Dan,
I'm sure taking a look at the mainsprings will shed some light on this either way, but here's a thought on why your hammers were not cocking in the first place. If the forward leaves of the sear springs are resting on the mainspring strain pins as opposed to the bend in the mainsprings themselves, there may not be sufficient force on the sears. This would prevent the sears from consistently engaging the hammers, so all the cocking bar would be doing is moving the hammers rearward and letting them down again as you close the gun. Needless to say, if/when the sears do catch in this scenario, they could easily disengage from the hammers if the gun is dropped or struck hard enough: discharging the firearm.
If you can, please upload some pictures of the mainsprings.
Additionally, a check to see if the configuration that you are describing has any impact on the hammer position is as follows, but in no way proves that the springs you're describing are wrong:
With the firing pins, return springs, and retaining screws (including your replacement screw) properly installed, install your mainsprings as they were when you disassembled the gun (strain pins, and all). Then seat the hammers. With the hammers at rest (so do not install cocking bar, sear springs, or sears), there should not be any protrusion of the firing pins. The design of the mainspring/hammer engagement should "settle" the hammers in a position to the rear of entirely forward (if that makes any sense). In other words, they rebound a bit. From that position, you can press the hammers forward to make the pins protrude, but when you let go they should come back a bit. Taking note of how this goes with your mainsprings may offer a clue.
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