Removing or Tweaking SAA Barrels

[Calico Kirby]

I've read a few different things about removing or tweaking SAA barrels. Does anyone have any tips or advice they can share when it comes to this?

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

Need special tools and know how to go with'em

Best left to the pros.

LG

[Bart Solo]

Hire a gunsmith. It isn't real expensive and you will have a usable gun at the end.

[Doc Coles SASS 1188]

No matter what folks tell you, don't stick a hammer handle through the frame and twist the barrel off. With the proper tools (especially the correct blocks), changing an SAA barrel is not hard. I have pulled, adjusted and replaced a number of barrels on SAAs with no sad stories to tell. As always with these things, its best to do your first barrel swap under the watchful eye of someone with some experience, but with the proper attention to detail its a doable job for most folks.

 

We live in a age of diminishing skills and rising lawsuits. There are some jobs that only the experts should do (things likely to lead to tragedy if done wrong), but always remember the "experienced gunsmith" started out knowing nothing more than you. If you put in the time, do your research, pay attention to detail and strive for a quality work (IE don't cut corners and know the difference between good, safe work and shoddy unsafe work), in time, with some practice, you can do just about any gunwork on your own. This can be hard because you won't get as much experience just working on your own guns as a professional smith does working on guns day in and day out. Essentially, you end up doing the work for the first time most times. This presents you with some problems as you might imagine and there are times when it is just simpler to send it to the smith. Conversely, there are some jobs that smiths don't want to do or would be just to expensive to pay someone else to do. These are the things I have done on my own, for example, I have sleeved an old 73 because I wanted to do it the old way with solder rather than acraglass, I have cut and chambered several barrels for original 19th century rifles, rebuilt a Spencer shotgun, replaced firing pin bushings and barrels in SAAs, built new parts from bar stock form my chicom 1886 shotgun and a bunch of other things. Some of this I did with my dad, an experienced machinist and gunsmith (he has designed and built several rifles from scratch, the only parts he didn't make from bar stock were the barrel blanks, when he was a youngster he machined engine parts for the Mercury Program), but I have done lot on my own. You just need to start somewhere.

 

Just my thoughts.

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

Not using a wooden handle is the conventional wisdom. However, I have seen a couple of nationally known smiths use them. For those that haven't seen the video, check out how they install the barrel in a Uberti SAA. It's a precision piece of equipment known as a "stick."

 

[Doc Coles SASS 1188]

I saw a "How It's Made" that went to Uberti (I think) and they showed SAA barrels being put on with the stick method, yet I have had several old gunsmiths tell me never to do that as you could twist the frame. It could be as simple as the steel on original guns being softer than the new guns, or it could be its something that comes over from working on double action revolvers, I don't know. What I do know is that for the amount of work involved in making a set of properly fitted wood clamping blocks (a matter of minutes with a band saw), its just not worth the risk of doing damage to your gun. I think this comes under the heading of "striving for quality work." For example, I have seen a lot of old guns that have had barrels pulled, installed or adjusted with pipe wrenches. Evidently a pipe wrench will do the job, and though its not something I would do, if its the sort of work you feel comfortable with, its your gun.

[Smithy]

No matter what folks tell you, don't stick a hammer handle through the frame and twist the barrel off.

 

Thanks Doc for posting the Best piece of advice anyone could ever post about the installation or removal of a revolver barrel. I was a bit of a kitchen table gunsmith myself (mainly on my own weapons but also on friend's weapons, but NEVER doing anything I or my customer felt the least bit uncomfortable with). My experience came from apprenticing with a couple of local smiths, books, and the unfortunate school of hard knocks. I had a Colt trooper and a long Python barrel that I got both for next to nothing and was going to marry the two and have a knock off Python/nickel plated to boot. I had me a padded vise for the barrel and... Umm... A stick, that's it. BAD IDEA. Ever made a metal pretzel? I did. One trooper down the drain and a valuable lesson learned.

 

I know they want an arm and a leg for the pro wrenches to do it right so if you can't justify the cost for a one time job, have it done, or do something like I did my second time around. That was to clamp two 1" pieces of oak or similar hard wood and drill a 1/2" hole (or slightly smaller) in between the two boards. That way you'll have a trough on each side. Put a little rosin in the troughs and use your boards to encase your barrel and with your bench vise it becomes an effective barrel vise. Then get two pieces of 3/4" steel about 2 feet long for each piece. You'll also need two schedule 8, fine thread bolts of 1/4" variety or 5/16" and nuts to match. The bolts need to be long enough to go through both pieces of steel, two pieces of PVC or ABS plastic and the firearm frame at the barrel threads (so they're kind of long). Two pieces of 3/4 X 3/4" PVC or ABS plastic about one inch longer on either side of the gun frame vertically at the barrel threads. Drill a hole for one bolt about 1/2" in from the end of the material first through one piece of steel then two pieces of plastic then the remaining piece of steel. Roughly lay out the frame of the gun below the bolt you just installed and give some wiggle room and drill a second hole for the second bolt. Now instead of plastic in the middle and both pieces of steel aiming down, unbolt/rebolt the assembly to where one steel goes down and the other goes up. Your assembled receiver wrench should be about 4 feet long now.

 

Now comes the fun/tedious part. Where you first laid out your frame on the wrench assembly, do so again and make a magic marker mark where the top of the frame was to be. Make sure this mark is on both pieces of plastic. Then take a small rat tail file and whittle out the rough shape of the revolver's frame, half on one side and half on the other. It doesn't have to be really perfect, but rather just close as a liberal dose of rosin and the crushing of the plastic make up for a multitude of errors in execution.

 

In use; After you've rosined the boards, clamp the barrel in your vise as if you were making a horizontal shot. That way your frame wrench will be exactly vertical. I like to mount the gun upside down. This allows me to make a "witness" mark. Or a mark (could be a center punch with one well placed hit or two, or Brownells sells a punch just for this purpose) that indicates exactly how the barrel is aligned to the frame at that moment (quite valuable depending on what you are doing such as barrel shortening etc.). Then loosen your action wrench and rosin it up and tighten around the solid portion of the frame at the threaded section where the barrel attaches. In this way, no bent frames and with four foot of leverage you can fine tune the barrel to frame fit like you wouldn't believe. The Brownell's wrenches are one sided and only a foot long. I'm sure you can see the difference. Smithy.