Colt Anaconda problem

[Fooped]

Hey folks,

I'm hoping that some of your revolver gurus might know what's going on with my Colt Anaconda. Here's the issue:

The cylinder binds up pretty badly when I swing the crane closed. I took the gun apart by removing the cylinder/crane assembly and the cylinder release and plate.

As near as I can tell, the binding is happening either at the front or back of the frame of the gun, due to the fact that it still bound up with the cylinder release assembly off of the gun. It looks to me that it's the forcing cone contacting the face of the cylinder, and it doesn't bind up uniformly. Certain chambers are worse than others.

I took a brass brush on my Dremel and thoroughly cleaned the face of the cylinder, and this helped a bit, but the action still binds up. It's not so bad that the trigger cannot be pulled DA, but it's definitely not right. [sad2]

I've only got a few hundred rounds through the gun (at most), and I haven't loaded anything overly hot for it, so I'd hope to rule out cylinder/frame damage. Anything's possible though. OTOH, something must have happened because the gun didn't do this when I first got it.

The binding seems the worst when you close the cylinder all the way so that the release mechanism catches.

The ejection rod is also very slightly bent, maybe one or two degrees, but it doesn't seem to bind up in it's channel in the frame. I took a caliper to the cylinder while it was out, and all six chambers are within 1 thousandth of one another. I believe the measurement was 1.745 inches front to back.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[CRSIII]

Shot in the dark here, is the crane twisted??

 

[Jamie]

This going to sound stupid, but I had a similar problem with my Ruger Security Six .357 Magnum. It turned out that a tiny piece of the brass I had used to clean it had gotten lodged in the pivot area for the crane. It took a magnifying glass and a pair of forceps to remove it. I was ready to send it out to a gunsmith due to frustration when I decided to have one last look with the magnifying glass. Glad I did. Good luck, Greg!

 

[Knob Creek]

Send it back to Colt. Or I can suggest a excellent Colt Gunsmith in R.I.

 

[Zappa]

I had a similar binding problem with my Python.
It turned out to be some crud beneath the extractor star.
It drove me nuts for a while until I removed the cylinder, ejector rod and extractor star. I gave everything a good scrub with a brass bristle brush and Q-Tips, including the backside of the extractor star and cylinder face where the star recesses into. I then gave everything a light lube of Break-Free on reassembly. It's worked fine ever since.

 

[45collector]

Shot in the dark here, is the crane twisted??

The way the problem's described, I'd say you're right.

Don't ever "swing" your cylinder closed, like in the movies. You'll eventually warp the crane.

Oh shit! let me go find my flame retardent boxers before you comp shooters chime in!!