is fairly heavy, in case you were wondering.

Here's how things should look:



And like magic, reality shows how they actually look:

Fixing misfires in a 41 mag python

[As always: this is just for entertainment purposes. If you do any of this t your gun it's going to get ruined! Note there are suggestions at the end of the post for things to do differently.]

I recently got a 41 mag python, which got dissected to see how Jack Huntington did the conversion (http://coltpython.blogspot.com/2009/07/forensic-photos-41-magnum-python-by.html). It had a lot of enshake which I fixed (http://coltpython.blogspot.com/2009/07/fixing-endshake-on-41-magnum-python.html). And while it didn't blow up after shooting a couple hundred rounds (http://coltpython.blogspot.com/2009/07/41-magnum-range-report-it-does-not-blow.html) it would also misfire about 1 round per cylinder.

The misfires were with large pistol CCI primers. I got told to just use federal, but that's cheating, so spent some time this weekend attempting to fix things.

The DA pull is around 6.2lbs, so it's possible that the mainspring is the problem. However, I've done colts that have a lighter pull and they've worked w/o issue, so the problem could be something else. Admittedly these other guns shoot 357, so perhaps the force needed to ignite small pistol primers is less than for large. However, I don't want to just blindly increase the mainspring as a way to mask any underlying issue.

To spare you the dynamic tension, in the end I did wind up increasing the mainspring by about 4oz but a lot of stuff got fixed along the way, so perhaps it's interesting anyway.

Just for reference here's the gun after the endshake fix:


A good colt smith gave a rundown of things to check for tracking down misfires, so we do some of those first.

Forensic photos: Sherman Roller Action

There's been a bunch of threads on the Walt Sherman "roller action" where he used a ball bearing to reduce friction in double action. Unfortunately there hasn't been much detail. So to fix that we now err on the excessive detail end of things.

I bought a purported Sherman Officer Model Special (OMS) in 38spl a while back with Fishpaw grips, but hadn't had the courage to open it up.

Well that changes now! It was a pretty interesting set of internals that were in the gun.

Outside

Here's the outside:

Fixing endshake on 41 magnum python

I got a 41 magnum python conversion a while back, but unfortunately hadn't been able to shoot it b/c of excessive endshake. The difference between the max and min barrel / cylinder gap was well over .005 and, even worse, the minimum barrel / cylinder gap was about .00025 which made it seem likely the cylinder would slam into the barrel.

This weekend I finally got a chance to fix the problem by cutting out the cylinder, machining a bushing and putting it all together (with a bunch of fitting). I first did two shooter model 357s for practice (it won't be an easy matter to replace a jacked up 41 mag python cylinder) and then did the 41 magnum.

The process was not entirely smooth: I had to rip one bushing out and start over and the fitting was made excessively tedious since I did not record the minimum barrel/cylinder gap measurement before cutting out the cylinders. However, in the end all three colts now have < .001 endshake. Of course, they need to survive a bunch of rounds before declaring success. But, that's why god made next week :)

In promising news I've already done the identical fix to two pythons and a trooper when I went out to visit Frank Glenn. For these three colts it seems that things were done right: when I finally did a range test last week they survived 500+ rounds between them without issue. (They seem smoother too since they started at close to .0000 endshake, which forced the cylinder to travel through any binding rather than slip around it.)

OK. So let's get to it. We get excessive endshake when the collar on the cylinder is too short, and thus allows the cylinder to travel forward too far. You can stretch the collar using a special fixture but, unfortunately, that's a one time fix. We instead replace the collar by removing it and putting in a bushing in its place: you remove endshake by making the bushing sufficiently long.

Our algorithm:

1. Measure headspace to make sure we are comfortably above the minimum. If not, we can't do this fix (and likely will have to replace the ratchet).
2. Take the cylinder apart completely.
3. Put the cylinder in a 4 jaw chuck in a lathe and use an indicator to ensure that as it spins it wobbles by less than .0005".
4. Use a boring tool to cut a hole where the collar is until all (or just about all) of the collar material is removed.
5. Construct a bushing that reaches the bottom of the hole and has has a wide enough diameter so we can press fit it in the cylinder. The "collar" sticking out needs to be thinner than this part so it does not contact the barrel.
6. Press fit the bushing in.
7. Slowly remove material from the collar until the cylinder will fit in. Slowly remove more until it will turn. Be careful: just b/c the cylinder isn't turning doesn't mean the bushing is too long! It could be that 0 endshake is exposing other sources of binding.

We'll step through each step.

Cutting collar

Here's the cylinder and the carbide tipped boring tool we're going to use to cut out the collar and make a flat bottomed hole:

Forensic photos: 41 magnum Python by Jack Huntington

I've never seen any dissection of a 41 magnum python, nor really of a professional action job, so let's fix that!

