S&W Hammer Spring

Very common thing to do. For years the Dallas PD armorer did trigger jobs. His signature touch was to install a small set screw in the frame with a tiny Allen screw to hold the mainspring strain screw in its slightly backed out position.

You must relieve some of the mainspring tension if you also reduce the trigger return spring tension or, you wind up with a very sluggish trigger return.

It's a balancing act. It should always be balanced heavily on the side of reliability though. But, generally, most guns are oversprung from the factory. When S&W sent a Model 10 out to ride a thirty year career in a cops holster, they compensated for a gun that would see little or no maintenance. Bone dry. Congealed grease. Dust bunnies. Freezing temperatures. Whatever. That gun was expected to go bang.

We are gun geeks as a whole. We take good care of our toys. As a matter of fact, we likely cause more wear through cleaning, polishing etc than a duty gun gets.
 
Personally I'm coming around to the strain screw method of adjusting trigger pull.

In fact, I think it's such a good idea that I'm going to remove the strain screw entirely and carry around a little smack hammer with me.

When I need to fire my gun I'll pull the trigger (see how light it is! It's incredibly light!) and smack the hammer spur with the hammer.

BANG!

Don't know why no one has thought of that before!

In fact, if you remove ALL of the springs from your S&W, the trigger pull becomes ethereally light! Almost like an angel whispering to you...

Aftermarket springs that do EXACTLY what you want are commonly and widely available from a huge range of sources.

It gives you what you want without depending on "Well, if I back the strain screw out .76125 turns AFTER I trim .01793" off the face, I SHOULD get a lighter trigger pull.... and hopefully it won't affect reliability."

Trimming/backing out the strain screw and any of a variety of other permanent but largely guesswork "solutions" is like trying to get better cornering from your car by loosening the lug nuts.
 
Me?

REALLY?


To be 100% honest, when I'm looking at purchasing a used S&W revolver, there are two things I IMMEDIATELY look at.

First is the sideplate fit, and second is the condition of the strain screw.

If either is buggered up I ask to open the gun up to make sure that no one has been inside the thing grinding away like a monkey working a hurdy gurdy.

More than once I've discovered "home gunsmithing atrocities" based on a big old pressure ridge on the side plate where some ass pried it out or scratches or marring on the strain screw.

If I'm not allowed to open the gun, I simply walk away. No way am I going to take the chance.

A few years ago I was at the shop with a friend and I found a 4" 686 for a decent price.

Upon examination I found both warning signs noted above...

I tried the double action pull and it was... odd. Then I tried the single action pull, and I'm not even sure that it could have been measured it was so incredibly light.

In fact, it was light to the point were barely touching the cocked hammer dropped it.

Tapping on the side plate dropped the hammer.

I opened it up and I don't think there are words adequate to describe the atrocities that had been committed inside that gun. It looked like the idiot had simply opened it up and taken a dremel with a pointed grinding stone and jammed it in between the parts. It was horrible.

I flagged the owner and showed him what was going on (it was a consignment gun) and told him I'd give him $100 for it (I think it was priced at $300) and I was being generous because I was going to have to replace just about everything inside of it.

He said no. Said he wouldn't take responsibility for it being sold through his store and it was going back to the owner.


I've spent a LOT of time working on S&W revolvers. I've done action jobs on, at this point, nearly 75.

I spent YEARS working on my own guns before I started working on those belonging to friends.

And everything I learned about working on S&W revolvers came from Kuhnhausen's book.

But what Kuhnhausen had to say about some things 30 years ago when he wrote the book don't apply today because there are parts available today that were not commonly available back then.

So, my advice is...

Don't get in over your head just because you have the book.

Adopt up-to-date practices, not how it was done in the old days because that was the only choice then.
 
Oh, and I forgot to mention the most special thing of all regarding that 686...

The sideplate was warped.

My guess is because the tool with the Dremel pried it off really forcefully.
 
S&W side plate. My uncle said it would be very easy to get hurt removing an S&W side plate because if he saw me doing it he would hurt me. :rolleyes:

I've since found that there are many folk that take the side plate off and an awful lot of them don't know how to do it. (correctly) Several folk right here have detailed the correct method for removing it.

To me the revolver side plate is a CLASSIC case of the 'you not only don't know, you have no idea that you don't know you don't know' syndrome.

