I purchased several used Smith 686s in last couple of months (trying to beat the new ridiculous handgun registration law in Maryland going in to effect 10/1) to add to my collection.
The two latest were a 686-6 and a 686-5. The 686-6 looked virtually new but upon dissassembly I discovered what looked like very carefully done peening around the circumference of the end of the yoke. This gun had zero ( or almost zero endshake) and I figured the peening was done to accomplish this. I thought however that this was probably done by a pervious owner because I thought that the factory would probably use a swage tool to do this.
Next I started to dissassemble and clean the 686-5. This gun has near zero endshake and the end of the yoke looks like it got the identical treatment the 686-6 did.
See attached pics.
So I started wondering about some of the other L-frames I own. I looked at the yokes on 5 other 686 or 681s and two of them displayed a similar a similar method of lengthening.
Any stretched cranes I've ever seen on Ruger were done with a swage type tool.
Has anybody noticed the same thing? The three pics are the yoke from the 686-5. The fact that I found several other Smith yokes looking like this leads me to think this was done at the factory. The guns were all purchased at different times and places so it would be a great coincidence that this similar work was done by that many home gunsmiths (all the guns were purchased used and in great shape). What do you think?