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I would never call myself an actual "gunsmith", but sometimes it is nice to have some basic knowledge and parts lying around.
Sometime back I bought a couple of old police trade-in S&W Model 10-5 revolvers, made in the '70s and re-imported from Europe after decades of use. They were cheap and not pretty. The one is great mechanically, but the second one has has a couple of minor issues pop up.
Barrels look perfect, timing is excellent, cylinder gap on both is well withing acceptable limits. There was minor end-shake that I easily tightened up with some endshake bearings. Then I noticed that the second revolver would occasionally misfire. I found that the problem was a worn/bent mainspring. I probably could have just re-bent it, but instead bought a pack of 12 new/old stock GI mainsprings off of eBay, came to less than $3 per spring and now I have lots of spares. Easy fix.
Yesterday my son and I were shooting it and I noticed a little hitch in the action. I had noticed it before but it happened infrequently so I hadn't taken the time to really diagnose the problem. It would occasionally catch and stop when cocking or firing double action. Taking the time to look closely, I could see that the cylinder stop was popping up way to soon and stopping the cylinder before it could index. I took it apart and, as expected, found a weak and bent stop spring. I had a couple of those in my little box of parts too! Easy fix, and now it's back to working like a new one.
There's a lot I don't know, and I don't claim to be any kind of expert, but it is fun to be able to make things work properly once in a while.
Sometime back I bought a couple of old police trade-in S&W Model 10-5 revolvers, made in the '70s and re-imported from Europe after decades of use. They were cheap and not pretty. The one is great mechanically, but the second one has has a couple of minor issues pop up.
Barrels look perfect, timing is excellent, cylinder gap on both is well withing acceptable limits. There was minor end-shake that I easily tightened up with some endshake bearings. Then I noticed that the second revolver would occasionally misfire. I found that the problem was a worn/bent mainspring. I probably could have just re-bent it, but instead bought a pack of 12 new/old stock GI mainsprings off of eBay, came to less than $3 per spring and now I have lots of spares. Easy fix.
Yesterday my son and I were shooting it and I noticed a little hitch in the action. I had noticed it before but it happened infrequently so I hadn't taken the time to really diagnose the problem. It would occasionally catch and stop when cocking or firing double action. Taking the time to look closely, I could see that the cylinder stop was popping up way to soon and stopping the cylinder before it could index. I took it apart and, as expected, found a weak and bent stop spring. I had a couple of those in my little box of parts too! Easy fix, and now it's back to working like a new one.
There's a lot I don't know, and I don't claim to be any kind of expert, but it is fun to be able to make things work properly once in a while.