revolver hand "stretching"?

[bushka]

Has any here lengthened a revolver hand by peening ,or otherwise,
to correct indexing in old guns?
what was your method??
thanks!,
B

[Bent Ramrod]

Bushka,

I did one for a Colt Pocket Positive. If I cocked it quickly, it indexed fine, if I cocked it slowly, it came up just short. One day I cocked it slowly and fractured the forcing cone with the next shot. When I rebarreled it, I decided to fix the cause of the problem as well.

I took the hand out, measured the length with a dial caliper, did some judicious tapping with a smooth-faced hammer (not the ball peen on the other end) in the middle between the pin and the shaped end, and kept trying it in the gun until it carried the cylinder up to the point where the bolt would lock in the slot. I tapped on the side with the pin up, with the hand on the anvil part of my bench vise.

I did five or ten very light taps between measurements, and a check in the gun after 15 or 20 light taps despite what the measurement said (or didn't say). I didn't see any peen marks on the part, so I wasn't hitting it very hard at all. I also had a spare hand, just in case. It took maybe 5 or 6 reassemblies before I got it right.

[chevyiron420]

i did the same thing to one once, but due to the way the gun was designed it didnt work. on this one the hand went along side the cog on the cylender, and extended passed it. i ended up haveing to peen the cog, so that the hand, being next to it would rotate the cyl farther. it worked but i had to do each segment, one at a time, til they locked up good in time.-phil

[Char-Gar]

The method discribed by Bent Ramrod is correct for the old Colts with "lower hand short" problems. When a new hand is fitted or an old one stretch a tad, they should be fitted as long as they can be and still be able to cycle the action.

In the factory when a hand was fitted, they gave the muzzle a hard rap with a rawhide mallet to set the hand. A couple of cylinder full of ammo will do the same thing.

Remember we are talking Colt DA handguns with the old lockwork. Other sixgun will require different methods.

[AZ Pete]

Tried to on an OM .357 Blackhawk, the hand did not stretch for me. I ended fitting a new one. BTW, I used a NM hand and cut it to fit the OM, which is a smaller frame.

[JMax]

Colts are the only major DA revolver MFG that indexes on hand length. The others (S&W & Ruger) use width. Also Colt hands use two points on the hand for timing, the top for pick up and the lower notch for carry up and locking the cylinder. A pain to retime.