I have a S&W Model 28 with 6" barrel (Serial Number N518*** Mod 28-2) that I've been using for several years now. All I do with this gun is target shooting, Double Action, usually at 15 yards. Two years ago, I was shooting 5" groups. A year ago, that was down to 4". Eventually it got down to 3" groups most of the time, occasionally better or worse, depending on the phase of the moon I guess. My goal is 15 shots, DA, at 15 yards in a 2" group.

I know the sights have to be perfectly lined up in order to shoot accurately. I know that trigger pull is the biggest single cause of inaccuracy. What bothers me, is that it is so difficult keeping the sights in proper alignment as I pull/press the trigger.

When I pull on the trigger, the front end of the gun "wobbles" around, and what I try to do to compensate is get the sights in alignment when the shot is fired. I know that most of my problem is probably "me", not the gun, but I'm at a point where I find it very difficult to improve.

I started checking out the gun, to see if something needs to be changed, with the intent of posting it in this forum. The following was all performed in very slow motion, so I could watch the gun.

As I pull the trigger rearwards, it is impossible to do that in one smooth movement. It is constantly getting "easy", then "hard", then "easy", etc., and each time this happens, I can see the cylinder either rotate more quickly, or literally stop, then start moving again. Every time THAT happens, the front of the gun moves. I've been compensating for that, or at least trying to, for as long as I've owned the gun.

With help from the S&W book by Jerry Kuhnhausen, and a lot of wonderful people at the Highroad.org forum, I took out as many parts as I felt competent to work on, cleaned, and lubricated the gun, and put in a Wolff spring kit with the middle-strength coil spring. I also put in the Wolff mainspring. This made the gun better, but still not "perfect" (my opinion).

I took it to a fellow who does gunsmithing work at a local range, and he cleaned and lubricated it, but not much more. That didn't help any.


Anyway, on to my question. If the gun should be behaving the way I described, I'll stop thinking about the gun, and go back to work on dry-firing daily, and once or twice a week going to the range.

If what I described is abnormal, then I need to do something about it - either find a gunsmith to work on it, or see if S&W does that kind of work - which is why I'm posting here.

Or, I could forget all the above, and just buy a gun from the Performance Center - the one time I tried a gun like that, the trigger pull was smooth as molasses, no binding, no irregular trigger pull, just perfectly smooth. It even sounded better - I sense something different in the way my gun sounds as I dry fire with it, but anyone I've asked tells me it's perfectly fine. For that matter, the few people who I've asked to dry-fire the gun tell me it is perfectly normal. That just makes me think that this is what they're used to, and that maybe they've never tried a Performance Center gun.

If I were buying one today, which is not possible as I'm about to leave on a trip, it would be this gun:
http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/w...layErrorView_Y

Any advice would be welcome.

You have to realize that some of those 'perfect' trigger pulls are very particular on the ammo they will ignite, they require Federal primers. This may or may not be a problem for you.

There are so many small areas of refinement that will nicely add up to smoothing out a DA trigger pull, it a combined effort of parts that touch, and rub, and pass as well as freeing up the movement of the cylinder in rotation.

You can try the lightest return spring to see if that helps you a bit too. Wolff offers two mainsprings, one is the standard and one is the reduced power. The reduced power is a significant drop in pull weight where as the standard is a nice drop and a much better fell in my opinion overall.

Sometimes getting the feel of the process of first squeezing to begin rotation, then controlling to get to the 'stop and lock' of the cylinder then aiming to target then finishing the trigger pull to release and fire can be helpful. You mind concentrates a bit more on control then toward the end of the cycle you concentrate on point of aim to release if that makes sense.

Karl

In my experience hold and technique matter far more than trigger pull in DA shooting. Sounds silly but a firm hold with most of the pressure from the off hand will make the most difference. The revolver will move to a minuscule degree as the trigger is pulled with a proper hold. It avoids "fighting" the gun through the pull.

You need to concentrate on the front sight and use one smooth press of the trigger, all the through. Do not try to "stage" the action.

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I already figured out that my support hand should be doing most of the work, and supporting most of the weight of my gun and right arm. That made a huge difference. I'm not in any way attempting to "stage" the trigger, and am doing the best I can to make it one smooth pull, then follow-through, before allowing the trigger to move back. I randomly load either one or two rounds into the revolver, so four out of six will tell me if I ever start 'jerking' the trigger again.

On my M28, if the front sight is off by only 1/32" due to the "wobble", that all by itself will cause a 5" grouping. I'm already fighting my body's ability to keep the sights lined up perfectly, but it doesn't help when pulling the trigger also causes the gun to wobble around, and I don't know how to prevent that, as pulling the trigger slowly, with me watching the gun, allows me to see a wobble every time the trigger pull gets lighter or easier.

