Euroarms Rem 58 Cylinder notches

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Fred Clepper

New member
Years ago, I shot a Ruger Old Army .44 and enjoyed the sport. When I moved to Florida and a new job, I sold all of my guns. Now, 25 years later, I have purchased a Euroarms New Army (Remington 58, .44 cal.) and am in the process of assembling a shooting box with the required equipment.

I am a bit concerned about the hammer safety notches in the cylinder of the Euroarms. In the Ruger, the hammer would drop securely into the notches between the active chambers. With the Euroarms, the notches are not deep enough for the hammer to drop into them.

Has anyone on this forum had a similar experience with this revolver and how did you fix the problem?

I have thought of grinding the notches with my Dremel tool but don't want to screw up the cylinder.

I called Euroarms and they sent me a parts list and loading sheet but failed to answer my question about the cylinder.
 
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gmatov

Moderator
I certainly wouldn't worry about it.

If you are going to go to the range to shoot, why would you be concerned that you can't let the hammer down into a safety notch?

You're going to load, turn, approach the firing line, fire off the loads, not jump on a horse and ride off into the sunset, and mebbe have to fight off Injuns. And mebbe fall off your horse and shoot yourself in the buttocks. Ala, Forrest Gump.

Cheers,

George
 
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Fred Clepper

New member
I may want to hunt hogs here in FL. To do so, I will holster the revolver and I don't want to load only five chambers!

The Euroarms Rem is a nice piece but I can't understand why they went to the trouble of milling notches into the cylinder that won't accept the hammer!

Fred
Largo, FL
 
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Smokin_Gun

New member
Is yours a brand new Euroarms Fred? I have an early Armi San Paolo the Corp. name changed to Euroarms around 2002. Armi San Paolo is still the manufacturer of these. I do not have that problem with mine the safety notch and hammer lock up solid. Had the hammer possibly been gound if it's a used one? Also I found that Uberti Rem cylinders fit and work in the ASP well. They are about .006 shorter but still have a good gap between cylinder and barrel. I have another friend who's Brother just got one I will have him check and post about it to you. If Notching is what's needed I'm sure that by doing so you'd have nothing to worry about as the cylinder is pretty damn thick at that point. You might try say a Uberti cyl. or order a New hammer, first. Hope this helps.
 
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Fred Clepper

New member
Smokin,

I bought the Rem used and I doubt that it has been fired. Whoever owned it before fondled it a lot and the outside of the cylinder is pitted a little and the blue is scuffed by the tip of the hammer, The inside of the barrel and cylinder chambers look like new. I removed the nipples and they are like new!

The safety slots are crescent shaped and don't match the hammer shape in any way. I mentioned this to the people at Euroarms and they said that they would send me some data. I received the data today and it was just some printed sheets with an exploded view, parts list and some loading info.

By the way, I always used Pyrodex in my Old Army and liked it. Do you think Pyrodex P would be good in the 85? What load could you recommend for target shooting?
Thanks...
 
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Low Key

New member
Without seeing the cylinder and hammer I'm almost afraid to comment on this, but here's my 2 cents anyway. Could it be that the problem is not the cylinder notches, but that the hammer is milled just a bit too wide? If it is the hammer, then it could be ground down just a tiny bit to make it the right width to fit the cylnder notches, but it may need to be case hardened again after grinding. Remington kid knows how to case harden and says it's not complicated. If the hammer will fall into the cylinder notches, it doesn't have to be exactly the shape of the notch itself, it just has to fit in there enough to keep the cylinder from rotating so if the pistol is bounced around for some reason the cylinder can't turn around to where the hammer could be sitting on a live cap. Just some thoughts for George, SG, RK, and others with a lot more knowledge about this kind of stuff than me to ponder on.

As far as using pyrodex p, yes that would be a good choice. There are several of us who are having trouble finding real BP in our home ranges, :rolleyes: , and we have been switching to the pyrodex p since it is probably the closest thing to real BP on the market. If you use that in the 58 I think you will be well satisfied. I would suggest 20-25 grains as a good target load. You could go up as high as 40gr for a stiff hunting load. I've done it myself and it will work and no ill effects to the pistol, but I don't shoot that everyday for targets. I hope you get the cylinder problem worked out, have fun with that 58! :D
 
