1860 Army revolver

LARRY48

I have a CVA 1860 Army that puzzles me. I cannot get it to shoot consistently. If I always load the same port in the cylinder it will shoot to the same point of aim. But when I load the entire cylinder, all 5 or 6 holes it will shoot on and off the paper at 25 yards. I use .454 RB and 20-30 grain FFFG. Is thsi normal? What could be the causes?
Thanks

photogroup

I'm not an expert, but it sounds like the cylinder isn't bored exactly the same for each position, or the cylinder isn't locking up the same for each position. Is there any play in the cylinder rotationally when the hammer is all the way back?
CVA isn't real high quality stuff sometimes. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a problem with their revolvers on a regular basis.

spasmcreek

simple check is a dowel(METAL, PLASTIC, ???) with a flat cut end that just slips down barrel...with proper indexing the dowel should slide into the cylinder in each chamber with catching the end

LARRY48

Thanks for your replies. I will try the dowel test. I suspect my problem is generic to other CVA revolvers of the same model. It does lock up tight but there could be an alignment problem that the dowel will identify. To be honest I would have accepted the poor accuracy as run of the mill for a cheap revolver. But once while at a rendezvous shooting competition the guy next to me was shooting his revolver and using just one port in the cylinder each time. When I asked him why he smiled and said it was easier to clean that way. Now I know it was his ace in the hole to better shooting. In my case thought the difference between ports is enough to cause misses at a gallon milk jug at 25 yards. Not good considering I have seen and shot other BP revolvers that can topple bowling pins at 50 yards.