(Let's see here, just remove the screws, (this here screw driver is close enough) and then after I get the screws removed just use the tip of the screw driver to pry that plate off the gun. Easy peasy!) (For any really new folk to firearms this is NOT the way to do it. But it might just possibly be what I did with my first no-name revolver about a bijillion years ago...and yeah I screwed around with the strain screw and yeah in general kind of screwed up the gun.)
 
Last year some clown came in and posted his "how to" video for S&W revolvers.

While he was prying the side plate off he was ridiculing the frame strike method.

It didn't go well for him here.

Most of the rest of his video was equally idiotic.
 
Howdy Again

I bought my first two Smith and Wesson revolvers, brand-spanky new, in 1975.

A Model 17-3 and a Model 19-3. I probably bought them in that order, I don't really remember. Way back then I took the side plate off of one of them to look inside. Honestly, I have no idea how I took the side plate off. I certainly had not heard of the correct way to take off the side plate, the frame strike method. Whether or not I pried the side plate off I honestly do not remember. I don't even remember exactly which one I removed the side plate on, it was that long ago. I do know that if I look at those revolvers today, I see no evidence of having pried off the side plate. I must have been lucky. What I do remember is that as soon as I got the plate off, and looked inside, all those parts in there scared the dickens out of me and I quickly put the side plate back on. It was not until many years later that a very good gunsmith showed me how to remove the side plate, and how to take the mechanism apart without ruining anything.

I consider myself pretty competent these days to take a S&W revolver apart without damaging anything. I do not kid myself that I am a good enough gunsmith to start messing around seriously inside. I usually just take them apart to give them a good cleaning, then put them back together again.

A man has to know his limitations. I will take an antique Top Break S&W apart only so far. Once it comes to driving pins out to remove some of the parts, I stop right there and go no further.

On the other hand, a fellow S&W collector friend of mine shakes his head every time I mention taking the side plate off a Smith. He feels that the workers at S&W put so much effort into getting the fit absolutely perfect that the side plate should never be removed or it will be damaged. He has probably seen too many pried off side plates.
 
The S&W LE armorer course I went through had no problem in teaching sideplate removal.
And it didn't involve prying.
Denis
 
Howdy Again

I never saw that video before. I sure cringed when he pried off the side plate. That may be how I did it that one time a bazillion years ago, don't really remember. I too was curious how he was going to keep track of where each of the screws went, he did not take any trouble to match them to their holes.

And I kept wondering why he did not remove the cylinder until he started removing the lockwork. I usually take the cylinder out first thing, before I even remove the side plate.

Watched it for a few minutes, but then had to shut it off.
 
Last year some clown came in and posted his "how to" video for S&W revolvers.

While he was prying the side plate off he was ridiculing the frame strike method.
Click to expand...
I just had the displeasure of watching the first 3-4 minutes of the video from the link MrBorland provided. There are blissful people out there and then there are BLISSFUL people:rolleyes:
 
With help from my new AGI DVD, I disassembled and reassembled my newly acquired S&W 64-3. I was somewhat concerned that my instructor was NOT using hollow ground screwdrivers. I did make a tool for installing the rebound slide spring. I also took the precaution of sitting on a milk crate inside my bathtub for much of the reassembly procedure.

All in all I did not think it was all that difficult. Actually much more straightforward than say a Ruger single action revolver. ( how in the hell does that Ruger guy do that )

 
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Good on you.

And yes, S&W's design is far more straight forward and easy than either a classic Colt or a modern Ruger.

For reinstalling the rebound slide spring I use a Phillips head screwdriver. The flutes make it very easy to get the spring loop over the post.
 
I have read Mike Irwin’s responses through out this posting and being a person who completed the S&W Armors course three times ( told the dept. I needed a refresher to remain current and it satisfied State training requirements), his comments ( except for his levity :) are quite correct. There are specific surfaces that are not to be stoned yet most trigger jobs brought to me by officers with complaints had the entire interior stoned and polished. I kept a supply of spare parts and would replace all botched parts, short mainspring strain screws and chopped springs and reminded the officer that issued weapons are not to be modified, possibly rendering them dangerous.
Come to think of it his levity is right on also:D. .
 
Sadly, I don't own a S&W revolver that has not had a trigger job and/or springs swapped. They all have become more enjoyable for everyone to shoot and I personally shoot them far more accurately which is the purpose of owning a gun in the first place. I could say the same for my 3" Ruger SP101 which is an absolute joy to shoot. In fact the only bone stock revolver I currently own is a Kimber K6S which came with a magnificent trigger from the factory.

Never a problem with any of them unless the strain screw backed itself out. Locktite is your friend.
 
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