1851 Richards - Mason problem Updated

[Chantry]

One of my 1851 Richards - Mason won't go into half cock.  Other than that the gun works as normal.  Any ideas to the cause and how to fix it?

[Turkey Flats Jack]

In my experience its most likely the sear notch on the hammer is worn or broken off. Couple options if that's the case. Not worry about it, cut a new notch, or replace the hammer. 

[Oak Ridge Regulator]

I had that problem and a couple of more on my Uberti Mason conversion, when I took it apart and checked the machined slot that the hand rides in I could see it was rough as HELL to say the least, ( the hand wouldent move fully in the slot )horrible machining grooves in the metal, I took a small square file and a very small stone and carefully smoothed out the track the hand rides in and even polished up the sides of the hand and after that it worked slick, my best guess was it was actually locking up the cylinder and keeping the gun from cocking completely, hope this helps

["Big Boston"]

57 minutes ago, Oak Ridge Regulator said:

I had that problem and a couple of more on my Uberti Mason conversion, when I took it apart and checked the machined slot that the hand rides in I could see it was rough as HELL to say the least, ( the hand wouldent move fully in the slot )horrible machining grooves in the metal, I took a small square file and a very small stone and carefully smoothed out the track the hand rides in and even polished up the sides of the hand and after that it worked slick, my best guess was it was actually locking up the cylinder and keeping the gun from cocking completely, hope this helps

 

Exactly the same issue with an open top of mone. Not an easy issue to get to the bottom of. Basically, in mine, the trigger was being prevented from seating in the half cock notch. Was not conducive to timing, hard to feed a cartridge into the cylinder. 

 

Just my opinion, based on the two Uberti open tops I have, they are very poorly assembled. In addition they are prone to being fixed by the unknowing to the point they will not work at all. Education is not cheap, before I got mine working reliably, they were parked in the safe, both inoperable. Less parts in them than in a Winchester 97, but not much easier to work on. Slick shooting rig once you have them working, but a wretched contraption out of the box. 

 

My frame had a burr that took several minutes with a file to remove. It should never have passed inspection. 

 

BB

[Oak Ridge Regulator]

Larsen Pettifogger has a great set of instructions for fixing theses guns and most of the colt cap gun clones as well, great write up with pictures and my bet is he would be more than happy to share them with anyone here, there were a couple of items he tweaked that I never would have though of, I give his instructions a solid 5 stars

[Chantry]

I took the problem gun apart and didn't see any issue with the sear.  I also took the other Richard Mason apart and compared the hammers and saw no difference between the sears.

 

I noticed that if I pull the hammer back slightly, spin the cylinder, the gun then will go into half cock.

 

I've had these guns for more than a decade and I've never had this problem with either of them.

[Turkey Flats Jack]

Hmmmm interesting. Double check the ratchet/gears on the cylinder for a burr, check the channel where the hand spring rides for burrs/machine marks that maybe obstructing the hands travel. Also check the hand for abnormalities compared to the other hand. Wish you were local to me I enjoy figuring these things out but I'm not great at blind diagnosis. Good luck and keep us updated.

["Big Boston"]

On 6/1/2022 at 7:00 PM, "Big Boston" said:

 

Exactly the same issue with an open top of mone. Not an easy issue to get to the bottom of. Basically, in mine, the trigger was being prevented from seating in the half cock notch. Was not conducive to timing, hard to feed a cartridge into the cylinder. 

 

Just my opinion, based on the two Uberti open tops I have, they are very poorly assembled. In addition they are prone to being fixed by the unknowing to the point they will not work at all. Education is not cheap, before I got mine working reliably, they were parked in the safe, both inoperable. Less parts in them than in a Winchester 97, but not much easier to work on. Slick shooting rig once you have them working, but a wretched contraption out of the box. 

 

My frame had a burr that took several minutes with a file to remove. It should never have passed inspection. 

 

BB

 

Just an update. After replacing the firing pin, pawl and trigger it was time to do a bit of studying reference material and SAA timing diagrams I attempted to get the timing in the zone. It didn't take very much metal removal to bring the bolt timing in line. I'm still of the opinion that these are rather poorly assembled and that during the cloning process some important issues were missed, or incorrectly incorporated. 

 

Definitely not a revolver I'd recommend to a beginner. The configuration and the caliber make for a nice shooting piece but these are a bag of snakes when things go south. Kudos to Taylors for shipping parts and for their support. I've included a video to show the three clicks working as they should, or at least how I think they should work. The front blade is also a replacement. The old one had been shortened, was only half as high as it was new and it was also loose in the slot. I drifted it out, removed the old silver solder and used red stud and bearing locker to secure it. It was a press fit in the slot anyways, The red juice is just a bit of insurance. 

 

 

BB