End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

[LtPurcy]

So if you have owned a SAA at some point in your life you have probably been let down by the tanakas performance, making it a fun play toy than a gun to skirmish with.

Well with this short guide you WILL be able to make your Single Action Army a skirmishable weapon.

Ill start of with the problematic points out of the box.

1. The bolt, this is the small metal square that catches the notches on the cylinder, on the SAA and all revolvers this has an effect on the cocking of the weapon, if the bolt is naff which the tanaka is after a while the hammer will begin to slip causing the gun not to cock properly this is because when the hammer contacts the bolt it misses the contact point properly slips and then slips again on pawl (claw thingy) grabbing the cylinder.

2. Cylinder pin, obviously on the tanaka this is shorter than the real one because of the gas etc, well the cylinder pin is actually cut short, and as such doesnt reach the end of the cylinder pins designated hole as a result the cylinder can move back n forth, whilst this isnt a fault of tanaka as it doesnt fail the gun, if you want the gun to work buttery smooth this needs sorting and with a very easy ..easy fix after ages of fiddling about.

3. Hop up and cylinder o rings, no dont worry the cylinder wont leak thats fine the orings that hold the bb's however may have issues like mine did, the cylinder O-rings that hold the bb some times have excess material sticking out adversing bb trajectory, next is the hop up well its obtrusive and will over hop pretty much everything that isnt a sniper bb like madbulls.

These are the 3 biggest problems

now to fix.

1. buy a real steel bolt! £36 for a real steel colt even though this may not do the job on a real steel cowboy action shooters custom piece, its a fortress for our little tanaka, the tanakas is pressed and the pressure the hammer puts on is right on the corner of a prong where its pressed so it breaks very easily, the real steal colt is one solid lump, when you buy the piece you may need to file the right prong down to make it fit and operate properly, pm me for a guide.

2. Here we go heres the secret! KITCHEN TOWEL!? yep a few small bits of kitchen towel shoved into the hole to close the gap, do this little by little to get the desired effect, for extra security i also replaced the spring of the release screw to allow even less movement of the cylinder pin once tightly installed, its still easy to take the cylinder in and out but its just a much more secure and without the gap in the cylinder pin and cylinder you will find that the cylinder will now spin much more freely all most real steal butter like which made me smile
(fixed this tonight believe it or not, so happy now)

3. So to fix this issue firstly take the cylinder down to its shell and prod the o rings out and get rid of any excess and make sure you fit them correctly youll know when they are fitted correctly, next it will be a case of buying a barrel but buy the KM 6.04 which is available circa 12/09/2010, the barrel it self isnt actually any tighter than the Tanaka however its hop up and bore is perfected and has a .25g BB go like stink! apparently


Any thing else to think about purcy?
Well if money is no option £25 for a real steel trigger is a drop in job and that will further strengthen your gun, but thats about it internally!

Hope this guide helps, certainly helped my self figuring all this out, except the barrel that was second hand knowledge.

Thanks

[omnomnom]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

metal gear solid fan?

[LtPurcy]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

1871 single action army was patent by Samuel colt and adopted by the American army in 1873 in a 7 and a half inch barrel, 1873 was also the year the Winchester lever action 1873 model was released, also the year the .45 long colt round and many other centre-fire rounds came into existence.

Yes i am an absolute fanboy of metal gear

what else, im also a lover of the wild west, not brokeback mountain however :/

[omnomnom]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

sorry to come a bit off topic however if you see anyone appearing as naked snake or running around in a cardboard box at Ground zero woodland theres a high chance its me:D

[Longshot]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

not brokeback mountain however :/

Not even if it was Snake and Raiden...

[LtPurcy]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

guys this is not a topic on metal gear solid or brokeback mountain

[omnomnom]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

sorry got a bit carried away would you reccomend the SAA?

[LtPurcy]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

sorry got a bit carried away would you reccomend the SAA?

not to worry.


Id reccomend it as a collectors piece as they are majorly discontinued with a select few aftermarket parts available, if you find one, if you find a new one boxed buy it you probably see another in a good while.

