Issues with a 38 safety hammerless

[mmaher94087]

It appears that you now have all the parts to revive your revolver. Your grip safety lever does appear broken. The parts kit included the hinge pin and screw. Also, you may have lucked out and have a good split-spring in the kit. The split-spring is the Achilles heel of the Safety Hammerless revolvers. Good show!

Soak those pesky pins longer. They've been there for 90+ years. What's another month? The cupped starter punches from Brownell's will not mushroom the pins. Flat face punches will mushroom the pins making them more difficult to remove. I recommend supporting the frame to keep it from moving when striking the pins. A big one-pound hammer and a healthy whack will help. The key is to support the frame so as it does not move and strike the punch perpendicular to the pin. My favorite support is a 25# bag of 7 1/2 lead shot.

 

[9245]

It appears that you now have all the parts to revive your revolver. Your grip safety lever does appear broken. The parts kit included the hinge pin and screw. Also, you may have lucked out and have a good split-spring in the kit. The split-spring is the Achilles heel of the Safety Hammerless revolvers. Good show!

Soak those pesky pins longer. They've been there for 90+ years. What's another month? The cupped starter punches from Brownell's will not mushroom the pins. Flat face punches will mushroom the pins making them more difficult to remove. I recommend supporting the frame to keep it from moving when striking the pins. A big one-pound hammer and a healthy whack will help. The key is to support the frame so as it does not move and strike the punch perpendicular to the pin. My favorite support is a 25# bag of 7 1/2 lead shot.

The brownells punches are very expensive and a full set will be more than I paid for the entire revolver! What specific sizes are used in this one? That way I can just order what I need.

Also, I found a set of generic cupped punches, 1/16”, 5/64”, 3/32”, and 1/8”, would those work? It’s only like $10 for the while set.

 

[9245]

I was able to cheat by using a nail set and a nail and got the pins out, however now the firing pin bushing appears to be stuck. Am I missing something? How else do I remove it? I thought I just had to push out that pin and it would just drop out, but it did not budge, how else do I get it out? I also removed the other pin above that and still nothing.

 

[9245]

No one? How do I get that bushing out?

 

[9245]

OK, I managed to figure it out, I got ahold of a Kindle copy of “Antique Firearms Assembly/Disassembly” by David Chicoine and finally got detail strip instructions (although it is not illustrated and doesn’t go in to as much detail as I would like) and was able to learn that the bushing does not just fall free it has to be pushed out from the rear, I had to pull the mainspring, move the hammer back, and use a sacrificial 3/32 inch punch to pound on the back of the firing pin to push the bushing out since there is no actual way to get to the bushing itself from the rear as it is in a blind hole. I say sacrificial punch because there was just no way to get a punch in there without bending the heck out of it so I just used a pot metal “Pittsburg” brand punch from Harbor Freight and just pounded until it was free, the punch got bent to **** but the job got done.



You can see how badly it bent my punch. For contrast I have the new replacement spring next to the old broken spring to emphasize just how badly damaged it was.

 

[9245]

I replaced the firing pin spring, and the firing pin now works as it should, however the trigger still does not reset, suggestions?

 

[9245]

Fixed it. It was a bad mainspring. It now functions exactly as intended. Next up will be putting the pins back and taking the grip safety apart to find out what is wrong with it. I suspect a bad split spring and/or corrosion, I have also discovered that the grip safety itself has a tab broken off of it and will have to be replaced. I have a temporary replacement on hand but that one was replated by a moron who polished off most of the knurling on it, it looks awful but should function well enough until I can get a non over polished replacement.