Alan Westlake Alfa 357 Mag Revolver

[beagle2]

I just came across this and I have to admit that I no next to nothing about BP shooting apart from what I have seen on the net but one thing that is puzzling me is if every time that the gun is fired the drum rotates and should line up with the barrel so that the bullet/ball slides from the drum into the barrel this being the case why is it that the caps do not have the indent from the hammer/firing pin in the same place in each cap ??????????

[arsefactor]

"drum" ... you mean "cylinder" :-)

The firing pin *should* strike in the center of the cap each time. On my revolver there was a problem with the cylinder where the cap recesses weren't quite machined deep enough for the caps I was using. This caused a couple of the caps to sit slightly proud of the cylinder which was enough to cause binding. Also the arm which the cylinder rides on kept working loose which caused a slight mis-alignment on the centre cylinder axis. Fixed that by tightening up the arbour retaining screw.

Primer pockets were fixed by deepening the primer recesses *very* slightly on an end-mill. The primers now sit flush and are being struck centrally every time.

Of course it could also have been that my primers (Remington 209's) are a little thick compared to others but since that's all I can get hands on locally, I had to go with them.

Anyway, it's working fine since the modification.

Regards
Paul M.

[beagle2]

One has to think that for a gun that is by now means cheep to buy some of the problems that you have had should not be happening especially the arm which the cylinder rides on working loose but at least you have got it working ok as for the drum/cylinder I admit that I do get confused with the names of parts and stuff at times one of the joys of getting old I'm afraid.

[dannywayoflife]

Well my Armscor version hasn't missed a beat!