FORCING CONE

[Flint]

I found Piettas in particular to need throating.  I have a Remington that had a small radius at the throat, rather than a conical cut.  Get a Brownell's throating kit, or a gunsmith who can do it, and put a standard 11 degree conical throat in the barrel.  

Also. yes, I have made brass washer-like shims on a lathe to put in front of the cylinder pin to hold the barrel/cylinder gap solid.  You need to get a washer/shim thickness that will bring about .010 cyl gap, but not hold the barrel away from the frame at the bottom, and hopefully, holds the barrel parallel to the cylinder, and the cylinder gap even top to bottom.  The wedge can then be driven in tight, and the gap will not close and lock the cylinder.  The original Colts were made with long pins, and the factory adjusted the length to be correct.  The Italian guns all have cyl pins that are too short.  Another technique is to drill and tap the front of the pin for a short set screw to correctly set the length of the pin.

[Flint]

On black powder guns, I run .008 to .010 if I can, it doesn't bind up as bad.  Smokeless gaps can go from .003 to .006 and be good.

[howdy doody]

Well, I personally never gave my throats a thought since I only shoot round balls and never get any shaving once I got my indexing adjusted right. I bought my two Piettas at the same time and noticed I had .011 on one and .008 on the other at the cylinder gap. Upon shooting a few matches with them I noticed that the one with the least clearance tended to stiffen up first. I clearanced it ot the same as the other and it seems equal to me. I often thought about cutting grooves in my cylinder pins to hold lube better, but since I have 8 extra cylinders, I swap them out per stage and just lube my pins with breakfree and never have a binding problem. Before Uncle Mikes nipples became extinct I fitted them to my cylinders and using #10 remington caps I would say my shooters are near trouble free. I do load a might stiff for CAS and have broken the flat spring behind the hand a couple of times, but it isn't that big a thing. I run mine with the Colt/EMF spring from Wolf and that suits me too. Now if I could only do something about recoil making the trigger guard pound my knuckle on my index fingers and making them swell I would be just too happy.  :-)

[Charlie Detroit]

Howdy Doody:
Are you shooting a Colt or Remington repro?
I guess that question should be asked of all these folk, now that I think of it...It's really hard to figure out what's being said if you don't know what flavor of revolver you're dealing with.
I shoot a Colt M1861 repro, from CBAC, and I set my cylinder gap to as close to zero as I can get it without tying up the cylinder. I have wondered what happens when enough wear on these parts causes things to misalign when the revolver is reassembled, but it hasn't happened yet. It will, I'm pretty sure, since the cylinder, if nothing else, appears to be quite soft.
Years ago, when I had a Remington, I was quite aware of the difficulty of adjusting cylinder end-play and gap-to-barrel in these guns. The Colt seems easier, but the alignment would get messed up with wear.
The use of extra cylinders in a Colt is nothing short of a nightmare, since the gun has to be taken apart. I'm afraid that, despite everyone's advice to the contrary, I load with the cylinder in the gun, chambermeal (look that one up, guys...there's only one word in modern English that commonly takes the suffix "meal". What is it?), using the rammer in the gun.
Id' like to hear more about this stuff from you guys...

[howdy doody]

Charlie Detroit, I am sorry I should have said, but you probably knew I was shooting 58 remington repros by pietta. I can swap out preloaded at home cylinders faster than a jackrabbit on a date. Just like the calvery could, although I only cap at the loading table.
I have a pard, I don't believe he posts on this board that has made ruger style bushings for the fron of his cylinders. They work super. He can shoot six stages, 30 rounds  from each Pietta rem and never foul or get stiff. The drawback is you need to machine the bushing from sctratch and the cylinder to make it work. That means for CAS work you need to reload each gun at he match for each stage, vs my method of just swapping cylinders. He told me he runs a .008 cylinder gap on his. He also uses the pietta spring, narrowed down to 3/16 in the center portion. I should go on to say I made my own trigger/bolt spring from steel strapping material and my trigger is actually too light at 2 1/2 lbs and I plan to fix that. Meanwhile I have been shooting 5 1/2 ROAs almost weekly since Christmas when I got them. :-)