Jim Taylor
Update on the old H&R
Tuesday, March 14, 2023, 06:43

I was shooting the H&R with some test loads and it locked up on me. I could not move the hammer forward or backward. Taking the gun apart I found the spring on the cylinder hand had broken and gotten into the lockworks.

While messing with it I overstressed the mainspring and the end broke off.

So I ordered a new mainspring and cylinder hand. The mainspring arrived yesterday and I installed it and it works fine. I fired the gun just to see how the spring was working. Without a cylinder hand I simply cocked the hammer, carefully rolled the cylinder around until it was against the cylinder stop and then pulled the trigger. It worked fine.

A friend had sent me a cylinder hand that had a broken spring (I think it must be common with these guns) and I decided to see if I could re-spring it. Using an old Colt SAA hand spring that was broken, I finally got it put together. Now all I need to do is shorten it to the correct length.

Since I have a new hand coming, this will give me a backup. Always a good thing to have with old beat up cheap guns.

My repair job on the cylinder hand. It's a little bitty thing.

Note the new hammer spring