scooter123
Member
The impetus of the trip down to Cabela's in Dundee, Michigan was a listing for one of my Grail Guns, a 686-5 Mountain Gun for just 529.00. Truth is I just don't like full lug barrels and that has kept me from getting a 686. BTW, I believe that 529.00 for a 686 MG was a mistake on Cabela's part, they should have been asking more for it. From the pics posted of the gun it's was a very lightly used sample, although the complete lack of a turn ring and the appearance of a cylinder that had been sanded leads me to believe that had been cleaned up by someone. No matter, by the time I arrived it had been sold.
A small bit of compensation for the disappointment was that this did have a couple of Dan Wesson 15-2's in the showcase. One, a 4 inch light profile with an unfortunate amount of rust. Granted, it was listed at just 329.00 but it was really really Ugly, it looked like it had been stored on a boat in Florida. The second sample was a much cleaner 90% or so 6 inch wearing a light profile barrel shroud, the exact version I lusted for but never could afford when I was in college in the 70's. So, that one came home with me for 400 dollars.
Cleaned it up and took it out for an initial tryout and sighting in. As expected it was exceptionally accurate, off a hard bench I was getting cloverleafs at 50 feet. The downside was that once I had it sighted in to my satisfaction I found that in had a misfire rate in Double Action of about 30% with CCI 500 primers and 50% with CCI 550 Magnum primers. I suspect that a previous owner had cut a few coils off the mainspring so I have a small parts kit coming from Numrich's.
Good news is that it's a real powder puff to shoot, even with near maximum 357 Magnums. More good news is that my 140 grain 357 Magnums shoot very close to the POI for my 125 grain 38 special loads. It is also a distinctly easy revolver to detail strip with the exception of compressing the Mainspring in it's pocket, that requires a vice and a small tool I'll make at work one day this week. I also tested the timing and it times a bit early on every single cylinder position, so it was well timed from the factory or some point in it's past.
Trigger Quality in single action is as good as a S&W revolver, meaning it's creep free with a break of a bit more than 3 lbs. The Double Action trigger stacks quite a bit but it is very smooth. The stacking is predictable enough that it should be pretty easy to stage the trigger for those wedded to this bad habit and the trigger is smooth enough that a good rapid pull will allow you to blow by that stacking point without much notice. However, with that stacking in effort I do not believe that it's possible to get a reliable trigger below about 10 lbs. peak effort. However, that peak effort point is just before the break and most of the trigger stroke has a weight in the 8-9 lbs. range so a good steady DA trigger stroke could lead one to believe the trigger is lighter than it really is.
Now, internet gospel has it that Dan Wesson tried to convince Bangor Punta to produce this revolver as a Smith & Wesson and when he was turned down he went out on his own. History is starting to show that Dan Wesson may have been right if that internet gospel is true. Because S&W has been slowly going to Tensioned Barrels. In addition with the introduction of the model 66 and 69 they've also started to incorporate a Yoke Lock. One of these days they may also change the direction of rotation of the cylinder, because there really is a minor advantage to doing that. However, I do hope that S&W continues to retain it's leaf type mainspring because no matter what you do, coil springs to tend to produce a lot of stacking in the trigger.
PS; I mentioned that I do not own a 686 because I don't like full lug barrels. However, I do own a 357 Magnum L frame, in my case it's a model 620 which features a semi lugged barrel profile in addition to a Tensioned Barrel.
A small bit of compensation for the disappointment was that this did have a couple of Dan Wesson 15-2's in the showcase. One, a 4 inch light profile with an unfortunate amount of rust. Granted, it was listed at just 329.00 but it was really really Ugly, it looked like it had been stored on a boat in Florida. The second sample was a much cleaner 90% or so 6 inch wearing a light profile barrel shroud, the exact version I lusted for but never could afford when I was in college in the 70's. So, that one came home with me for 400 dollars.
Cleaned it up and took it out for an initial tryout and sighting in. As expected it was exceptionally accurate, off a hard bench I was getting cloverleafs at 50 feet. The downside was that once I had it sighted in to my satisfaction I found that in had a misfire rate in Double Action of about 30% with CCI 500 primers and 50% with CCI 550 Magnum primers. I suspect that a previous owner had cut a few coils off the mainspring so I have a small parts kit coming from Numrich's.
Good news is that it's a real powder puff to shoot, even with near maximum 357 Magnums. More good news is that my 140 grain 357 Magnums shoot very close to the POI for my 125 grain 38 special loads. It is also a distinctly easy revolver to detail strip with the exception of compressing the Mainspring in it's pocket, that requires a vice and a small tool I'll make at work one day this week. I also tested the timing and it times a bit early on every single cylinder position, so it was well timed from the factory or some point in it's past.
Trigger Quality in single action is as good as a S&W revolver, meaning it's creep free with a break of a bit more than 3 lbs. The Double Action trigger stacks quite a bit but it is very smooth. The stacking is predictable enough that it should be pretty easy to stage the trigger for those wedded to this bad habit and the trigger is smooth enough that a good rapid pull will allow you to blow by that stacking point without much notice. However, with that stacking in effort I do not believe that it's possible to get a reliable trigger below about 10 lbs. peak effort. However, that peak effort point is just before the break and most of the trigger stroke has a weight in the 8-9 lbs. range so a good steady DA trigger stroke could lead one to believe the trigger is lighter than it really is.
Now, internet gospel has it that Dan Wesson tried to convince Bangor Punta to produce this revolver as a Smith & Wesson and when he was turned down he went out on his own. History is starting to show that Dan Wesson may have been right if that internet gospel is true. Because S&W has been slowly going to Tensioned Barrels. In addition with the introduction of the model 66 and 69 they've also started to incorporate a Yoke Lock. One of these days they may also change the direction of rotation of the cylinder, because there really is a minor advantage to doing that. However, I do hope that S&W continues to retain it's leaf type mainspring because no matter what you do, coil springs to tend to produce a lot of stacking in the trigger.
PS; I mentioned that I do not own a 686 because I don't like full lug barrels. However, I do own a 357 Magnum L frame, in my case it's a model 620 which features a semi lugged barrel profile in addition to a Tensioned Barrel.
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