My new Cimarron 1851 Richards-Mason conversions

[Ghostdevilguy]

After getting a cimarron 1873 trapper in 357, I started hunting for which revolvers I wanted to use. I've always been a huge fan of the 7.5" barrels, and I love the way the open tops and conversions look. I settled on these, a beautiful set of 1851 conversions in 38 special. They aren't consecutive serial numbers, however, they are 115 numbers apart from each other!

In the weeks of doing my research on these and a previous experience with an 1872 open top that had an extremely short arbor, that was the cause of my hesitation. and deciding if wanted to spend the time and money fixing that as well as tuning them, and eventually having them engraved and nickel plated. After seeing a few people saying that Uberti has gotten better about arbor length, I decided to take a chance. I'm happy to say, both are a lot better than any previous uberti I've handled. Both were made in 2023. The arbor slightly short, but only by the width of a hair or two. It's the same for both.

This morning I tore them apart and did some initial polishing and it smoothed things out nicely! The next step will be a spring kit for both.

Both handle well, and point naturally, the action was smooth out of the box, with very slight grit in places. Lockup on both is tight, it's on par with my no dash 586, actually I'd say it's better, but that's probably due to age. Timing on both is spot on.

Overall, I'm happy with my purchase, and these will be the perfect start for my competition guns.




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[Tuolumne Lawman]

Sweet!

[Rube Burrows]

Would love to see a photo of the inside of the recoil shield with the cylinder removed.

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[Ghostdevilguy]

Here you go! What are you looking for on the recoil shield?

[Abilene]

I'm curious, too.  If you need pics from another, let me know.

[Ghostdevilguy]

After my first range trip I have several things to report. Both revolvers are accurate, they shoot high with factory 130gr Remington 38 special(I figured they would), and are almost dead on with my 158gr handloads, I had no issues hitting targets from 15 to 50-60 yards. One of them, we'll call them Seven and Eight, Seven had issues jamming, it would lock up. To the point the cylinder and hammer would not move and the only fix was to take the barrel off and pull the hammer back while pulling the cylinder off. Both guns had issues with the wedges walking out during shooting, and the wedges were inserted as far into the slots as far as possible. I called it a day.

After getting home I took both apart and compared the parts. The issue with Seven was tracked to the hand, it was jamming against the arbor, and I noticed the hand on Eight had a bevel on the side that Seven didn't have. I filed the bevel onto the hand, and this seemed to fix the issue, I have another hand on the way in case it continues to be a problem. As to the wedges, I measure the Arbors and the depth of the arbor hole in the barrel and they are both short by about 1/16". So after going through my supplies I came up with a plan to fix them. I wrapped the front of the arbor with electrical tape leaving a large open space that was smaller than the dia of the arbor and filled this opening with JB weld. So I used the electrical tape as a mold. I made the extension a lot longer than it needed to be so I could file it to a perfect fit. After letting the JB sit and harden for 14 hours I took the tape off and checked the fit. And then started filing it down. Before long it was exactly right. Now the wedge fit on both... Seven the wedge is still too loose and bottoms out, on Eight it gets tight right before bottoming out. I have replacement wedges on the way, they are factory Uberti for the 1851 black powder, and I have seen in other posts where people have fit them, I'll update when they get here.







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[Abilene]

I'm not sure what you mean by the wedge bottoming out.  It should never go in all the way, or even most of the way, on a new gun.  I've never heard of that on a new Uberti.

[Ghostdevilguy]

The wedges go all the way in on both. On Seven I can push it all the way in with light pressure and it comes out with the same. On Eight, it goes all the way in with a light tap from a plastic hammer, it has maybe 1/32" of space before that. My initial response to that was "That's not good" 🤣

[Coffinmaker]

  ghostdevilguy 

Both Richards/Mason and Open Top by Uberti, have a "divot" in the wedge that corresponds to a retainer screw on the side of the Barrel Boss.  the screw has a "flat" to allow inserting and removal of the wedge and retaining the wedge in the proper position in the barrel when fit correctly.  Percussion gun wedges don't have this feature and may not work well.

I'm also with Abilene.  I have never encountered a Uberti Open Top, R/M Conversion nor Percussion that would allow the OEM wedge to "bottom out."

[Rube Burrows]

Here you go! What are you looking for on the recoil shield?

some of mine from a few years back had a little line where it transitions to the top that would catch the rim of some brass types causing it to hang up. I would fix it by smoothing out the line so that the shells would slide over it smoothly. Was just curious if they corrected this or not. Don't look like they have.

[Rube Burrows]

I have put an arrow on your photo where I was having my jams. The cartridge rim would catch this sharp line here. I smoothed out the lines on mine and it works better now. I thought Cimarron would have fixed these by now but guess they want us to have something to do.

[Ghostdevilguy]

So correct me if I'm wrong. But the percussion wedges have a sping on them that holds them in place, and they have a trough down the middle. That spring is what locks the wedge in place. So in theory I should be able to fit it so that the spring is holding it, and then use the screw as retainer. I found a fourm post where someone did something similar, so it should work. We'll find out tomorrow when the parts get here 🤷‍♂️. I'll take some pictures of how the wedges fit in a few hours. Worst case scenario I have a plan to fix it using shims. But I figured I'd try this first.

As for the line that the cartridges catch on. It hasn't been a problem on mine. The line is there, and it looks worse in the pictures. It's very slight, the only time I've noticed it is if I don't have primers seated flush. Which was an issue with one case (primed brass, not a complete cartridge) I tested, simple enough to fix, just check the primers as I seat them. Even then it didn't catch it just caused a little drag in the spot

[Major 2]

The wedge should be fitted the spring is the catch on Percussion guns.
The wedge goes in snug just as the spring catch lifts to keep it in place.
On OT's there is a screw in the side of barrel with a flat in its head that is turned to retain the wedge.
The wedge should be correctly snug, when the screw is turned to retain the wedge (no spring catch).

Assuming these were new guns? and the retaining screw was turned to hold the wedge, they should not have backed out.

 

[Ghostdevilguy]

Here's the wedge fitment

[45 Dragoon]

So correct me if I'm wrong. But the percussion wedges have a sping on them that holds them in place, and they have a trough down the middle. That spring is what locks the wedge in place. So in theory I should be able to fit it so that the spring is holding it, and then use the screw as retainer. I found a fourm post where someone did something similar, so it should work. We'll find out tomorrow when the parts get here 🤷‍♂️. I'll take some pictures of how the wedges fit in a few hours. Worst case scenario I have a plan to fix it using shims. But I figured I'd try this first.

As for the line that the cartridges catch on. It hasn't been a problem on mine. The line is there, and it looks worse in the pictures. It's very slight, the only time I've noticed it is if I don't have primers seated flush. Which was an issue with one case (primed brass, not a complete cartridge) I tested, simple enough to fix, just check the primers as I seat them. Even then it didn't catch it just caused a little drag in the spot

  Nope. The spring is solely for retaining the wedge during disassembly. TENSION from being driven in is what maintains the wedge position  .  .  .  and "position " isn't a  defined "spot". The reason it is a wedge and not a straight pin is to create tension.  The Cimarron video about installing a wedge  is pure BS .  .  .  you don't tap it in, tighten the retaining screw  and tap it back out to contact the screw head!!  That's freaking hilarious 😂!! 
  What you need to do is get rid of the J B "extension", make a suitable "STEEL" spacer and JB that in the bottom of the arbor hole. Then you can drive the wedge in and not worry about it working loose and .  .  . It'll be the same revolver every time you reassemble it.

Mike