I have a bit of a conundrum with my S&W 629-6 as I recently had to replace the hammer in order to correct a case of hammer push off. I noticed that the SA trigger on my revolver had become extremely light and, while I've seen worse cases, when tested the gun did have a case of hammer push off. Now, we all know that the most common cause for hammer push off is amateur gunsmithing but I know that such was not the case with my revolver as I bought this gun brand new roughly 15 years ago and have never modified the internals other than to swap out the mainspring and rebound slide spring (the factory springs have since been re-installed). In examining my old hammer, the SA notch did appear to be worn as compared to the new one (though the notch is so small it's difficult to tell) and I also noticed what appeared to be a small chip on the SA "leg" of the hammer.
Replacing the hammer with a new one seems to have cured the problem as I can no longer produce hammer push off with reasonable pressure and the SA trigger is back to what I'd consider normal. Does anyone have any idea what might have caused the abnormal wear to the original hammer? I have a couple of hypotheses, but I'm not sure how likely they are. One possibility is that several years ago I did have the firing pin break (it was repaired by S&W) and perhaps part of the firing pin swimming around in the action chipped the SA "leg" of the hammer which, with several years more wear, caused the problem (though I'd think S&W would notice the damage to the hammer when the gun was sent in for initial repair). The other possible cause is that I polished the exterior of the gun (though I did not remove the sideplate or internals when I did so) and perhaps a bit of polish found its way into the action and gradually wore the SA notch of the hammer (though the trigger exhibits no abnormal wear that I can detect).
Replacing the hammer with a new one seems to have cured the problem as I can no longer produce hammer push off with reasonable pressure and the SA trigger is back to what I'd consider normal. Does anyone have any idea what might have caused the abnormal wear to the original hammer? I have a couple of hypotheses, but I'm not sure how likely they are. One possibility is that several years ago I did have the firing pin break (it was repaired by S&W) and perhaps part of the firing pin swimming around in the action chipped the SA "leg" of the hammer which, with several years more wear, caused the problem (though I'd think S&W would notice the damage to the hammer when the gun was sent in for initial repair). The other possible cause is that I polished the exterior of the gun (though I did not remove the sideplate or internals when I did so) and perhaps a bit of polish found its way into the action and gradually wore the SA notch of the hammer (though the trigger exhibits no abnormal wear that I can detect).