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Remington kid

New member
Not much I can ad to what LowKey and others have said. Did you try to move the cylinder after placing the hammer over the notch just to see if it moves or not? If it doesn't move then you are good to go. If it's not a big difference between the hammer and notch you may be able to just remove a little from the edges of the hammer so that it may fit right in the notch enough to give you piece of mind. You will not hurt the hammer doing that, they are really tuff. I would tend to believe that the problem is that the hammer is just a hair to wide rather than the notches are to small.
Maybe someone on here has a good set of calipers and can measure the width of there cylinder notches and the width of there hammer so that you can check yours.My calipers are good ones but the operator is terriable!:) I would not want to give you a false reading. Mike
 
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Old Dragoon

New member
Fred,
My hammers on my Pietta's do not fall all the way into the notches either and on these pistols the hammers do fit the notches but do not fall all the way in due to machining of the pawl on the back of the cylinder. If you look at the back of the cylinder you will see scallops at the nipple sites and NONE between them. The area where the nipples are it is machined out so the hammer will fire the caps, but the same machining is not present at the locations of the safety notches. if this is your problem the cylinder could be machined (turned) down to the depth of the machining(Scallops) at the nipple sites. This should not harm the action of the hand or installing the cylinder. My hammers just barely engage in the notches but will not rotate.
If your cylinder rotates with the hammer down on the safety notches then I would check out the pawl area. If the hammer is truly too big to engage the notches then You might rework the hammer to engage the slots. If the hammer still doesn't engage the notches then turning down the cylinder should work.
 
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Oldelm

New member
My brother just bought an unfired early Euroarms Armi San Paolo '58 Rem made in 1979, engraved stainless, it' a real gem. He let me take it home for a week to photo it and clean off the coating of clear flat laquer it had on it. After just reading this thread, I checked it for this problem, and found that the hammer will not go very far into the safety notch, ...just a schosh of the hammer tip goes in, which does lock the cylinder in place, but I wouldn't want to say that it's really locked up that way, but probably ok if the gun's not dropped. Here's a closeup pic of it showing the tip of hammer engaged in safety notch.............
mc9jyd.jpg


I could really say for sure what was stopping it from dropping more into the safety notch only if I take the hammer out and manually try to fit it into the notch and see it it is too wide, as RK was sayin,....and might need just a slight filing off the edges to make it fit.
 
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Smokin_Gun

New member
Oldelm, that's exactly what mine looks like... I really think your Brother would like a new Uberti...He could always get it Nickle plated...LoL!:rolleyes:
By the way Fred that's the friend I was talkin about...
 
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Smokin_Gun

New member
Mike vernier calipers take me about half and hour to figure out, dial calipers I have to check at least 3 times take about 3-5 minutes...still waiting to get a set of digital calipers in .001/.0001" or metric...them would be nice.
 
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Fred Clepper

New member
Thanks for all of the good responses to my questions. I especially like the picture of the hammer/notch relationship posted by Oldelm!

My hammer/notch relationship is very similar to the photo except the flat on my hammer is contacting the rear of the cylinder before the points of the hammer can engage the notches. I will take a picture and return.
 
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Fred Clepper

New member
Well, I am back! I tried to get a better picture but I guess this one will tell my story. I also checked the width of the hammer and fit into the milled slots. The hammer width is proper for the notches but as you can see,the foot of the hammer is contacting the rear of the cylinder before the nose of the hammer can fall into the notch. The nose of the hammer is about .002 above the tangential point on the cylinder!

Rem58.jpg

OOPS! I can't insert the picture as I haven't put it in a known web site!
Oldelm Help!!!
 
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Oldelm

New member
Fred,...you gotta have it "browse" first to find the pic on your computer,...then,once Tiny Pic finds it, you hit "Host" and you'll see the pic come in,...then copy the URL from the top box and paste it into the "insert image" box here (just above the description box). If you can follow just what I said....lol!!
 
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Old Dragoon

New member
Looks to me like a compentent machinist could lengthen the notch (bottom it) some and that would fix the problem. Or, it looks like you can modify the bottom of the hammer face as the cap striking portion of the hammer is further up on the hammer face. if the bottom corner is filed away I think that will solve your problem. That is a good picture of the hammer/cylinder relationship I'd try to rework the bottom of the hammer a bit first.
 
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Smokin_Gun

New member
If you do use tinypic select the IMG instead of TAG it'll work.

I see the dilema... Look at where the cylinder pin goes thru the frame from the cylinder itself. It should be flat and recessed into the frame just a few .001". If the pin is protruding that's the problem. Try it with the clyinder pin retracted a little see if hammer goes down more. Just a thought.
 
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