Don't try this at home....

L

Lavan

New member
My best friend in the 60's was my gunsmith. We used to go to Cap'n Weber Days in Stockton.
They had a guy there in the S&W booth and police depts would bring him cop revolvers literally in buckets.
He'd reach in, pick out a gun, click it through the cylinder and feel it.
Then he would take out a long bar of lead and SMACK the cylinder.
In exactly the right place. The gun would be in time, good lockup, crane straight, and back in business.
He seldom needed more than 3-4 whacks.

Fascinating to watch. clickety click WHACK !!! :eek::eek::)
 
All we had in those days were 8mm movie cameras.
I did get a movie of the PD "testing" their auto weapons.

No idea where it is though. :)
 
The S&W armorers Babbitt.

Two versions. One round the other trapezoid.

For “fine tuning” revolvers.
 
Somewhere about 1962 or 1963 I was working for IBM as a customer engineer in Evanston, IL. One of my customers was Mathias Kline Tools and I had a Mathias Kline needle nose pliers in my tool kit. One of the employees picked up my pliers and said these are not right because the joint is loose. We walked back into the factory to gentleman in the corner of the shop and handed him my pliers. He looked them over, picked up a hammer, hit the hinge joint one time and handed them back to me. The hinge was just tight enough that it stayed open in whatever position they were when I laid them down.

Bob
 
That's the way out-of-range revolvers are adjusted. That's why you don't let your client wait and look, while you are working on their guns. I also have such a babbitt bar for those occasions. But have used it only a few times in about 10 years. Not many revolvers are coming in these days, and rarely they need this sort of adjustments.

BTW it is for ranging (alignment of bore to chambers), not timing.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
I’ve never seen this done but herd of it . I can see striking cylinder towards the frame would cause adjustment. I can’t see how it would work good striking against cylinder lock up.
 
When I had a gun shop years ago, we used that method often. Depending where the direction of the problem was, sometimes you would just put a penny between the crane and the frame and give it a slight whack.
 
I'm having trouble picturing how this works. If there's a video somewhere. please show us.

Regardless, I think this reply
Hence the expression, "Out of whack."
Click to expand...

must be true. If it ain't, it oughta be. Thanks, Bob Wright. Made me laugh.
 
When I bought a used model 14 from a gunsmith years ago, he looked it over, put a rod down the barrel into the cylinder chambers. I assume he was checking alignment. After the check, he'd smack it a time or two and recheck. When I shot it for accuracy, it was shooting
1 3/8", five shot groups at 25 yards. I was happy.
 
Grizzly2 said:
When I bought a used model 14 from a gunsmith years ago, he looked it over, put a rod down the barrel into the cylinder chambers. I assume he was checking alignment. After the check, he'd smack it a time or two and recheck. When I shot it for accuracy, it was shooting
1 3/8", five shot groups at 25 yards. I was happy.
Click to expand...
He was ranging and adjusting it. The rod is the ranging rod.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
I guess some gunsmiths are part changers and some gunsmiths are artist. I would love to see the smacking of a gun.
 
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