High Standard Revolver

[HJB]

One or more case heads is dragging against that part of the frame called the firewall. There a slight chance that a different brand of ammo will not bind. Looking at the extractor star, you can see that there is an area that contacts the rim of each case. When the star is raised, cases are pulled upwards. If even one of these semi circular ledges is too high, then the case will be high and cause binding. Also each chamber has its own ratchet which the hand moves against to rotate the cylinder. A damaged ratchet could cause difficult rotation. Also an improperly fitted crane which holds the cylinder can be the culprit. Crane and yoke are different terms describing this same part.

If it were my gun, I would take a plastic or wood mallet and give the cylinder a heavy rap to see if that changed the crane or yoke to frame dimension enough to fix the binding. Colt and Smith used babibitt or lead bars for this very reason. You might try two or three raps.

Thanks, I have inspected the ratchet as well as I can with some magnification and can not find any of them that appear to have a problem, and as I said it cocks fluidly when no ammo is loaded. I have used several brands of ammo and have had the same problem with all of them, so I don't think that is it. But, I will look at the ledges and where are you suggesting that I "rap" the crane ?

[willie]

Hit the cylinder on the back end--where ammo goes into chambers. Hit the cylinder squarely and that will transmit force to the crane. Then load and rotate to check progress. If you see no slight improvement with two raps, then you might cease.

[HJB]

Hit the cylinder on the back end--where ammo goes into chambers. Hit the cylinder squarely and that will transmit force to the crane. Then load and rotate to check progress. If you see no slight improvement with two raps, then you might cease.

Gotcha' thanks, I'll give that a try. I want to try to ID the specific cylinder that is having a problem as well, and make sure it is the same one every time.

Thanks again for the help.