hat man,
No not a systemic problem with 3rd gen Colts. What specifically did you feel was not right with the timing?
Have you ruled out the ammo as the problem? Tried other brands, cast lead bullets, etc.?
First thing to diagnose is cylinder timing by cocking the hammer very slow. Once it clicks into the full cock notch, check if the cyl has locked in place. If not, it has 'late' "follow up". The cyl hand (or cyl pawl) is just very slightly too short. Stretch the hand by removing it, laying flat on it's side on a solid flat surface and tap the side of it below the second step. It doesn't take much!Try it and repeat if needed until the cyl bolt locks into the cyl notch at the same time the hammer clicks into full cock. Stretching the hand can fix the problem very simply and you have nothing to lose, the only other solution is a new hand and that's a lot more work to fit from scratch.
Second would be to check cylinder chamber to barrel bore alignment. With hammer fully cocked, cyl locked into position and flashlight shining into the firing pin hole from the hammer side, look down the bore for one side of the chamber sticking out from the barrel bore. You can also check with a cleaning rod. Slide it down in contact with one side of the bore and then the other. Does it catch on the edge of the chamber mouth? If so send back to Colt or a smith mentioned above. That's a big problem.
Thanks Hondo,
A couple of clarifications:
- Yes, this gun was advertised as NIB/never fired.
- When I first received it, it seems that the timing was off, or something. When cocking very slowly it would often lock up after the first click. After the first shooting use and removing and reinserting the cylinder a few times, I'm not having this issue now.
- When I did fire it the first time I couldn't even hit the paper on an 8" target at 25 feet with those first two rounds. That was certainly my first clue that something wasn't right.
I tried out your suggestion with the cleaning rod and it does seem to catch ever so slightly. For comparison I tried this with my Uberti 7th Cav and Uberti Outlaw. I detected no catch with the Outlaw, but about the same catch with the 7th Cav (both also 7 1/2").
One difference I'm seeing is that with the Uberti's fully cocked there is absolutely no movement of the cylinder. With the Colt there is a small amount of play, both side-to-side and back and forth. It's a very small amount, but it's there.
I'm tempted to try it with different cartridges since I'm no longer experiencing the cocking/timing issue I first encountered. Maybe I did something wrong the first time I pulled the cylinder??