I have posted other topics about this revolver, but here is this week’s challenge. This revolver was stuck closed at some point in its life. Someone got the cylinder open by using what looks like a ball peen hammer on the cylinder to shear the portion of the barrel in the cylinder window off. I am guessing it had a bullet stuck in it and they had to shear the barrel and the lead slug off.
The caliber is .41Long Colt. I can fit a minus gauge pin of .4100 into five of the six cylinders with no problem, but the sixth position I have a slight amount of resistance about a quarter of the way in that seems to align with one of the pings on the outside of the cylinder. My first thought is there is an inverted bulge of type in this cylinder. I know once a barrel is bulged it should not be used, but I also know some of those inverted bulges can get pushed out. The thing in my mind is we are not talking about a barrel, we are talking about a chamber! Yes it is a heavy wall chamber but still it is where the brass is held when things go off. Is this very rare and next to impossible to find cylinder unusable?
BTW I can easily fit a .4090 minus pin in it, so we are only talking .001 difference here. It is the question of did the metal lose its integrity when it was hit? Seems kind of hard to believe but the risk might be a little high to know for sure. Any ideas on how I could inspect the cylinder for crazing or cracking? Maybe magnaflux is an option but don’t know much about the process to know for sure. Any thoughts on using the cylinder or about inspecting it?
41 LC is a low pressure round. Probably I would leave it as it is and inform the owner, if it doesn’t impede loading a round in that chamber.
To be on the safe side, you can suggest to the owner to plug that chamber, till a replacement cylinder is found. TL
Follow-up
The limited amount of information I found on the 41LC I had the impression it was a low pressure round, but still the liability is of concern for me. My customer is sending me some ammo to check the loading issue as I had the same thought. The idea of blocking that one chamber is an interesting idea I did not think about.
Answer
I would lightly polish the chamber IF fired rounds don’t extract from that chamber. If they do, no harm no foul. Ken
