Cylinder bolt dropping too soon?

[Will52100]

Got a problem with a Uberti 51' navy, the cylinder bolt is dropping a little early and when I let the hammer down on the half way safty pin it locks the hammer up.  I have to ease the hammer clear or the pin and turn the cylinder by hand to get it freed up.

Do I need a new bolt or just need to ajust the spring on the old one?  It just started doing this.

Thanks

[Flint]

Try adding tension to the bolt wings.  Remove the bolt, clamp the forward portion in a vise, and with a screwdriver, gently pry the wings apart, biased toward the hammer side until they are not parallel.  Careful not to  break the ear off.  This will increase the pressure against the hammer's cam and usually does the job.

If that is not enough, either the cam is worn, or the back edge of the bolt wing is too short, and drops off too soon.

While the bolt is out of the gun, you should make sure there is a small chamfer at the top cam-side wingtip, to help ease the bolt back up the cam in reset mode, a little job the Uberti assemblers almost never do.

Check a book, like Jerry Keunhausen's Manual on Colt Single Actions or other Colt SAA tuning book for the proper location and extent of that chamfer.

The lack of that chamfer contributes to the premature loss of spring pressure against the hammer due to over flexing.

[Will52100]

Thanks Flint, I took it down and gave it a good cleaning and noticed that the hammer side ear was worn pretty rough from the cam.  I bent it over and it fixed the problem, or at least it did for a couple cockings, then it's doing the same thing again.  I don't have time to work on it right now, got to head back offshore, but I'll tinker with it when I get in.  It doesn't have any chamfer either, and the ears apear to have little Spring left in them.  May have to get a new bolt or heat treat this one.  May also have to smooth out the cam a little.

I'll see if I can get a copy of a book on tunning the SAA, it would come in handy.