December 12th of 1992 my father bought a new Smith 686-3 6 inch. The revolver was on dad's hip quite a bit around the property.
Unfortunately my father passed on Tuesday evening. Cancer is an insidious disease. Watching someone I care about slowly die is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to deal with.
My mother gave me dad's revolver last evening. Still had the box, paperwork, and the receipt. Dad had kept it pretty clean but I don't think he'd done anything to it since the last time he'd fired it. I gave it a good once over last evening with a cloth and bore snake. I noticed the cylinder was dragging when I had it open. Honestly with all the lead rounds we ran through it in my "punk teenager" days, I'm not surprised.
Being that I couldn't sleep well this morning, I decided to brake it down and give it a proper cleaning. I'm pretty sure the side plate hadn't been off since the factory. I removed the crane and cylinder. I removed a decent amount of grime and oiled everything up nicely. The cylinder spins smoothly now, like it should. I remembered that I had a Wolff spring kit in the parts stash. It's now equipped with a "Power Rib" reduced power mainspring and a 14lb rebound. Everything looked really good on the inside. Surprisingly lacking in grime, and the side plate was very tight. All back together now. I'll probably Murphys and lemon oil the factory Targets this weekend. I've got to go to the funeral home later this morning.
I'll take and add some pictures this evening when there's better light and I've got more time.
ETA - quick pic added.
