'66 falling to half cock notch, but not ever time ? Who'se seen this ?

[Throckmorton,23149]

At last match,my trusty '66 let me down

 

Failed to fire on a few rounds, so I grounded it and declared it broken.

 

got home and noticed that it was falling to the half cock,and yes, trigger pulled all the way back.

Opened it up and took it apart, no loose or broken parts, but very dirty inside.

 

Anyone ever have this happen on a '66 or'73 ?

 

I'll give it a good cleaning, and hope that somehow that is what it was .The weird part was it not doing it every time.

 

anyone ? anyone ?

[Ace Hanlon]

Yes on a 1873 uberti. With rifle unloaded lever as if to fire. With hammer at full cock take your thumb pill hammer back and let it go. If it goes to haft cock then your sear may be bad. That was my case

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

Worn sear, or hammer notch. Don't overlook the springs either.

OLG

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

Howdy

 

I bought a used '73 a bunch of years ago. I noticed that several times the hammer would fall to half cock when I puled the trigger. Turned out some bozo had done a half-assed trigger job. He filed the full cock notch so the sear did not have as far to travel to release the hammer from full cock. The trouble with this is that the sear does not travel far enough to pass the half cock notch as the hammer falls, so the hammer kept stopping at half cock. Very bad. eventually the impact snapped the half cock notch right off the hammer, and the gun became unsafe. I wound up replacing the hammer, don't remember if I replaced the sear too.

 

Try this:

 

Make sure the gun is unloaded. Place the hammer at full cock. Then give the butt a good thump on the floor. If the hammer falls, the gun is unsafle.

[BoomStick Jay]

Simple trigger job needed. Most likely the trigger sear is worn, but the hammer sear notch is a close second. Trigger spring on 66 could've come loose too.

[BoomStick Jay]

If both sears and the spring are fine, then my next look would be at the firing pin extension and how much vertical play it has with the lever open. I have a stack of 66s that have a hole that's too large or ovaled from wear. Either machine it for a hardened bronze bushing or ream it over size and use a one piece firing pin with matching oversized extension.

[BoomStick Jay]

But there was one time someone brought me a 66 and there was a ton of grease and unburnt powder behind the sear.

[Smokestack SASS#87384]

It is possible that being very dirty is what is causing this. It is also possible that it could be 1 of 20 other problems with the trigger or sear. If cleaning it does not solve the problem, get it to someone who knows what they are doing as it is pretty easy to make an unsafe gun if you dont know what you are doing.