FA 83 Bound Up

[sathington]

Hello,

I have a FA83 that Jack Huntington converted to 500jrh. The last time I shot it, I noticed the cylinder was having a hard time turning, both by cocking the hammer and turning it manually. When I emptied the last cylinder I shot, I saw that the casings had drag lines over the primer area. Frightening. So just today, I decided to give it a little clean/lubing. I loaded it again to see if doing nothing had remedied the problem. I got 4 shells in and the cylinder is bound up. I'm not sure where to go from here. I'm scared if I pull the cylinder to hard, a round will detonate, leaving me with less fingers than when I started. How should I proceed.

Sorry if my description is not great, I'm still learning.

[tek4260]

If the cylinder is recessed, which I bet it is, clean the area where the rim of the case sits in the cylinder and you r troubles should go away.

It sounds to me like carbon/fouling building up in the recesses of the cylinder and it is preventing the case from fully seating, which in turn makes the cylinder hard to turn, marks the case heads, ect

[zeus]

I might would pull cylinder pin and try to ease out cylinder from gun. Next time, try it with empty cases another thing is, how clean is the cylinder pin? They do get hard to turn if they are dirty. Tight tolerances. They ain't like a ruger.

[sathington]

Thanks fellas, I'll give that a shot. How terrified should I be of fiddling with this beast while live rounds are stuck in there? Perhaps I'm being too gentle because I'm fearful of dismemberment? Or maybe I'm not being fearful enough. So many feelings.

Does cylinder pin=base pin, or is this another part to be on the lookout for?

[tek4260]

Yes the cylinder pin is the same thing as the base pin.

[Ken O'Neill]

Are you shooting factory ammo or handloads? If handloads, you should check these things, once the cylinder has been removed from the gun and THOROUGHLY cleaned, and before the cylinder is re-inserted in the gun:
1. Have the cases been trimmed to the proper length?
2. Have the bullets been seated to the proper overall length, so that they will seat fully into the throat area of each chamber? If the rim of any case will not seat fully, the FA won't work.
3. Are the primers properly fully seated?
4. Is the back of the barrel face cleaned of lead and lubricant build up?

You should be able to remove the cylinder with just moderate force, after pulling the cylinder pin forward and going to half cock, and jiggling the cylinder a bit. However, I once had a problem removing a cylinder when a piece of jacket material had lodged in the forcing cone. Then comes the PITA. If it can't be removed, or the hammer can't be cocked at all, it will probably be necessary to begin removing each of the gripframe screws a bit at a time until they are loose enough to allow going to half cock and cylinder removal. Hopefully this will be before the gripframe has to be fully removed.

[sathington]

Thanks for the responses all. I appreciate it. I was able to remove the base pin, thus freeing the cylinder. Still diagnosing what went wrong, but it certainly seems to be the rim/recessed cylinder interaction. When loaded, none of the rounds are flush with the back of the cylinder. Is that normal? I don't recall how it was when it was a 454, but I never had this problem.

Ken, the ammo was buffalo bore that I got from Jack when he converted the gun. I'll investigate more.

[bradshaw]

sathington.... impossible to diagnose with vague information supplied. Does "drag lines over the primer area" mean a raised ridge around primer pocket? Or, does it mean drag marks on primer?

You are correct to infer the last thing you want on a heavy recoiling gun is a high primer.
David Bradshaw

[sathington]

That's the dragline over the primer. I'm hypothesizing that the marks were made after the round was fired and the primer expanded. I've checked all the other ammo I have, and the primers are seated fine. It is all Buffalo Bore.

I've noticed where it starts to drag is when the round rotates over the cylinder gate area. It is definitely pretty tight in there. I'm curious if perhaps there's not enough recess in the cylinder? The rim sites about .020" above the rear of the cylinder. I've never owned a gun with recessed cylinders before, so I don't know what the norms are.

[jwp475]

On occasions one will run into brass that has thick rims and this causes the head space to be excessively tight

[bradshaw]

Clean standing breach area, including face of loading gate, and stain with felt tip marker or die-chem. Load cartridge or primed casing and rotate cylinder, noting exactly any drag.

Sure looks like a high primer, as no "drag" registers on case head.

Sometimes occurs there is a high spot on loading gate. If so, careful honing cures. (Loading gate removed for this "therapy.")

It is my habit to spin check a loaded DA or SA revolver cylinder before holstering. Old school by the numbers caper.
David Bradshaw

[seancass]

So, do you still have a loaded gun? I haven't had my 83 apart yet, but I think with a colt or Ruger, one could pull the action and get a loaded cylinder out without going past the firing pin. If you loaded for and it then stuck, sounds like the problem is near the firing pin.

I agree with David in that it sounds like high primer, the rest of the case looks fine.

As such, you need to be level 11 careful here! I think it could be dangerous to continue to rotate the cylinder past the chamber. It could fire out of alignment.

[sathington]

Yes, the gun is unloaded. I don't think the high primer is the issue, because when the gun completely bound up was after I had cleaned it, and I had 4 unfired cartridges in it, all with suitably low primers. I did what Mr. Bradshaw recommended and cleaned the hell out of it, and put some dykem on the breach. I've found some high spots that I might hone down.

I'm also going to give Jack Huntington a call and see if we could recess the cylinder a touch more.

I appreciate all the input on this, I'm still learning about these matters.

[bradshaw]

Looking a second time at fuzzy photo of your Starline casehead, appears you have a bit of primer flow around the firing pin. Photo doesn't allow certainty, but several conditions other than high pressure promote primer flow:
* oversize firing pin hole.
* eroded firing pin.
* light mainspring.

Of these, I would suspect a light mainspring, particularly with the FA with its floating firing pin. (An old Colt or S&W with "hammer nose" firing pin over time may enlarge the hole in the breach face.)

If for any reason----including excess rim thickness----headspace is tight, rotating cylinder will show brass abrasion.
David Bradshaw