The best book I've yet found to teach "how" to do things, is "The Perfect Pistol shot". When those of you who have a good revolver pull the trigger, is it one smooth motion? Not what you do, but what the gun does... That's what this thread is trying to find out, what to do (if anything) to the gun.

Anyway, try to imagine yourself trying to open a car door smoothly, while someone inside the car is pushing and pulling on it.

Actually you are self defeating in your attempt to become a better/more accurate shooter. IMHO, the only solution is to find a really good shooting coach and get some personal coaching. You are repeating the same old mistakes each time you shoot. The Coach will stop you from doing that and will aid you in instilling the correct muscle memory and techniques that are are age-old in leading to the best shooting accuracy with a handgun. ................

A properly spec-ed S&W trigger will be smooth, linear and consistent through double action pull.

The "hard, easy, hard, easy" pull and staggered cylinder rotation suggest something is out of true; bent ejector rod, sprung yoke, chewed ratchet teeth are just a few things that come to mind.

I'd have a qualified S&W revolversmith or the factory inspect and return it to blueprint specs.

Big_Cholla, I do have a shooting coach, and she definitely helped me improve.

Hapworth, what you describe is exactly what I "feel" when dry firing.

I did measure the runout of the ejector rod, and people told me that was in spec. "Sprung yoke, chewed ratchet teeth" - I will look into that. THANKS!

I have been trying to find a good gunsmith in the Miami area, and the only ones that I got excellent recommendations for, no longer are working at it. Sending the gun back to S&W is a great idea - that's what I was thinking when I first came back to this website, before I thought of entering this discussion in the forum. I need to find out their turn-around time, and how much it costs.

You mentioned three things though, and I've only known to look at one of them. Before I do anything, I'll look into whether I can test those other two possibilities. I'll be happy if I can just find out WHAT is causing this - and if it's more than I can do, will definitely get it worked on by a qualified S&W revolversmith (or the factory).

I will check these out one at a time. To check for a sprung yoke, apparently this is what I need to buy:

http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-to...-655-2809.aspx

There is one for service revolvers, and one for match revolvers, and I assume if my need for this gun is just target shooting, i should get the 'match' rod. Yes?

(I don't see how a mis-aligned cylinder would cause the stop-go motion, but I can't see any harm in testing for it.)

Thanks!!

That tool is to determine proper indexing between the charge holes and the forcing cone; a match rod has tighter tolerances than a duty rod.

This is the tool from determining if the yoke's sprung: http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-to...l-prod654.aspx

If it is, you need a babbit bar and nylon wedge to correct; it's all laid out in Kuhnhausen.

This is what you mean?

I just checked again (did this last year) and while there is a slight movement, it's barely enough to see. I would need to set up a dial gauge, as I don't have anything thin enough to measure it right now. It moves about the thickness of a sheet of ordinary paper, if that.

Mine is off by a few thousandths - and the last time I actually managed to get a measurement, it was within spec.


I've got to do a lot more thinking about this gun. I called Sandburr Gun Ranch ( Sand Burr Gun Ranch ) and their suggestion was that while they can do all the work it might require, parts for this gun are getting difficult to find, and is it really a good idea to put hundreds of dollars into a repair, when I can buy a brand new one for not all that much more.

They do excellent work, and their prices are on their website. She explained that if I was just shooting it a little, that's one thing, but if I'm going through a lot of shots with it, dry-firing, practicing, and so on, I might end up with the gun off at a gunsmith just waiting for hard-to-find parts.

Mathematics:
shipping a gun via UPS: $100 or so.
return shipping, about the same.
Repair work, standard price - around 100 or so, plus or minus
Parts? $75????

I'm not saying this is the gun I would buy, but $800 to $1000 does get a brand new Classic Series S&W, such as this one:

Product: Model 27 - S&W Classics - 6 1/2" - Blue


One of these days, I'll meet someone at the range, we'll get to talking about my gun, he'll check it out, and say "oh yeah, you just need _____ replaced or smoothed out".

Thanks for all the advice, but I'm just going to use it as-is, and start looking for a newer replacement.

That is because UPS and FedEx require you to ship next day air. This is policy, not the law. They want minimum exposure to theft within their systems.

While you can't, an FFL can use the USPS and mail it to Sand Burr. Usually the actual postage (priority/registered/insured) plus whatever fee your FFL charges, will be significantly less than UPS or FedEx next day air.

HTH.

Adios,

Pizza Bob

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