tuning up revolver advice where??

A

alinwa

oft dis'd member
A friend brought over a S&W Airweight 38 internal hammer revolver. His wife's gun. He wants it "smoothed up and the trigger pull lessened."

It's perty stinkin' smooth and the pull is heavy because of the lightweight internal hammer. IMO it should just stay the way it is. It's a self defense piece, #1 IT MUST FIRE!!


So I have a dilemma.

I get really spoiled by the quality of info found on this board.... are there any similar quality handgun boards? Or does anyone here have an in-depth understanding of this revolver?

thanks

al
 
Some good guys here http://smith-wessonforum.com/ Your feeling that the firearm should stay the way it is, is correct IMO also. Some owners put in "spring kits" that cause misfires, light hammer strikes. A fine tuned revolver done by a good smith, may not even be reliable with one brand of primer, some are harder than others. A teflon oil product may slick it up some. Double action is alway on the heavy side.
 
Wolff makes an 11 lb. trigger return spring and that is the only spring I will change. Other than that I use a Dremel tool and polishing heads with jeweller's rouge
to polish everthing that slides inside the revolver as well as the backing plates on both sides. That will usually lessen trigger pull to about 2/3 to 3/4 of what it
was.
Brownells sells the rouge and the return spring.
As stated above reliability is the primary criteria and a lighter hammer spring does not help that.
 
Thank you for the info and more importantly the opinions guys.

I should have stated that I HAVE done this before ;) I have all the stones, the rouge, the rotary tool and even some pin plate fixtures for holding parts it's just that in the past I took stuff like this more lightly..... I would slick up a pistol, warn about misfires and then when it DID misfire we'd play with components. Normally handloading. In other words I'd treat it like another toy gun or competition pistol. But I've learned that FIRST is reliable function and todays world precludes handloading for self defense. And I'm completely unfamiliar with this pistol. I don't know at what point it will misfire.

I'll go check out the other forums

al
 
I've got two revolvers that have been successfully worked on to get better trigger pulls, a GP 100 that's got a set of Wolff springs and works well with CCI and Winchester primers both std and magnum, and a Blackhawk that was worked on by a gunsmith and works with everything it's fed. BUT, my "rattlesnake gun", a Taurus .22 WMR which has a nasty DA trigger pull wouldn't fire every other round (minimum) of anything it was fed with a Wolff spring set installed. Out those springs came, and now I watch my step on the prairie and shoot SA with it.

For a self defense revolver I don't think I'd like to have the action all slicked up with a nice light target trigger pull, an over-enthusiastic prosecutor could make up all kinds of stories about it. Yes I may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they ain't out to get me.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
kansasvet said:
wolff makes an 11 lb. Trigger return spring and that is the only spring i will change. Other than that i use a dremel tool and polishing heads with jeweller's rouge
to polish everthing that slides inside the revolver as well as the backing plates on both sides. That will usually lessen trigger pull to about 2/3 to 3/4 of what it
was.
Brownells sells the rouge and the return spring.
As stated above reliability is the primary criteria and a lighter hammer spring does not help that.
Click to expand...


excellent advice..............the man knows of what he speaks!
 
Resolution........

I've spoken w/client and we've decided to drop the project.

His 629 and 686 don't bear on the issue :)

I'm relieved.


tx

al
 
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