This is tough as I don't want to knock or insult anyone's guns BUT.the Colt brand is the best, period. If I can't afford a Colt, what clone variant do you recommend? Which brand/model?Ī. Below for comparison are two pictures, the one on the left shows a properly rising bolt popped up right before the cyl notch in the scalloped lead in area, the one on the right shows a bolt starting to be a problem child, rising a little too early barely in the scalloped lead in and sometimes even BEFORE the scallop! I can of course fix this problem. Typically you'll need a new bolt fitted to the gun, or maybe a new hammer cam installed, or with an Italian clone, a whole new hammer. On a Ruger Vaquero or Blackhawk it's designed to rise early, it's normal and can't be changed, but on a Colt it's not good.
The gun will actually function fine but you may feel the bolt dragging on the cylinder AND it will always eventually scratch and even gouge the heck out of the finish and even the metal on the cylinder. An early rising bolt (cylinder stop?) on a Colt or a clone is a problem and it's one of the ways your gun is now not timed properly anymore. How can I tell if my gun has that problem?Ī. You've mentioned and I've heard of an "early rising bolt". The picture on the right simply shows a typical bolt and the area of the leg that rides on the hammer cam and does that damage. I was able to save this hammer as I caught it early. You can actually see the flap of metal the bolt leg was cutting out of the cam. On the left is an Uberti Cimarron hammer that started to get destroyed by the leg of the bolt. If I get the clones to work on before they've been fired too much I can stop this damage in it's tracks with the action job, or of course repair it if it's already happened. The photos below illustrate this situation.
It can actually cut a slice out of the cam causing the damage! You don't see this too much on Colts but on the Italian clones I've seen it fairly often. The damaged cam is usually caused by being soft itself and the leg of the bolt that rides on it being too hard. The cam itself can be pressed out and a new one pressed in on a Colt SAA but on all the Italian clones they are a cast boss on the hammer and the whole hammer will need to be replaced. If the cam goes bad it can cause the early rising bolt spoken of earlier, causing more issues. This part operates the bolt (cyl stop?) dropping it down to allow cylinder rotation and at the proper time letting it pop back up to stop and lock the cylinder into battery for firing. That refers to the small (3/16" DIA) round boss or cam that's on the lower portion of the hammer on all Colts and it's many clones including cap and ball guns. I've heard the term "bad hammer cam" and "bad bolt".