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I’d return it to the customer as is, and tell them it’s not repairable, because realistically it is not. One of the poorest gun designs there is. A zip gun has more going for it. DC

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Okay, I just spent the last five minutes mopping up the diet Coke that shot out of my nose… 🙂

Okay, does the trigger move freely if you push it manually but not return on its own? Or is it physically stuck? What do you mean by it won’t cycle in double action? (not sure what “cycling” means in a revolver.) Is it timed correctly? Indexes properly? Locks up tight? Cylinder is tight? These guns had a lot of issues if the cylinder was at all loose, hand slipping off the ratchet, etc. Tightening head space and end shake will usually fix a lot of those issues, if other parts aren’t bent or broken. And there are a bunch of pretty spindly parts in these that can break. If the cylinder wobbles at all, you get other issues. And, both since the parts aren’t readily available and due to the design, that often means some lathe or mill work.

The other problem is that many smiths end up breaking a part just by disassembling these. It really isn’t a very robust design. One of the Gun Digest books has the exploded drawings for this gun, but I’m not where I can grab mine and tell you which one. There are also a number of resources on the internet, or through the Colt Collector’s group. Also take a look at http://Coltparts.com/ for parts and resources. The guy that runs the site is pretty knowledgeable at working on old Colts and you might try reaching out to him for help.

Though the reason I snorted my drink when I read Doug’s reply is that he’s right. For most gunsmiths and Colt Lightning/Thunderer owners, this is a job to walk away from. It’s too high a risk and cost to repair. Jeff

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I’ll expand my comment a bit. If the customer just HAD TO HAVE this gun in working order…….I’d tell him up front what we’ve already relayed – there may be parts that get broken in disassembly due to the design of the gun. The customer gets to pay for those, too. There will be NO warranty of any kind when I work on this gun, not even as far as from the counter to my front door. Yes, they are just that fragile. DC

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I’d have to agree with a no warranty and broken parts not being the gunsmith’s expense on these. My uncle was a Colt collector and wrote a number of books on the Colt Peacemaker and the Wild West and one of the things he tended to doubt was that these guns received as much use as some claimed. Gunfighters like John Wesley Hardin and Willam Bonney a/k/a Billy the Kid supposedly favored these, depending on who you pay attention to, but my uncle always figured that, if they had relied on the Lighting/Thunderer that much they’d have died a lot earlier. Hardin did own these guns and had a Lightning on him when he was killed, but nobody’s sure he actually relied on the guns for any continuous use. Billy the KId probably just used whatever firearm he had available at the time.

Naturally all the movies about the Wild West use Colt Peacemakers, which probably were nowhere near as common on the frontier as the movies show. Then again, if you ran all the movies back to back, you’d be watching them almost three times as long as the Wild West actually existed. 🙂

Good luck with the gun. Even if you just get to handle it and turn the job down it’s still a moderately historic item. Jeff

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First off QUOTE HIGH. Remember once you start working on it when you return it to the customer it has to be safe. As such the gun will have to be correct so you will be rebuilding A LOT of the internal parts on those guns. I quit working on them years ago as customer don’t want to pay a minimum of $300.00 (that was the minimum years ago) to have those old Colts fixed…..unless they are a collector, and I simply got tired of banging my head against the bench. If you choose to go ahead on it good luck, you have my respect and sympathy. There has to be a market out there as they are difficult to work on and make correct and there aren’t many of us who have the time or desire to deal with them. Ken