Pietta Colt 1851 Navy - is this normal?

[Dark Skies]

Flushed with my recent success of revitalising an abused Pietta .44 New Model Army I've gone out and bought another budget revolver.
It's a Pietta Colt 1851 Navy .36 made around 1992 - so it's been around the block a fair bit.

I beat the guy down from £150 to well, lots and lots less. Frankly an hour of me pulling a gun apart, grimacing at the filth, peering down the barrel, clicking my way through the action (dozens and dozens of times), then comparing it against other guns in the shop and doing the same thing with those is enough to drive anybody nuts and another half hour and I reckon he'd have given it to me just to get me out of his sight. :)

It's actually not in bad nick given it's twenty-five years old or so.





The action is pretty sweet and no issues with timing - although I'll buy a maintenance kit and some new nipples just to start off straight. The Pietta kit doesn't come with a hammer for this model - that has to be bought separately at about £22.

Looking at the existing hammer there seems to be something unusual about its striking face. At first glance it looks like a really bad case of dry firing hammer to nipple contact wear. But when examined with a magnifying it appears to be perfectly circular with a machined bevel to it. It also looks to be far too deep to be wear - there's no impact distortion to the areas in its vicinity either.
This is my gun:


When compared to a much newer revolver of the same make with known hammer wear (see pic below) it doesn't look anything like the same.
So I was wondering if the really early models had a slightly different hammer design to later models? And if so why?
(Pulling caps off nipples and causing jams might have required a design change, for example).

Anybody else seen this? Looking on the Internet for pics of hammers all have them looking flat rather than recessed.

This is someone else's newer gun.

[Triffid]

Looks to me like the part of the hammer that will come into contact with the percussion cap has been recessed deliberately. This might offer some protection to the nipple when the gun is dry-fired or encase the cap slightly to stop it breaking up.

Triffid

[bradaz11]

I wonder if at some point it was modified to use shotgun primer nipples. That extra relief on the tip under the sight notch looks like it was done to clear something longer and fatter

[1066]

I'm not a Colt fan and have never owned one so may well be talking out of my *&^%$, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit to find slightly different hammer configurations. If ever there's a jam on the firing line in a BP match it usually turns out to be a Colt with a lump of cap stuck between the hammer and cylinder. I think this recess was a factory design tweak to help stop bits of cap falling into the action.

[DaveB]

I have that same model - mind you mine's a decade older, and the hammer looks nothing like that. It's dead flat across the face (more so than the other photo because mine has never been dry-fired!).

[Dark Skies]

I have that same model - mind you mine's a decade older, and the hammer looks nothing like that. It's dead flat across the face (more so than the other photo because mine has never been dry-fired!).

Does your hammer have the notch that engages with the safety pin on the cylinder?

My cylinder shows no sign of ever having had the pin. I half-wondered if the recess on the hammer was intended to mimic this function on an unloaded chamber - but couldn't see the point because ... it'd be on an unloaded chamber!

I wonder if at some point it was modified to use shotgun primer nipples. That extra relief on the tip under the sight notch looks like it was done to clear something longer and fatter

Possibly but the existing nipples are regular Pietta and the threads in the cylinder are in good shape and standard.

[redcat]

My cylinder shows no sign of ever having had the pin. I half-wondered if the recess on the hammer was intended to mimic this function on an unloaded chamber - but couldn't see the point because ... it'd be on an unloaded chamber!

I think you have nailed it there. Western shooting competitions require a holstered gun to be loaded with only 5 rounds and the hammer to be on the empty chamber. In the absence of the safety pins perhaps a previous owner devised his own safety mechanism.

I wonder if at some point it was modified to use shotgun primer nipples. That extra relief on the tip under the sight notch looks like it was done to clear something longer and fatter

Shotgun primers require a firing pin which this hammer does not have.

Redcat

[1066]

The back of that cylinder looks like it was made with original tooling from the 1850's, I think that's taking authenticity a little too far. :)

[Dark Skies]

The back of that cylinder looks like it was made with original tooling from the 1850's, I think that's taking authenticity a little too far. :)

Everything looks a bit scary when magnified! :)

[Dark Skies]

I think you have nailed it there. Western shooting competitions require a holstered gun to be loaded with only 5 rounds and the hammer to be on the empty chamber. In the absence of the safety pins perhaps a previous owner devised his own safety mechanism.
Redcat

Ah. That makes sense then. And if the previous owner was prepared to go to those lengths for a competition gun that might explain the very precise oval relief on the right side of the cylinder base pin where the ridges for easing fouling live. Perhaps to ensure reliability for the duration of the competition? I couldn't see how it could have been worn - there's no metal to metal contact in this area.