A couple of tips on older Charters

by FOG, Thursday, May 02, 2013, 10:21 (4168 days ago) @ Andrew
edited by FOG, Monday, May 06, 2013, 08:53

(SPG Edit)

I recently purchased a Stratford-era stainless .44 Bulldog, and it exhibited a couple of 'issues' that are apparently pretty common on these earlier guns.

1) Loose screw in the center of the standing breech

This part is analogous to the bolt on a Smith & Wesson; when you press forward on the thumb latch, the face of this screw bears on the center pin via what you might call 'linkage' and frees the cylinder so it can be swung out of the frame.

Clean, dry threads and ordinary blue loctite will solve this (Uncle Mike's Gun-Tite, or Loctite 242).

On my gun, I also oriented the slot in this screw so it points toward ~2:45 when 'viewed' from the front. In this position, the screw slot is 'co-linear' with the arc circumscribed by the center pin as the cylinder is opened and closed. In any other position, the center pin bears against the slot in such a way as to loosen the screw.

Whether '2:45' is possible on all Charters is unclear; the face of the screw must also be flush with the breech (or pretty close to it). I can only say it worked on mine; the cylinder has probably been opened/closed literally hundreds of times, and the screw hasn't moved since oriented and loctited.

I also let the loctite cure for a couple of days before I got oil anywhere near it. Not sure if that helped, but it probably didn't hurt.

2) Assembly pin in front of trigger 'walks'

On my gun and apparently many others, only two of the three assembly 'pins' (one is actually a screw) bear any load. Retention of the remaining pin depends almost entirely on the clearances, which on my gun are none too tight.

Yet another job for blue loctite. (Yep, it works on pins, too.)

HTH

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