Word to the Wise When Buying a "Used" Reproduction Spencer

[Two Flints]

Hello SSS,

If you are in the market for a "second hand", or "like new", reproduction Spencer, and you are buying it from an individual make sure that you leave yourself an "out" for returning the Spencer if it is not as advertised.  Check the Spencer very carefully for cracks, missing parts, or anything else that might lead you to believe that it might have been abused. Always buy insurance when having it shipped from the previous owner to yourself.  It might also be a very good idea to have your FFL check it out carefully once your Spencer arrives and before you leave his shop.  He might catch something that you might otherwise over-look because of the excitement of finally having your Spencer "in hand".

Best wishes to all,

Two Flints

[Loco Smith]

Good advise! Don't forget to ask the question up front. It could be hard to know when it happened, during shipment or was shipped that way or you don't see anything for a day or two. Then is a problem.. Loco

[geo]

i have found with my repro spencer that: 1. front and rear sight replacement needed (followed too closedly the original spencer specs.); 2. soft metal used in the lock and elsewhere; 3. poor fitting wood or fixtures that loosened up after some shooting. these repros will need some tuning and attention to make into good shooters. methinks that these are common complaints with all repro shooters of the civil war era. probably with all repros. if we wanted a brand new civil war shooter it will cost a little more. be patient and work through the issues. you won't regret it. but it may cost you a few more bucks. check the sss and the nssa for the names of competent gunsmiths and don't hesitate to return your piece to the manufacturer for corrections. i have done this with my .54 sharps, my .44 walker, my .44 remington, and don't even ask me about the .44 star...! good luck, geo.

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[Wes Tancred]

I find Geo’s comments most interesting, particularly since the wood to metal fit on my Armi Sport Spencer in .56-.50 is remarkably good, especially for this era; I would call the fit excellent. Even my FFL dealer commented on this when the gun arrived. All fixtures and screws were very tight, and have remained so. I have found that the internal parts are well polished, unlike the case of many replicas. I did not see anything that required stoning or polishing.  I can not comment usefully on the matter of steel hardness, since I have not shot my gun enough for such problems to surface, if they will at all. I did notice that the lock was essentially devoid of lubrication , save for a smear of grease behind part of the tumbler, so unusual wear of the lock action may be due to that factor. The lack of lubrication has been cited elsewhere on this forum, so it would appear that all owners of Armi Sport Spencers should dismount their locks and oil them, if they have not already done so. The entire action could do with a good lubrication, when the gun is new.

The Starr double action revolver, made by Pietta, is an interesting replica, and fundamentally well made and finished. But they do tend to have a very serious cycling problem , despite the fact that a notable gunsmith reportedly assisted Pietta in working out the problem. I found that the problem was due to a slight fault in the position of the pawl, with respect to the ratchet face of the rear of the cylinder. In the correct design, the pawl should be close to vertical and parallel to the ratchet face, when engaging the latter. In the Pietta version, the horizontal distance between the pawl pivot point and the rear of the cylinder is greater than it should be, allowing the pawl to lean forward under the pressure of its spring. This, in turn, causes the top of the pawl to catch on the cylinder ratchet teeth as it attempts to rise during the operating cycle. The geometry would be very difficult to alter, but I found that the problem can be corrected easily by grinding and polishing a bevel on the top forward edge of the pawl, so that it will not catch on the ratchet teeth. My Starr now cycles flawlessly on both action settings. I posted a more detailed description of the procedure on the SASS Wire a couple of years ago........

[geo]

i agree with wes' comments on the starr. thanks for sharing them with us.

i will add this to his comments on the spencer repros. i always have my hardware covered in lube of somekind. living in maryland with the humidity this is very important. but still have had some internal failure due to soft metal being used by the manufacturer (secifically the half cock failed). a gunsmith has corrected this issue with fabricated hard metal parts. this is a fyi type of thing. i have noticed the hammer is pounding the receiver and am watching this closely. my '65 has the same impact damage but that has to be from dry firing by some prior owner. i guess it can't be said enough...don't dry fire these repros be they percussion or cartridge. also i strongly recommend that as the repro is fired to routinely tighten screws; particularly the hammer.

don't get me wrong...the spencer is great to shoot (as is the starr) but it needs attention...as i have found these black powder guns are finicky. good luck, geo.

[geo]

a couple more comments:

the only repro that has worked straight from the box is my .44 rogers and spencer...albeit the trigger is balanced on a gopher hair at full cock. i keep my finger well away from the trigger until the moment i am ready to fire. there is no take up on the trigger at all. now if anyone has some advice on the ergonomics of the grip i would love to hear from you. on recoil the tendency is for my gripping hand to slide up the pistol towards the hammer. i have heard this from other r&s shooters. gripping it with a finger or two under the bottom of the grip (as with a walther pp or similar small frame semi-auto)  helps but weakens the total grip on the pistol. also makes it almost impossible to cock with the gripping hand. any thoughts?

one more caution about the spencer...cock the hammer (full or half) before cycling the next round or loading single rounds. spencers have been known to slam fire (even the originals) with the hammer down. just a suggestion. good luck, geo.

