Loose Floating hammer firing pin on my 19-3

jschenck

jschenck

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I have no experience with these classics. This is the first one I've handled and I bought it!

Is this amount of movement typical/normal?

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P40h54F3xY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P40h54F3xY[/ame]
 
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I think you mean the firing pin, not the hammer spur. :rolleyes:

Yes, most wiggle some. But I've had others that were more solid, I guess via a heavy pressure firing pin bushing and spring. Those feel more spring loaded and you have to wiggle them more to see movement. I think it depends on how the factory was making them at the time.

The one in the video is pretty typical.
 
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Springs being there is very hit and miss. Even in the same model. I would not give it another thought. Shoot and enjoy.
 
All of my S&W revolvers with the firing pin on the hammer wiggle like in the OP's video except for my 188? vintage 4th Model in 32 S&W which is fixed.

Good job on the video!

God bless,
Birdgun
 
thanks for the info guys - I fixed the title of this thread. Late night posting = bad wording !
 
All of my carbon steel K frame guns are like yours, but the same style stainless model 66 has a hammer nose that has a small spring behind it. This keeps forward pressure on the hammer nose. For some reason the factory seems to have added this to their stainless revolvers.
 
Some have springs and some do not! The function is not affected in the least and some of mine wiggle even more than the op's does but all go Bang every single time! As many have already said go shoot it and no bother to worry about it at all.
 
jschenck said:
thanks for the info guys - I fixed the title of this thread.
Click to expand...
Since you are new to S&W revolvers - at least to older examples - allow me to clarify something for you.

Your Combat Magnum does not have a "floating . . . firing pin." That term belongs to rimfire and much later centerfire revolvers. It describes a firing pin mounted in the frame, as opposed to one mounted on the hammer.

The firing pin mechanism on your revolver is referred to as the "hammer nose" and it pivots on a hollow rivet. The reason for the pivot is so the firing pin can follow the channel through the recoil shield to the cartridge primer when the hammer falls. Visualize the trajectory of the hammer falling and notice that as the hammer falls, it is not moving in the direction the firing pin must follow as it travels through the bushing on the recoil shield. It has to change direction slightly, so it must pivot on the hammer body. Until the mid-1990s, all S&W centerfire hand ejector revolvers used this system. After that, they migrated to floating firing pins.
 
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Great analysis. The hammer fall is a radial action and the firing pin has to transfer to linear at the recoil plate.


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Makes perfect sense - radial vs. linear movement. So, terminology is what I clearly am struggling with a bit here and I sure do appreciate the lesson on what the proper name for these components is. So, to be clear - my 686 has a firing pin which gets it's energy from the falling flat faced hammer. My 19 has a floating attached hammer nose relative to the hammer body to allow for the slight deviation of movement as the hammer finishes its travel in the recoil shield.

What I find interesting is to the casual observer my two 4" mid-frame S&W 357's are nearly identical!

I am enjoying learning the difference - The recessed cylinder is part of what make the 19 really enjoyable!



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Mike said:
I believe the N-frames had springs behind the floating firing pins and the K's did not. Wiggle doesn't hurt a thing.
Click to expand...

I always liked a little wiggle in my wimmen and my Smith hammer mounted firing pins! FUnny story I'll tell on myself. When I got my very first revolver (a 67) I noticed the wiggle and immediately ran off to a friend's father's house in a panic as I thought I had done something to break it (was too afraid to tell dad). To his credit-he never laughed, nor did he tell my dad!!
 
No, the wiggle does not hurt a thing. As others said, you should have some wiggle. In my experience also, N-frame hammer noses are spring loaded but K frames are not. To wit, my 27-2 is sprung but my 19-4 is not. I would like someone to explain why.

Having said that, if your hammer nose has too much wiggle due to wear or some other condition, the nose may arc too high and hang up on the frame upon attempting to fire. This results in a light primer strike or possibly no primer strike, either way, failure to fire. Think this is rare - I saw it once.
 
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