If you find a Cassiopeia system (shells) or a midnight gold or chromium finish buy it without hearts content even rarer.

[LtPurcy]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

Update for everyone.

Finally got my real steel parts today, ejector rod spring and Real steel colt bolt

and oh man the difference, the spring firstly well obviously its stiffer and will require some cutting and fitting and you wont be able to put bbs inside of it (not meant to with tanaka original but people did anyway)

The bolt it self which is a very important piece and if crapped it will cause hammer slippage and all sorts of problems, the difference is huge, the clicks it makes are loud definite and defined and really clicks loud and proud like the real gun.

SAA is really looking up now to being a real piece of goodness

EDIT!

quite important this one i forgot, the real steel bolt does not need modding!!! none at all mine was a drop in piece straight off the bat! no filing needed no cutting no nothing unlike what others say.

[dope_on_a_rope]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

Good guide. Just one thing you might want to consider. The effect of wear on the part's that aren't replaceable. With the Tanaka shotguns, the entire trigger mech is replaceable with a real steel trigger mechanism. This is great for durability of the trigger mechanism. £88 and you need never worry about replacing it again. But when the steel hammer is hitting a pot metal bolt, and then being recocked by a aluminium plate under the plastic bolt... You're going to get other parts breaking quicker. Those parts are not necessarily easy to replace. Same thing goes for the Tanaka rifles. Some steel parts are avaliable, but they will cause extra wear on the non steel parts that you still cannot get replaced.

So my question to you is, are there any parts that are likely to wear, given the fact you've just replaced pot metal with steel?

[LtPurcy]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

The Single actions armys metal parts arent cheap expect for the bolt that was the worst part of the gun

heres a break down of the bolts wear cycle

Stage one: hammer to half cock LOWERS bolt to allow cylinder movement so bolt isnt wearing on anything, other way round the tougher metal (hammer) is actually wearing the bolt

Stage two: bolt rises to lock cylinder into place for firing again its the hammer wearing THE BOLT

Stage 3: bolt still locked trigger disengages the hammer THATS the only part the bolt wears the trigger and thats what i will be replacing next.

So trigger and bolt are the only two parts that need replacing by real steel parts and both are drop in jobs contrary to popular belief


Only lock ups and trigger locks im getting at the moment from fitting this are not occasional to worry about the bolt needs to be worn and stretched a little through use

[dope_on_a_rope]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

I can't picture the internals of a SAA, but from your description, am I safe to assume there are no sears? And is the new hammer hitting harder on the firing pin? Is the firing pin made of poor metal? Is the cylinder likely to be damaged by the steel bolt?

[LtPurcy]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

Trigger is simply acts a rocking switch so to speak theres a leaf spring and underneath are the bolt and trigger with bars running through em so they dont move, the trigger simply moves up against the leaf spring and releases the hammer.

I dont have a new hammer mate as that doesnt need replacing, thats a good quality part by tanaka and will be replaced by another tanaka hammer if the time arises i dont think real steel hammers fit actually and plus you would have a firing pin digging into the guns frame which isnt good unless you shaved it off.

Firing pin is a solid rod and will not burr or break or anything ive been really going at the pistol stress testing and i can see no wear on the pin or gas release valve it hits.

Cylinder damage to new bolt? nope only some scoring like any other bolt would do even happens on real revolvers im afraid

What i have noticed actually is the bolt sits much more positively in the cylinder notches than the tanaka bolt which is a very good sign


But to end this post

Do you need to do anything to the internals once you have a new bolt? well no not until something breaks and that will a while even with the tanaka parts, that arent that cheap the trigger will hold up fine for a very good while unless you start being eastwood and trying to fan and end up missing have the clicks and firing it off at half cock or something, then your going to break stuff.

[dope_on_a_rope]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

That's wonderful news then. Tempted to get one myself now. Thanks

[LtPurcy]

Re: End all guide to making your Tanaka SAA skirmishable

If you can find a tanaka SAA pick it up without hesitation shame these are getting rarer and rarer

must get a hartford remington new army as well MUST DO IT!

Also really want the tanaka single action with case hardening and royal blue cylinder and barrel set