[Wes Tancred]

Geo, the loss of the half-cock notch on your Spencer sounds as if it occurred through breakage rather than the gradual wearing away of soft metal. Perhaps you would care to clarify what happened? Breakage would imply brittleness rather than softness of the steel. However, the Spencer has an actual fly on the tumbler, meant to stop the half-cock notch from catching on the sear as the hammer falls from the full-cock position upon firing. Failure of the fly (due, perhaps, to rust or a lack of lubrication) could cause a half-cock notch to fail, even on a tumbler made of good steel of proper hardness.

I think reports like yours are very useful to shooters and prospective purchasers of the firearms in question, but it is also worthwhile to follow up some of the points to further elucidate the problems and their possible causes.

I have not noticed any pounding of the receiver or breech-block by the hammer on my Spencer, and the hammer is properly aligned to avoid this. I could not agree more that dry-firing is to be strictly avoided in the case of the Spencer, and many other vintage type arms, no matter how well they are made, unless proper snap caps are used. And even if snap caps were available for the .56-.50, I think that dry firing of this design is needlessly abusive.

I can not comment on the Rogers and Spencer replicas, since I do not own one, and have not handled one. I don’t like the sound of that hair trigger!   I have had good luck with my replica guns. Except for the Starr revolver, they have all worked properly as received. Despite this, I “tune” and polish internal parts as indicated. Some guns need this, and some do not.

I will second your excellent advice to cock the hammer of the Spencer before operating the action to lever in a cartridge.

[Fox Creek Kid]

My Armisport 56-50 (purchased Jan. 2004) went thru 2 - 3 sears rapidly. They were lightly case colored and were as hard as a crayon.  Finally, after complaining to Armisport they sent me two blued ones that are properly hardened. The first were so soft that the the gun would accidentally discharge with the hammer cocked as the notch wallowed out after just a few shots. The Marcot book covers "soft" parts problems for the originals as well.

[Wes Tancred]

Fox Creek Kid, that was soft steel indeed!   I stand corrected. But it is not clear exactly which part you were referring to. The sear is the lever that is moved by the trigger. The part with the cocking notches, attached to the hammer, is the tumbler. Since you refer to notches “wallowing out”, I will presume you meant the tumbler. The tumbler in my gun is blued; and now the Spencers are equipped with blued breech-blocks, so it does seem that Armi Sport are doing a good job of making improvements as needed.

[geo]

the part of the hammer pawl (i think that's the right term) that catches on the half cock stop was worn - no breakage. a gunsmith replaced it with a harder metal piece. he warned me to watch how the hammer was impacting the receiver. he noticed some discoloration on the receiver and felt it was being pounded. keeping the hammer screw tight (and i usually check all the screws periodically on the action and the receiver now) seems to be helping. he also warned me to keep an eye on the action and let him know of any further loosening. he said the action may have other "pot metal" parts - he had other experiences with other repros with soft metals being used. so watch i do. thanks, geo.

[Wes Tancred]

There is no pawl in the Spencer lock; an example of a pawl would be the so-called “hand” in a revolver, which engages with the cylinder ratchet teeth and turns the cylinder. You must mean either the part that is attached to the hammer, and which has the half and full cock notches on it (the tumbler), or the part with a point that catches on these notches, holding the hammer at half or full cock, and which is pulled out of engagement with the tumbler by trigger pressure, to fire the gun (the sear). On the drawing kindly supplied by Two Flints:

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e29/SSSMod/Spencer56-502.jpg

........the tumbler is #67 and the sear is #64. The “fly”, on the half-cock notch of the tumbler, is #68.

I think that your suggestions, to regularly check screw tightness and watch for wear, are very good ones. But in all fairness, I must point out that the term “pot metal” refers to various alloys with low melting points, particularly those of which zinc is a primary constituent, which are not used on any but the cheapest guns (such as low-cost .25 calibre automatic pistols). I know of no firing replica of a vintage gun that contains pot metal. All of the metal on the Armi Sport Spencers is steel. The characteristics of that steel may be legitimately discussed and debated, but to call even excessively soft steel “pot metal” is misleading. The latest Spencers appear to be improved, in a number of respects. I have not noticed any metal hardness problems, but I have not used my gun to anything near the extent that you have fired yours.

[geo]

trying not to split hairs my gunsmith called the metals used in many of the repros "pot metal" hence the quotation marks. i'm no gunsmith so my nomencature may not be correct. the half cock machinery failed due to a soft metal being used in the action. methinks we are talking about short cuts used in the early spencer repros. i can only hope that enough complaints have been made that the manufacturers are using better metals. good luck, geo.