Just picked uo a nice Colt Saa here on the classifieds and the halfcock notch dosen't work properly.Is this an easy fix or a major and expensive repair ?

It's an easy fix. The notch just needs to be recut. It shouldn't be expensive. Less than $100. It is a common malady with SAA's.

It is a common malady, it's from someone playing quick draw and letting the hammer slip from their thumb. The Colt's is no where near as durable as the gun press would have you believe. Parts break on a SAA.

Re-cutting is a very delicate job, but an easy one. It's easy because all you need is a hack saw blade. It's delicate because if you cut it deeper than a few hundreths, then when on half cock, the firing pin will be resting on the primer.

Here's how you do it:

Take the hammer out of the gun and put it in a vice with protective jaws. Take a hack saw blade out of the hacksaw and lay it into what remains of the half cock notch. Now slowly and carefully begin to draw it back and forth against the old notch. When you have a visibly noticable new notch that's about the depth of one hack saw blade tooth (don't dare to go anywhere near the depth of the original notch), then stop. Reassemble and try it for yourself. If the firing pin hits the primers or sticks out of the frame window, you need to replace the hammer.

It is not uncommon to your problem requiring a new hammer; just have the sense to replace the hammer if it does.

Or you can reweld the space and cut it new. BTDT many times.

You can, but it's WAAAY cheaper to just replace the hammer. When you reweld you heat the part to the point to where the case hardening begins to soften, so you'd have to polish the part out and re-case hardening the entire thing (and I'm not talking about COLOR case hardening, I'm talking about the actual metal hardening version of case hardening).

Kevin, I forget that people don't do that kind of thing anymore. I have a couple of re-weld salvage hammers in my parts bin yet I did years ago. They are for 1st gen Colt's. You are correct in the fact it is easier and less expensive these days to just replace the newer gun parts with replacements.

Been doing this too long and fall back to the old ways more and more just 'cause I can. But then I am retired and have much time on my hands and do quite a bit of work on the antique stuff.

My apologies to those whom I am about to offend, But...

My dad always told me there were two kinds of people that work on watches; jewelers and idiots.

The same goes for any type of repair being done by inexperienced mechanics of all types. Fixing a Colt SAA hammer isn't quite that simple. The trigger could be broken as well and notching the hammer will adversely affect how the gun is meant to function.


Take your Colt to a competent gunsmith and have it done right. A re-weld will work if done correctly, so will a replacement hammer. Don't be fooled by thinking you can just drop in a replacement hammer and be fine. It still needs timed to the bolt and hand so the cylinder rotates without scarring it by poor timing.

I have heard all kinds of horror stories about Colt SAA's. I have 7; 2 third gen. 1 second gen. 4 first gen. guns and I shoot all of them more than most people ever would. I have had them tuned and timed by a professional, Tom Sargis @Bozeman Trail Gunsmithing, and they continue to work flawlessly as I use them for Cowboy Action as well as small game hunting.

All of these Colts have been fired 1000's of times and the only rings are on the first gen. 38-40 as that was the way it was when I got it.

No feathers ruffled here, you are just telling it like it is.