Shot my RM conversions last night

[BobinIL]

I just acquired a pair of  nice slightly used Taylors Uberti 1860 Richard Mason conversions in 44 special 4 3/4" barrels.  I took them out and shot about 80 rounds through them last night and noticed a couple of issues.  First I had one pistol fail to fully index twice.  The other issue was me having trouble getting the sights lined up with that little v notch in the hammer.  I was shooting dualist and think the brass or primer may be rubbing and causing the cylinder to not fully index.  what can I do to slick these guns up so they will be fairly competitive?   

[Abilene]

Look for scrape marks on primers and/or brass.  If it is primers, then you likely have too light of a load which allows the primers to back out when fired (or else high primers on the unfired rounds, which would be rubbing before fired).  If it is the brass, it could be the loading gate screw has backed out and the edge of the loading gate is hitting the brass.

As for the sights, some folks open up the V-notch in the hammer with a triangular file.  Some folks (me included) don't really use the rear sight, just sit the front sight on top of the hammer nose.  For CAS this works fine.

[BobinIL]

Who would be a good gunsmith that is experienced with tuning up the open tops??

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[Galloway]

Well your not very tenacious! lol  Before you send them off, make sure all your screws are tight and try adjusting the wedge depth in half turn increments. You might just find their sweet spot. Good luck

[45 Dragoon]

You might try Hoof Hearted (right here on the site).
I'd love to set it up for you but I deal in C&B only and don't have an FFL (unless you wanna bring um to me!!)
 If Hoof can't, maybe you could sweet talk Coffinmaker out of retirement for a day! Lol
 For what it's worth, a strategically placed wedge is no fix.  Just saying .  .  .  .  .  

Galloway, adjust the wedge in half turn increments? Half turn of what? The wedge "retaining" screw? It's not an adjusting screw. The job of the wedge is to hold two assemblies together, not "sorta close" together. The wedge should be under tension (tapped in), not just laying there taking up space. I'm not trying to be a smart a$$ or a "know it all"  but there is/are mountains of info on the design of the open top revolver and how they should be setup. This includes cartridge open tops too. An open top by any other name is still .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . a joy to .  .   I mean an open top!!
Larson Pettifogger is a member here and penned(?) posted a most (the most) comprehensive article on the Open Top and how to set one up. I'm sure one of the more geeky .  .  .  .  .  .  .  I mean knowledgeable , folks here can post a link to the Open Range article.

It'd probably help the OP as well!

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @ goonsgunworks

[Coffinmaker]

BOBIN,
"fairly" competitive??  How about ... VERY competitive??  It would appear someone has already done some work on them.  Hammers
aren't ..... original.  Your first stop is to determine if the fit of the Barrel(s) to the Arbors(s) have been fix'd.  Uberti barrel to arbor fit is
always less than optimum.  Attempting to do anything else to them until the Barrel/Arbor fit is correct is a waste of time and money. 
You cannot address the headspace and end shake until that step is complete.  That also means you cannot really address timing until
you know the cylinder notches are going to be in the right places.  You will also need to insure the bolt(s) correctly fit the cylinder notches.
NONE of the important aspects of setting up an open top design gun can be resolved by piddling around trying to find a "sweet spot"
for the wedge.  Every time you take em apart to clean and reassemble, you will have a different gun.  Different "sweet spot" ..... every
time. 
Step one.  Mosey on over to "The Open Range" and read Larsen E. Pettifogger's tutorial on setting up an Open Top.  In fact, read it
several times.  Then, do each and everything to set them up.  START with resolving the Barrel/Arbor fit.  Until you do that, any other
work is simply wasted time, effort and possibly money.

You mentioned the guns are 44 Specials.  What cases are you using??  44 Spl, 44 Colt or 44 Russian.  Bullet weight??  Load??  Might be
able to help you there too.

The rear sight "can" be opened up a bit with a really fine, narrow file.  Care must be taken not to score the barrel.  Good luck with em.

Coffinmaker

[Good Troy]

Here's a link to Pettifogger's tutorial...
I have it saved on my favorites list, and I've printed all the PDF files for my library!

http://www.theopenrange.net/forum/index.php?topic=7988.0

[Galloway]

All 3 of mine will bind up if the wedge is in too deep, but never mind send them off.

[Coffinmaker]

Galloway,
Hint.  Big hint.  The guns bind up because ......... The Barrel to Arbor fit ...... isn't.  Be amazed at the difference when the barrel to arbor fit has been corrected.  With correct barrel to arbor fit ..... the guns CAN NOT bind up with the barrel against the cylinder face.  There is more than sufficient information and references on the thread to enable you to properly fix your guns. 

There is another thread with enough information to set your guns up for about 39 cents.  For all three.

Coffinmaker 

[Galloway]

No thanks, they've ran fine for 10 years simply noting how deep to set the wedge. Works for me 

[Slamfire]

 Indexing a OT 72 is easy,,,,,indexing a man;s brain!!!!! not so easy,!!!!!!!!!.








  Hootmix.

[Galloway]

I know I'm terrible for suggesting the op simply TRY something without the committees approval. It was clearly time for unanimous bad news. I'll watch what I say from now on promise.

[45 Dragoon]

Galloway,
Nobody said anything about terrible,  and I'm not on any committee of any kind. We were just trying to  get you "up to speed" ,so to speak, on the short comings of modern open top revolvers ( namely the arbors!). I would think you would want them to be "correct " and pointed out where that info could be found.
 You then proceeded to tell us that all 3 of yours have been fine for 10 yrs  but that they all have the SAS  (short arbor syndrome).

I see no problem.  The article is free, the explanations are given freely and the folks here seem to all be in agreement about the problem and that there is a fix for it. You'd be amazed at the difference of having the same gun every time you picked it up. Course, that's up to you.

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @ goonsgunworks

[Slamfire]

 No disrespect, was men't to'a Galloway, or to your way of do'n it your way . Very nicely put 45,very nicely put.


 Let's have "coffee".





 Hootmix.

[BobinIL]

I am getting the arbor issue fixed as I type.  My smith said the internals were "rough" so he is smoothing them up aslo.  I have ordered new hand springs and bolt springs for both guns I was shooting them sunday dualist style and one was misfiring.  Upon inspection I noticed that is was in fact over-indexing so I ordered the springs to see if this helps.  I would like to put the coil hand spring in them but that looks like a big project so hopefully swapping out springs every year or so will keep them running.

By the way thanks for all the help on here it is nice to have so many knowledgeable folks to help me figure these out.

[Coffinmaker]

Ah well Ah ..... Never mind.

Coffinmaker