22/32 HFT Carry-up Issue

[gfors]

This 22/32 is in really nice shape, especially for a 94-year old, but it's slowing down, mechanically. It does not carry-up fully on 2 of its charging holes. My gunsmith is afraid to work on it because: 1) there is not much metal on the ratchet to move in the first place, and 2) replacement parts are nearly impossible to find. I believe this, after purchasing the wrong cylinder and the wrong hand, myself, even though I was convinced the parts were correct.
Rather than continuing to throw good money at bad parts, I am considering trying to fix it myself. I do have Kuhnhaussen, and it seems like the obvious first step would be to try an oversized hand, if one is to be found... Barring that, I am wondering about re-shaping the ratchet teeth or the hand.
The contact surface of the hand looks to slope a bit. Is that normal? Several ratchet teeth look like they need to be re-shaped.
Any advice or comments are welcomed.

 

[Protocall_Design]

There is plenty of material on the ratchets to work with. However, reworking ratchets is one of the easiest things to mess up on a revolver. For someone who hasn't done this a lot, it's probably not a good idea.

The safer path to take is to work on the hand, or get a new wider one. There are ways to make the old one wider that involve special fixtures and good metalworking skills.

Probably the best thing to do in your case would be what is normally considered an emergency field fix, as opposed to a proper repair. To do this, you remove the trigger/hand assy. from the gun and carefully bend the hand very slightly to the left, looking at it from the rear. You can hold the trigger in a vise to do this. The hand is hardened steel and won't bend, but the pivot pin is softer steel and will bend. Do not hit the hand with a hammer. Use a small crescent wrench or pliers to gently move it. This will advance the timing similar to using an oversize hand.

Any time you do something like this, there is an element of risk. If you have spare parts, it's not a big deal. If you have one, you have to decide whether to risk it.

 

[gfors]

Thank you for the suggestion and thoughts. I'll try to find another hand, before I do anything.
Maybe a WTB ad here will find one.

 

[2152hq]

It looks like the firing pin is reaching the cylinder face.
A couple of the chambers have the look of the pin striking the edge of them when 'dry fired'.
The FP should stop just a couple .000 short of striking the cylinder surface to avoid that.

If the Hand has wiggle room in it's slot in the frame, you can sometimes move it to the left for faster carry-up by soft soldering a simple shim to the RH side of the Hand.

This assumes the Hand can be pushed over by the extra width of the shim being in place and the LH side of the Hand will now be against the LH wall of the slot in the frame.

Common steel shim matrl is fine as is common soft solder. It flows at around 400F which is way below any temper draw for the HT of the hand.
Use an electric soldering iron for the work to avoid overheating. It's small stuff and solders quickly. No torch work here!
Trim the shim to shape on the Hand, then you may have to further stone the width down a .000 or so after soldering to make it a nice sliding fit in the window of the frame.
The steel shim stock repair last a long time if kept clean and lubed. There's no high speed action or heavy shear load involved.

 

[glowe]

OK, someone needs to help us understand what we are seeing. Personally, I see a star that is toast. I see lumps where there should be none and one ratchet that is almost gone, filed down to a triangle?? I took a picture of my teens 22-32 HFT and know it is worn, but functions without issue. It looks much different than the OP's star??