So... any of our members here have an interest in firearms?

While going through some things at my recently deceased parents' home I found a couple of snapshots that made me smile. That's me in the sink-box at age 17, with at least two ducks I'd just bagged (draped over the front of the box). Leaning upright in the corner of the box is my Grandad's Remington 20ga. semi-auto, which he lent to me for this particular hunt. The Remington was recoil-operated, which made it sound kind of like a canning factory each time it fired and re-loaded. We hunted within a private club area to which my Grandad belonged, along with his brother and brother-in-law. That's my Grandad's brother-in-law in the airboat. The apparatus sitting on the front of the boat is a gasoline-powered water pump, used to bail out the sink-box before the day's hunt began.

Love duck hunting!

I'll undertake a search for you. A local gunsmith provided a rebound lever for a Colt New Navy after I'd searched for years online. Wouldn't you know there was one right here in our small town the whole time. Don't know if rebound springs are the same dimensions. We'll find out.

Here's one for a New Police. https://slinksgunparts.com/product/colt-new-police-32-colt-revolver-parts-rebound-lever/ I'll check with my gunsmith and if he doesn't have one and we can determine that levers are the same then this one could be ordered and mailed to you. If you find a US parts source that has what you need then please private message me the web address.

I think the rebound lever for a Colt New Police would be correct for the New Pocket. The New Pocket model may just be built on an abbreviated New Police frame, the only difference being a shorter grip frame.

https://www.google.com/search?q=colt new pocket rebound spring&client=firefox-b-1-e&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=KIs4grUIbjDKMM%2CjCnI2zY_HDVv-M%2C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTO1HztnoNKWXIMCaDGV-3cezXVxA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjR47Sru7rxAhXRwJ4KHasDDDwQ9QF6BAgOEAE

A Colt New Pocket .32 Long Colt lives here. Not as fine as yours is though. Has a decent bore though and perfect mechanics. Here's a photo of diminutive revolver shown with the gargantuan Colt New Service, this one being a US Model 1909 .45. Showing the large and the small of the Colt double action revolver line up in their catalog during the 1898 to 1910 period (my Model 1909 was manufactured in 1910) with their respective cartridges and a .22 Long Rifle for comparison. My New Pocket was made in 1905 the last year of production and at the transition of the New Pocket model to the improved Pocket Positive.



Are you able to obtain shooting quantities of .32 Short Colt or .32 Long Colt for your revolver? It's a scarce cartridge over here. I picked my New Pocket up at a gun show years ago expecting to bring it home to shoot .32 S&W Long. Visually they look the same size, but dimensionally the .32 Colt chamber will not accept .32 S&W or .32 S&W Long. Your gun is correctly used with both Shot and Long varieties of the .32 Colt.



Here's a .32 Smith & Wesson Long flanked by a .32 Short Colt and a .32 Long Colt. Until I obtained the New Pocket I assumed that the .32 Colt cartridges were simply an appropriation of the .32 S&W cartridges' design. It will be noticed that the .32 Short Colt features a heeled bullet. The .32 Long Colt shown features a hollow base bullet.

Colt did appropriate Smith & Wesson's .38 Special design dimensions when they initially began providing their revolvers so chambered. Colt only slightly altered the 158 grain bullet simply by putting a flat point on it and renamed the results ".38 Colt Special." The name didn't stick for long and neither did the Colt variant cartridge of the ubiquitous .38 Special which went on to become one of the most popular center fire revolver cartridges of all times. Other than the different bullet shape the .38 Colt Special was Smith & Wesson's proprietary .38 Special.

Not so with the .32 Colt. Both .32 Short Colt and .32 Long Colt are of Colt design and originally supplied with heeled bullets, similar in design to the modern .22 Long Rifle's bullet. Some .32 Colt cartridges were loaded with hollow base bullets about .298 in diameter serving to fill the bore upon firing. Bit goofy but there it is. The heeled bullets could serve in the cartridge conversions of percussion revolvers that were fabricated by the 1870s. The .41 Long Colt was served the same way which is probably why it was an obsolete dead duck by about 1940. Same for the .38 Long Colt of US Army Spanish American War fame. The .45 Colt however was always loaded with conventionally designed bullets since its inception.