I recently picked up a 41 magnum python conversion done by Jack Huntington (http://www.jrhgunmaker.com/). He was nice enough to chat on the phone. In his view it can handle a steady diet of 1,000 fps 41 mag loads. He also stated he worked at colt for a couple of years and has done around 2000 pythons. He did his version of an action job, including bending the trigger sear.

So, it'll be interesting to see what he did.

Last night I finally got to open stuff up. There were some interesting results, both in terms of what he did and what he didn't do.

Here's the gun (wrong stocks, I know):

Part I: fixing the most loose 2.5" python ever.

The stuff below is just for entertainment. I am not suggesting this is what you should do or how you should do it. Consider it a fast way to ruin your gun. If you see something where I'm ruining mine please point it out!

I recently came into possession of the all time most loose python ever. At rest the cylinder shakes more than white trash going through meth withdrawal. It's the worst of any colt I've seen and not by a tiny amount. Oh, and the action sucks too.

Fortunately, it was all fixable, though dealing with bolt/rebound issues took around 6 hours. (Unbelievable!)

Here's the beast. As you can see, somewhat worse for wear: a lot of blueing off, wrong stocks, and (as will be revealed in part II) the insides are pretty messed up:

Removing stacking in the bull barrel python

NOTE: the stuff below is just for entertainment. I am not suggesting this is what you should do or how you should do it. Consider it a fast way to ruin your gun. If you see something where I'm ruining mine please point it out!

After a few hours of messing around I was able to fix the bull barreled python previously discussed here.

It was like a rube goldberg contraption with a bunch of different things wrong but cancelling each other out. Unfortunately, if you fixed one thing, there was nothing to cancel the others.

In any case, if you have a bull barrel and no action work it don't make no sense. So we get to it.

Here's what we have to work with:



To eliminate stacking and cut a couple pounds off of DA we are going to install a trigger with a curved sear (trigger modified by Frank Glenn). A standard colt trigger is next to it for comparision:







First we "drop it in" to see what we have to do. Of course it's always the same thing: cut a groove in the hammer toe. As you can see, the end of the sear is lower (since the entire sear is curved) which prevents the hammer strut from resetting. If the strut can't reset, you have no DA since you'll pull the trigger and it will go up, but not bring the hammer with it.






The solution is cutting a groove in the hammer toe where the sear meets it so it sets lower. So we remove the strut to make it easier to file. From left to right: the bench block we use to knock out the strut pin and the tool used to do so (made by Frank), the strut, spring and hammer. The point of the tool is to knock the struct pin out halfway so it stays in the hammer, which which makes it a lot easier to get back. We'll use the round file to cut the groove:




First pass:






A fair amount of material gets removed, but less than we will probably need. However, since you can't put metal back, it makes sense to put reassemble the hammer and figure out how much more there is to do.

A nice trick for getting the hammer strut spring to stay is to use a heavy grease on the end to make it stick where it should be:






Ok, not as bad, but still more to go:


After another round we get:


Which lets the strut reset:


Note that without the rebound the hammer is tilted slightly forward more which means that the strut may not reset even though it would with the rebound in place. However, I like to leave a bit of space since DA is often rapid fire, and if the fit between strut and sear is too tight, you'll get failures to reset pretty easily.

OK. So now the strut resets. Of course, since it's a I frame, if you change one thing, you have to change 10.

For example: since the trigger has a slightly different resting place it can throw off bolt/hand interplay. In our case, the rebound no longer picks the bolt up instantly, which means the top hand starts pushing on the cylinder before the bolt has withdrawn:




Also the hammer can't get cocked since the lower hand locks up on the cylinder before the sear can go in the cocking notch.





The wrong thing to do at this point is to start filing on the hand. This may be necessary at the end, but the first thing to do is to fix the problem in the lower red rectangle above: the trigger must raise the hand up fairly high to get around the top of the hammer before the sear eventually gets into the cocking notch. Unfortunately, when the sear reaches the cocking notch the hand will be significantly lower. Thus, if you try to solve the problem by merely filing the bottom hand, by the time the sear reaches the cocking notch there will be a gap. This means the cylinder will be supported more by the bolt, rather than the bottom hand, which is not a good setup.

First, we'll stone the trigger, which we have to do anyway since it's edge is a bit sharp after the torch. Stoning will make it shorter and the problem above less pressing. We'll then take some material off of the end of the hammer toe before messing with the hand.

Here's the stoning fixture. Frank does it freehand, but I don't trust my filing abilities to that extent:



And here's the rough angle you want:



Unfortunately I didn't take clear pictures of before / after so you'll have to use your imagination.

We now enter the NEVER DO THAT EVER part of the programme. We're going to modify the cocking notch. If you do this to your gun it's going to get ruined. For stock sears the shop manual says to throw away hammers with cocking notch alterations. So does dfariswheel.

