'73 lever sticking closed

[Currahee]

☹️Lever, jams, won't open.  Sometimes at start, sometimes during course of fire.  Not always, but often enough to make rifle unreliable.

Any thoughts?

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

Take one side plate off, keep that side upward, cycle gun and watch closely until you see what is the "catch in the git-along".   Then fix it. 

 

You have not got a real common problem.  Watch that your link set does not bind by having the "knee joint" go past perfectly straight.   

 

Watch the tip of the bolt to see if it is colliding with the lifter block as you open the lever. If so, retime the travel of the lifter. 

 

Tell us what you may have changed about the time you started noticing the lever binding.  Tell us what non-factory parts and work has been done,   Take a real good picture of what the innards look like with the action closed, when it binds just before it opens.   Probably we need more clues, and you are the one who has to find them.  good luck, GJ

Edited January 26 by Garrison Joe, SASS #60708

[Tex Jones, SASS 2263]

I would start by taking it apart and checking the carrier and lifter.  Then the toggles.

[Abilene, SASS # 27489]

When it jams, check to see if the carrier is all the way down.  If not, it is dirty and/or the carrier spring is weak or screw loose or not riding on the lifter cam well.

[JackSlade]

If the bolt is contacting the carrier, preventing lever travel, it's possible the carrier never fully sat after the last actioning of the lever. Next time it jame, look and see if your carrier is completely down. If not, look into a positive slam down modification.

Edited January 26 by JackSlade
Actioning, not auctioning... Hopefully you're not selling parts off your rifle mid match 😂

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

What caliber? Is your ammo at or perhaps exceeding max OAL?

 

Do you mean the lever is stuck all the way closed, or can you jiggle it to feed the next round?

 

 

Edited January 26 by Abilene Slim SASS 81783

[Kid Rich]

I've seen a couple that the brass would stick in the chamber sometimes.

kR

[Go West]

Check to see if your bullets are crooked in the carrier before you attempt to lever it. I once loaded some .45 Colt too long and the first round often "jammed". I had to manipulate the carrier (by hand) and lever simultaneously to get the 1st round going. I decided I had too many loaded to pull the bullets and used them up (painfully) at local matches. I backed off the OAL a bit afterwards and haven't had that issue since.

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

11 hours ago, Currahee said:

☹️Lever, jams, won't open.  Sometimes at start, sometimes during course of fire.  Not always, but often enough to make rifle unreliable.

Any thoughts?

When was the last time you did a deep action clean?

Check ALL screws for tightness. 

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

1 hour ago, Go West said:

Check to see if your bullets are crooked in the carrier before you attempt to lever it.

 

 

 

If the rim of the cartridge inside the lifter is cocked to the right (toward loading gate), then you can be running into the Loading Mortise jam.  Take a look at the problem and how to fix it by checking this Pioneer Gunworks page:

Pioneer GunWorks Technical Information

 

and click the article title: Frame Modification for 1866/73 (Round Alignment Fix)

 

A way to tell if you really have a loading mortise jam is to push the base of the cartridge farther into the loading gate with a stick or your pinky finger.  If the lever then operates simply by having pushed the cartridge in the carrier forward, it's a sure sign the frame is not beveled correctly!   Happens on a lot of the Uberti toggle link guns.

 

good luck, GJ

[Creeker, SASS #43022]

17 hours ago, Abilene Slim SASS 81783 said:

What caliber? Is your ammo at or perhaps exceeding max OAL?

If it is an intermittent issue, (and assuming nothing new was done to the firearm)  this would be my first examination. 

 

Too long (or too short) of a round in a 73 (or 66, Henry) causes interference issues (hiccups, jams, etc) in the lever cycle due to either the round on the elevator dragging or (if too short) trying to push rounds back into the magazine tube.

 

Does the "jam" occur on the rifle when unloaded?  If no, this is also an indication of the above.

 

If the jam occurs with an empty rifle; my next exam would be the lever.  A round fired out of battery - even slightly can bend the lever and alter the geometry.  Also leading to the types of issues you reference.

[Sedalia Dave]

20 hours ago, Garrison Joe, SASS #60708 said:

Take one side plate off, keep that side upward, cycle gun and watch closely until you see what is the "catch in the git-along".   Then fix it. 

 

You have not got a real common problem.  Watch that your link set does not bind by having the "knee joint" go past perfectly straight.   

 

Watch the tip of the bolt to see if it is colliding with the lifter block as you open the lever. If so, retime the travel of the lifter. 

 

Tell us what you may have changed about the time you started noticing the lever binding.  Tell us what non-factory parts and work has been done,   Take a real good picture of what the innards look like with the action closed, when it binds just before it opens.   Probably we need more clues, and you are the one who has to find them.  good luck, GJ

 

THIS ^^^^

[Cheyenne Culpepper 32827]

Mine did that too, although never starting out with empty chamber.  A Lee factory crimp die cured mine

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

We can guess at a diagnosis & solution until the cows come home, but we need more info from the OP. Until then, there’s not much point in it. 
 

Edited January 27 by Abilene Slim SASS 81783

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

Good excuse to get rid of that worn out clunker and buy a new gun.

[Garrison Joe, SASS #60708]

5 hours ago, Abilene Slim SASS 81783 said:

We can guess at a diagnosis

 

See several suggestions above for easy to do things to get the point of making an accurate diagnosis.  Not a guess, which is often wrong.  If those don't get the OP to the point of finding the problem, he needs to let us know what he DOES find out from that work, and perhaps we can suggest more diagnostics.  Until he provides real indicators to the part(s) involved with the problem, he should not be even thinking about what to do to fix the problem.   good luck, GJ