Noelekal, I had thought the same thing about .32 Colt and .32 S&W until I did some research after buying my Police Positive in .32 Police, which is just .32 S&W long. Once again Colt was just getting around stamping S&W on their guns so they loaded the. 32 S&W long with a flat tip bullet and called it the .32 Police. Anyway, I digress, not being familiar with .32s I figured .32 Colt would work in it but after some research I learned what you did. One other difference between the .32 Colt and the .32 S&W is that the former is externally lubricated whereas the latter is internally lubricated.

Kwijibo, you might consider joining the Coltforum.com as well. Noelekal and I are both members there and it's a knowledable, friendly, and helpful bunch of fellas. They even appreciate all those S&Ws that Noelekal owns.

Your rebound lever looks good in this photo but I see that you're missing an ear off the main spring. The rebound lever engages the timing hand and pushes it forward to engage the cylinder and rotate it, and the main spring is what supplies the pressure to the rebound lever when cocking the hammer. That broken main spring could easily be causing both problems.

Sure wish you were over here this afternoon Kwijibo. We'd detail strip your revolver and see what it's about. I'm not really good with Colt double-action lock work. I can take them apart and reassemble them, but don't have a systematic impression of what's going on in there when the action is cycled. Smith & Wesson actions make sense. Colt actions are somewhat akin to reading tea leaves, or chicken entrails, or driving to Toulouse from Paris by way of Vienna, Austria.

Waltesefalcon speaks truth, both in suggesting Colt Forum and in suggesting that the main spring is broken.

Okay, this is going to be a photo heavy post. These are from last May or June when I worked on a friend's Agent from 1984. I'm pretty familiar with Colt DA revolvers and their operation and have been working on them for a quarter of a century. The though this revolver is nearly 100 years newer it operates under the same mechanics. The first two photos just show the gun stripped and all the internal parts. The third photo shows the cylinder bolt installed, this is what locks the cylinder when you aren't pulling the trigger. It has a small spring under it that keeps it engaged it is actuated by the rebound lever. The fourth photo shows the trigger and positive lock installed. The fifth photo just shows how the positive lock operates when the trigger is pulled. The sixth photo shows the hammer installed. The seventh and eighth show how the trigger and the hammer interact. The ninth photo showed the rebound lever installed. The rebound lever engages both the cylinder bolt and keeps the timing hand in the forward position while the gun is being cocked. The tenth photo shows the timing hand installed on the trigger and you can see how the rebound lever rests on top of it. The eleventh and twelfth photos show the cylinder being rotated. The thirteenth photo just shows three side plate installed.

Now, with all of that out of the way, the V spring makes everything work together as it should. It not only provides the power to drop the hammer on a cartridge it provides the pressure to the rebound lever to disengage the cylinder bolt as the hammer begins to come back and to keep the timing hand fully engaged with the cylinder. As the cylinder chamber aligns with the barrel the cylinder bolt will slide off of the rebound lever and the bolt spring will push it back out to re-engage the cylinder. While the trigger is pulled the rebound lever will continue to keep the timing hand forward and firmly engaged with the cylinder providing solid lock up of the cylinder, this is why Colts have such a tight lock up when the trigger is pulled. As the trigger is reset the rebound lever releases its pressure on the timing hand allowing it to drop past the cylinder ratchet and the rebound lever returns to its testing position on the timing hand and below the cylinder bolt.

One last thing, with the side plate off, the timing hand won't engage the cylinder ratchet properly unless you push on the side of the hand while cocking the revolver.

With one of the ears on the main spring broken its not going to exert pressure correctly on the rebound lever which will affect how the rebound lever engages both the cylinder bolt and the timing hand. I hope this makes sense and helps a bit.

One of the most common, if not the most common, ailment that affects DA Colts is a worn out timing hand. This wear will greatly affect the timing and can even keep the cylinder from fully rotating, meaning that the chamber won't properly align with the barrel and the cylinder bolt. Because the timing hand serves to help lock up the cylinder while the gun is being fired they get battered and will need to be replaced periodically. It's not a drop in part and will need to be fitted to your gun. It's not difficult but does require patience, you need to file the hand to fit into the cylinder ratchet properly. You don't want it to over rotate the cylinder but it needs to bring the cylinder into proper alignment with the barrel and cylinder bolt.

I'll quit pontificating now and wish you good luck on your revolver.