Early Carry Up On .38/44

[semperfi71]

I will begin at the beginning.

Pistol is a "transitional" .38/44 circa 1946ish.

Original hammer was filed at the thumb serrations and looked bad. Bought what looked exactly like the correct replacement.

Had my gunsmith swap out the hammers.

He said the new hammer was not correct and he had to do some matal removal to make it fit. What he actually did I do not know.

Now I have three issues.

1. Now the cylinder locks ups well before the hammer falls. When it locks up it actually seems to "throw" the cylinder into lockup versus a smooth transition. I mean it kinda goes "clunk" and locks up and then there is a definite delay as the hammer continues to rear back before it locks up in S/A or D/A.

2. Also, there is resistance in the initial trigger pull before the action begins to work towards lockup. If a stouter mainspring is installed it is sometimes almost impossible to pull the trigger.

3. Tonight I pulled the sideplate and put small amounts of Break-Free inside the action parts to see if that would solve the "resistance" issue above. However, when I reassembled the lockplate the trigger return would lock up, i.e, the trigger would not return to battery. I found out that by loosening the sideplate screw that sits behind the triggerguard and above the trigger rebound mechanism would free the trigger return situation. I cleaned out all of the Break Free and that seemed to help but I still have to loosen that one sideplate screw. I think this is wrong as well. A formerly tight side plate screw now has to be loosened to allow the trigger return to work.

Taking it back to the gunsmith is out of the question. His response was, "That's about the best that can be done." Plus I watched him remove a sideplate from another S & W by prying it off with a screw driver. Hence he will no longer work on my S & Ws.

I have Jerry K's book, no help as to my specific issue.

Any suggestions appreciated.

 

[DCWilson]

I hate to hear gunsmith stories like that one.

Does the action cycle properly when the sideplate is completely off the revolver?

Is there any evidence of rubbing or friction on the inside of the sideplate at hammer, trigger or cylinder stop stud, or next to the trigger rebound slide?

Have any shims been placed under the hammer, trigger, or cylinder stop assemblies? You'd have to pull these units to see.

Did the replacement trigger come with its own hand, or did the guy who tinkered with the gun move the hand from the old hammer to the new one?

Can you post a picture of the old hammer and new hammer side by side? And a picture of the gun's action with the side plate off?

It sounds to me as though the side plate is pinching some of the lockwork, but I am not sure where. If there is a loose crumb of steel or hard debris in there, that might be holding a component of the action too far away from the frame on the left side, forcing the side plate into a binding condition.

I think what I would try is to disassemble the action completely, give the inner surfaces a good toothbrush and toothpick cleaning, then put it back together and see if the binding problem still exists. If you haven't done that before, disassemble inside a shoe box or large zip-lock bag so pmall pieces don't go flying.

Transitonal HDs are great guns, and I'm sorry to hear you are having problems with this one. Please keep us posted.

 

[semperfi71]

Howdy DCWilson and thanks,

Functioning "challenges" are the same with the sideplate off, except the screw-affecting-the-trigger return syndrome. And I could not visually see anything that seemed to affect the other issues.

I do need, and have told me to do this, and pull out the old hammer and do a side-by-side inspection.

Yes, the old hammer parts were used to fit the new hammer. I think this is where the gunsmith said, "I had to remove some metal."

I did use a cleaner to remove all oil/muck and dried it out with air. It helped the trigger return but not completely. I will strip the innards down and thoroughly clean it. And I will look for shims.

It does appear that there is friction occurring between the sideplate and the trigger return mechanism. I was afraid to polish and remove metal on the sideplate because it appears that this is a recent issue. I'm thinking a good cleaning and re-assembly is in order first.

I have Mr Kuhnhausens' [sp.] book and will tackle minor revolver issues but I learned a long time ago to pay the pros to do the job.

My gunsmith is a good guy and does great work, but I have consistently through the years found that several "good 'smiths" are very good...except when it comes to working on S & W revolvers. And I hear its worse for Colts.

I am suspecting that I may not find a good 'smith here in my town and may have to send it off to the Ford fella in Arizona. It appears he may be good.

 

[valkyriekl]

I've seen this on my S&W 629--what happened was the double-action sear (the spring-loaded lever on the hammer) was worn down to the point where it would not let the trigger engage the second sear (bottom of the hammer near the rebound slide) with a smooth transition. The solution was to replace the double-action sear.

If there's a way to swap sears from the old hammer to the new one, I'd bet that would reduce the tendency of the hammer to 'throw' the cylinder into lockup.

 

[semperfi71]

Thanks valkyriekl, I'll look at that.