I'm working on an "S" serial numbered M&P in .38 Special made around 1948. At minimum, it need a new hand, since it has slow timing, but the question I wanted to pose is if anyone is familiar with the way the hand is spring loaded in this particular revolver?
Instead of using a torsion spring to load the hand, it uses a coil spring housed in a pocket in the finger portion of the trigger which contacts a hand lever that's pinned to the trigger. The other end of the hand lever engages the loading pin on the hand. The portion of the hand lever that engages the spring in the trigger has a nipple that goes inside the spring's end.
My question is that you can hear the nipple on the hand lever engage and slip off the first coil of the spring as you pull the trigger. Prior to disassembling the revolver, you could feel this as well as hear this. After cleaning these internal parts, and trying to remove a very slight bend in the spring, you can no longer feel it, but you certainly can hear it.
Does anyone have experience with this type of hand loading design, and is the noise typical operation?