However, since we are using a curved sear things a slightly different. The angle is different enough that often if you don't do anything to the notch the SA will usually really suck (creep, heavy, bad). If you make the notch more like a right angle and cut the lip of the hammer down, it can escape easier and you can make it as light as you like.

However, again, don't do this at home. For example, Grant Cunningham doesn't do this when he installs such triggers because of concerns about liability. And there are NO GUARANTEES THAT I AM DOING THIS RIGHT. So consider this just entertainment.

However, since I'm not going to sell this gun, we can not worry about most of the above. First put the hammer in a small vise and use a sharpie to mark the general area so that it's easy to tell how much got removed (and whether it was even):



Now file some. Unfortunately, I filed more than is a good idea. It is far from getting push off, but it's not really the right way to do things. I should have been more careful. In any case, here's the hammer:





And as compared to a stock one:


In the end I also had to take some off of the top and bottom parts of the hand, however it was just a few strokes of the file.

After putting everything back together the nice result is that with no other modifications the DA drops from 8.5-9lbs to 7lbs (and with the cylinder open is consistently 6.2lbs) and there is no stacking. Feels much nicer:



There's probably some room left to fuss with the mainspring and such, but that will get left til another time.

Forensic photos: bull barrelled python

Recently came into possession of a bull-barrel python (I know I know, but looks fun to shoot!). Had a really amazing trigger: SA felt feather light and DA very smooth. So of course we took it apart to see what things looked like. This is a short post about that, but it doesn't come to any definitive conclusions, unfortunately.

Now the first thing was a bit unnerving: when measured w/ a trigger scale, the DA was OK and the SA at around 3lbs is pretty good, but not outer-space weird:


I've pulled a lot of different python triggers but this was the largest difference ever between subjective feel and measured reality. I'm still not really sure what the deal is.

In any case, here's a couple of the aristocrat rib:




And like many early, non-safe queen guns, it has "INS" stamped on the frame handle:



I think this is the fourth INS colt for me. I thought it meant "immigration and naturalization service" but the general consensus is that it just means "inspected".

As you probably can't see, the latch is purple:


From this post, it turns out that this does not necessarily mean it was reblued, but just that the blueing tank was a bit off:
Dfariswheel on purple

Now the second major surprise (which the trigger weight should have told us) is that the trigger sear is stock, completely uncurved! I had thought from the pull that there was minimal stacking:



If you look above at the INS stamp again, you can see the severe kink in the spring, closer to the V than I believe the colt manual suggests (though it's where I've tended to put it, too).

OK, so the sear is normal. Why exactly is the snake so smooth?! Looking at the hammer, you can see the lower end is polished compared to a take off one (right) --- most hammers have black marks on the lower end:



Looking at the sear, it does appear polished, though this could also be wear:


The hammer strut too appears polished (as it should be):



And the hand seems polished as does the rebound:





But these are all the normal places to polish. I've done it a lot, and still this python felt noticably nicer than usual.



The strut angle is pretty damn good, but still.


Unfortunately, here's one problem: the bolt spring is completely the wrong one:



If we do rapid DA the cylinder spins past the bolt. And weirdly, this is with the bolt slipping off the side of the rebound. After bending the bolt so it goes off the front of the rebound cam it stops returning at all. I'll spare you the details, but I'm still a bit stuck on what to do. Perhaps a nights sleep :)

another SA-only officers model match

Just picked up a second OMM converted to single action only.

(For reference, the previous thread is at:
factory SA-only OMM)

Unlike the first one this was almost certainly done by someone other than the factory.

Here's the pistol all in one piece:




I am a sucker for fully checkered stocks. These are completely pristine. I'd almost think they were just made other than the green corrosion by the medallion on the inside:




One theory before was that an easy check for a factory-job was that when cocked the hammer would stop halfway, as it does on this one:



However, when you take the sideplate off, you see the half cock is not b/c of a stop inserted into the frame, but rather b/c the hammer cocks using the *bottom* of the trigger sear! In a sense the cocking notch has been removed from the hammer, cut into the trigger sear, and the hammer toe turned into a sear:









Removing the hammer and trigger and comparing them (left) to a normal OMM hammer and trigger (right), you can see the hammer was reworked significantly: (1) the DA strut removed (obvious), (2) the hammer toe reshaped, (3) the back of the hammer and the bottom cut in (reducing weight = reducing lock time?)













Here are close up pictures of the trigger sears (SAO on left, normal on right). You can see the sear has been shortened, and a step cut into it to capture the hammer toe:







Here's the hammer toe:



And the spur has been widened significantly, even compared to a python "target" hammer spur:





As you can see from the frame, other than old grease (just bought it!) there doesn't seem to be modifications to the frame. Though, oddly, like the other SA-only I have seen (and other's have?) the serial number is very close to ending in 00 (in this case xxx5599):



And there you have it.