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UBERTI SAA hand spring fix


Rancho Roy

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On Saturday, on the last stage of a Cowboy Action Shoot, on the last round fired from my Uberti SAA revolver, the handspring broke!

I fixed it with a modification I've done to all my Pietta Cap and Ball revolvers.

Here is a write up with lots of pictures on what I did to fix it.....Now it is just like a RUGER!


http://rvbprecision.com/firearms/uberti-single-action-army-hand-spring-fix.html

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1 hour ago, Rancho Roy said:

On Saturday, on the last stage of a Cowboy Action Shoot, on the last round fired from my Uberti SAA revolver, the handspring broke!

I fixed it with a modification I've done to all my Pietta Cap and Ball revolvers.

Here is a write up with lots of pictures on what I did to fix it.....Now it is just like a RUGER!


http://rvbprecision.com/firearms/uberti-single-action-army-hand-spring-fix.html

How old is your Uberti? I haven't seen one in about a decade that didn't already come with the coil spring installed.

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50 minutes ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

Why?

 

Because the stupid little thing fall out and get lost.  They are too small for my old clumsy fingers.  Ruger is better than Uberti in their design. Pietta is between.  

 

I have been shooting Uberti and Colts and Pietta 51s with the flat spring attached to the hand and have yet to break one or have one go dead over 50 years of shooting. 

 

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Warden Callaway said:

 

Because the stupid little thing fall out and get lost.  They are too small for my old clumsy fingers.  Ruger is better than Uberti in their design. Pietta is between.  

 

I have been shooting Uberti and Colts and Pietta 51s with the flat spring attached to the hand and have yet to break one or have one go dead over 50 years of shooting. 

 

 

 

 

Makes sense.  Of my Wife's two Uberti's, One of them has the spring plunger in its own hole and it is held in place by the back strap. On the other it is in the same hole as one of the back strap screws.

 

Both have their own set of issues when I have to put her guns back together.

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4 hours ago, Rancho Roy said:

 

I guess my Uberties are a few generations old.......I was informed by other that all newer Uberties have this spring installed from the factory.

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Wow ... those "are" old. I have a pair of Uberti's I bought in 2005 and they have the plunger/coil spring ... They also have a tiny little screw behind the spring to keep the springs from flying out when you remove the grip frame. 

 

I also have a few Piettas (all came w/ the spring/plunger arrangement) ... but they don't have a retention screw ... when you remove the grip frame .. the spring and plunger will simply fall out. 

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Great presentation, Rancho Roy.

 

I’ve seen a few Cimarron/Ubertis with plunger and springs already installed.  Some through the grip screw hole, other like OP did, only with a set screw keeping them in place.

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The coil hand spring was originally a Cimarron exclusive, starting sometime around 2000.  When you see in Cimarron ads "Cowboy Comp Action", it is referring to that feature.  Later, Uberti added it to all the Cattleman line.   

 

Some folks just leave out the setscrew on their Uberti, one less thing to lose and if you are careful when you disassemble, like you have to be with a Pietta, then you are okay.  Leaving out the screw will lighten the spring tension, so make sure it still has enough.

 

I have one older Model P with the coil spring and plunger inside the left gripframe screw.  Professional gunsmiths say this is a poor way to do it because the plunger is off-center from the hand, but mine works fine.  

 

Interestingly, I was at Cimarron a number of years ago and for some reason we had a new Opentop apart, action job or changing grips or whatever.  It had the hole drilled through the frame above the backstrap screw, although it just had the regular leaf hand spring.  We surmised that Uberti was experimenting with and/or planning to go to a coil spring on the OT's, but...they never did.

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A lot of the "problems" with the flat hand spring can be traced to roughness in the hand channel in the frame. Not only Uberti, but Colt and Pietta as well. Brownells has a Single Action stoning kit that includes one stone specifically for that purpose. Clean up that area and smooth things out and you greatly diminish chances of breaking the spring. Most of my Ubertis are at least 20 years old and in that time I have broken one hand spring. I did have one Uberti that had the factory coil spring. Since I break down the guns maybe once a year(black powder shooter), I got tired of chasing that little set screw I kept dropping. I know some don't even use the screw, but I liked the idea of using the screw's seating depth to adjust tension a bit on the coil spring. Anyway, I replaced it (hand and spring) with the flat spring set up. That was about 17 years ago. 

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In mid-1986 I bought a ASM copy of the Colt 1851, built with left over parts from the Uberti run of 2nd Gen Colt parts... (yes, parts interchange with my 2nd Gen Colts), after a few months, (like a week before EOT), the hand spring broke.  Took it to Lee's Gunsmithing and he installed a Ruger coil spring and plunger in time for EOT.

 

I've since had all my Colt SAAs, 2nd gen 1951s and Jager SA converted.  "you" may not have broken a hand spring, but right behind the hammer leg on the bolt, it's the most common failure to a SA.  I prefer to keep my SAs running all the way thru a match.

 

My son's ASM manufactured EMF "Hartford Mdl", date coded "AZ" (1990), has the coil spring over the left backstrap screw.  Earliest example I know of.

20191213_203705.jpg

Does anyone know if it came from the factory like this?  My son won it as "Top Gun" @ OWSA's 1993 National Shootout in Raton  It had been worked over by an excellent SA gunsmith of the day.

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Griff,

One of my first SAA purchases  when I started shooting was one of the original EMF Hartfords, serial number 7XX, right around 1990. It does not have the coil spring , just the regular flat hand spring.

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Youtube has a video on replacing the broken flat spring with a music wire spring wrapped around the hand.  I've done it. It works great.  Not my idea but a great fix.

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