REMINGTON STACKS ON COCKING?

[m-g Willy]

Been shooting Colt SAA's for over 30 years ,and just got a 58 Remington a few months ago.
I noticed the Remington gets harder to cock the farther back you pull the hammer.
Is this just the design of the 58 that makes it stack like this,or is there something I can do about it?



Willy

[Flint]

Any leaf spring will stack, just a matter of what the tension screw is set at and the thickness of the spring.  The tapered spring is supposed to reduce the stacking some, but all leaf spring guns will stack.  A Remington 58 is a cap & ball revolver, and it needs a heavier spring than a cartridge gun.  If you have a Pietta, the spring will be heavier than an Uberti.  I shoot my "58s" as conversions, and have lightened the mainsprings, but if I want to shoot them as a cap & ball, I will replace with the heavier spring.

One thing to do is to buy a few mainsprings from VTIgunparts.com and thin one out little by little (width, not thickness), keeping track of your dimensions, until it doesn't reliably pop a cap, then thin the spare to the last dimension that is reliable.  The failed spring will probably work with a 45 Colt cartridge conversion.

Remove all grinder marks from the sides with files and sandpaper or stones, and don't let it get uncomfortably hot to your fingers, keep dipping the spring in water to cool it.

[m-g Willy]

I just got a new 51 Navy and my other Colt cap and ball's -1860 ARMY -3 MODEL DRAGOON all have the flat leaf spring but they don't stack like the Remington.

But I'll try lighting the spring a bit and see what happens.

Thanks again Flint

PS. I think I'm going to start all my posts from now on with (HEY Flint) seeing as how much you have to keep telling me the the -whats- and hows- all the time.
Thanks again!

Willy

[Flint]

Thanks for the compliment....

The Pietta spring is so much stronger than an Uberti, and it isn't just the thickness, it has to do with the curve, location of the curve, the spring length and the angle of the slot the spring is mounted into.  There are more geometry differences as well such as the setback of the grip from the frame.  Getting a Pietta spring light enough to feel right at the full cock position resulted in a limp hammer at the cap, so I opted for other solutions.

At any rate I have had little luck with getting a nice hammer pull on a Pietta Remington 58, and for the one's I've used in SASS/CAS I've replaced the leaf springs with Ruger coil and strut, making a saddle for the bottom and recutting the roller slot to accept the Ruger strut.

That may be a bit extreme, but I had to do it for the experience of it.

Doesn't really answer your question, probably, but it did convert me more to using the Uberti version of the gun.