Guess that’s his way of saying thank you for your time, and such an informative post .
So, you've got the annoying trigger 'click', Now what!
- Thread starter BMCM
- Start date
Guess that’s his way of saying thank you for your time, and such an informative post .
Since you bring it up again-
Nope, it was pretty much my way of saying it would've been nice to mention up front what he was talking about.
Never had much involvement with Third Gen Smiths, beyond my 4516, and that was only for a couple years, after which I permanently retired it for the reasons stated above.
I was never a fan of that safety or those pistols, and had no clue what a "big 10" was, never having heard the term before.
I never got into the pistol much, and it's been so long I can't even recall what's in there.
Did not know about that spring, did not know what model he was referring to, had no idea it applied to ALL of the DA pistols, apparently.
For the benefit of others like me who may not be intimately familiar with the guts on a Third Gen, woulda simply been helpful if the thread title had reflected what he was going to cover ("Trigger Click In Third Gen Pistols"), and/or something to that effect in the opening paragraph.
When you do a tutorial, it helps to state clearly up front where it applies.
I had no clue in his post that the specific model was "not remotely relevant", again it would have been nice to include that starting out.
No sarcasm was needed in his response to my post.
I don't, as it happens, recall if my gun ever developed that click, but I was familiar enough with the pistol to notice if it developed functional problems.
Sounds like, though, even if the spring did break, it would have been a minor functional issue.
Still, I would assume I'd have noticed it.
I did actually learn something from this thread, but quite frankly I learned more about the issue from posters who followed than I did from the original post.
Once people explained what was being discussed, and provided more detail, I decided to pick up a couple springs & rivets while they're available. Learning that the spring is apparently a weak spot in the design was helpful.
I will probably also acquire a couple mags, firing pins, and extractors now that my long-forgotten back-of-the-vault 4516 has been brought to mind.
For starting the discussion, I do thank BMCM.
For more fully explaining what he did not, I thank everybody else.
For not being intimately familiar with Third Gen Smiths, I do not apologize, and for not previously knowing what a "big 10" was, ditto.
On tutorials it's beneficial to not assume everybody looking in knows the jargon involved with a special-interest field, and to allow for those who don't in the presentation.
Sometimes, as here, people happening to see a thread like this may not be as knowledgeable or as dedicated to the intricacies of the subject at hand as a core group is, but something about the thread may (also as here) end up being useful once other posters sort out what's going on.
Simpler up front if the subject matter is more clearly defined at the start.
Denis
Nope, it was pretty much my way of saying it would've been nice to mention up front what he was talking about.
Never had much involvement with Third Gen Smiths, beyond my 4516, and that was only for a couple years, after which I permanently retired it for the reasons stated above.
I was never a fan of that safety or those pistols, and had no clue what a "big 10" was, never having heard the term before.
I never got into the pistol much, and it's been so long I can't even recall what's in there.
Did not know about that spring, did not know what model he was referring to, had no idea it applied to ALL of the DA pistols, apparently.
For the benefit of others like me who may not be intimately familiar with the guts on a Third Gen, woulda simply been helpful if the thread title had reflected what he was going to cover ("Trigger Click In Third Gen Pistols"), and/or something to that effect in the opening paragraph.
When you do a tutorial, it helps to state clearly up front where it applies.
I had no clue in his post that the specific model was "not remotely relevant", again it would have been nice to include that starting out.
No sarcasm was needed in his response to my post.
I don't, as it happens, recall if my gun ever developed that click, but I was familiar enough with the pistol to notice if it developed functional problems.
Sounds like, though, even if the spring did break, it would have been a minor functional issue.
Still, I would assume I'd have noticed it.
I did actually learn something from this thread, but quite frankly I learned more about the issue from posters who followed than I did from the original post.
Once people explained what was being discussed, and provided more detail, I decided to pick up a couple springs & rivets while they're available. Learning that the spring is apparently a weak spot in the design was helpful.
I will probably also acquire a couple mags, firing pins, and extractors now that my long-forgotten back-of-the-vault 4516 has been brought to mind.
For starting the discussion, I do thank BMCM.
For more fully explaining what he did not, I thank everybody else.
For not being intimately familiar with Third Gen Smiths, I do not apologize, and for not previously knowing what a "big 10" was, ditto.
On tutorials it's beneficial to not assume everybody looking in knows the jargon involved with a special-interest field, and to allow for those who don't in the presentation.
Sometimes, as here, people happening to see a thread like this may not be as knowledgeable or as dedicated to the intricacies of the subject at hand as a core group is, but something about the thread may (also as here) end up being useful once other posters sort out what's going on.
Simpler up front if the subject matter is more clearly defined at the start.
Denis
Fastbolt
Member
Also email back from S&W saying they no longer sell those mags, but they would be very happy to sell me some muffs at 20% off.
Denis
Yep, those itty bitty rivets are itty bitty. I used to order twice as many rivets as springs, because they could become damaged or suddenly lost in the blink of any eye.
You might check out some other parts vendors to see if you can find some 7rd .45 3rd gen mags.
I usually try to keep some extra black .45 followers and mag springs in my parts drawers. The top raised bump and the slide stop lever extension window cut can get worn over time if you use the mags at the range a lot.
Midway often seems to get a supply of the factory mag springs and followers.
Thanks.
It wouldn't hurt to have some spare parts for the next owner to keep the thing running.
I've put the pistol in rotation for parts searches.
Need to start bugging my gunsmith again to dig out the Colt V-Spring parts he claims to have buried somewhere.
I SHOULD be more aggressive in my parts program, before EVERYTHING dries up.
The plastic Smiths I bought to carry I don't consider worth passing on, but steel classics from Smith, Colt, and Ruger I want successive generations to be able to still fire, if they want to.
Denis
It wouldn't hurt to have some spare parts for the next owner to keep the thing running.
I've put the pistol in rotation for parts searches.
Need to start bugging my gunsmith again to dig out the Colt V-Spring parts he claims to have buried somewhere.
I SHOULD be more aggressive in my parts program, before EVERYTHING dries up.
The plastic Smiths I bought to carry I don't consider worth passing on, but steel classics from Smith, Colt, and Ruger I want successive generations to be able to still fire, if they want to.
Denis
Fastbolt
Member
Thanks.
It wouldn't hurt to have some spare parts for the next owner to keep the thing running.
I've put the pistol in rotation for parts searches.
Need to start bugging my gunsmith again to dig out the Colt V-Spring parts he claims to have buried somewhere.
I SHOULD be more aggressive in my parts program, before EVERYTHING dries up.
The plastic Smiths I bought to carry I don't consider worth passing on, but steel classics from Smith, Colt, and Ruger I want successive generations to be able to still fire, if they want to.
Denis
Yeah, sometimes it seems as though collecting parts over the years might only result in someone else having to eventually figure out what to do with them.
Example ...
A good friend of mine passed recently. Longtime head armorer for my former agency, and the man who helped me become interested in learning to become an armorer for assorted long and short guns. He built many a fine PPC revolver, 1911, Browning HP, etc. One of the remaining guys who could properly repair and fine tune a Python in our general area (he used a Python in his older PPC days, but preferred to build "new" PPC guns on K-frames).
Just before he passed (while in the hospital, in hospice care), he told me to make sure to go and take whatever parts and tools I wanted from his shop. I ended up offering to share some of the stuff with a couple other longtime friend and another former armorer (we attended our first armorer class together), but in the end I took home a substantial number of plastic bags of S&W revolver and pistol parts. (I gave the Colt Python parts to one of the other guys, as I don't own one and was never trained to service/repair them.)
I seriously doubt I'll ever have reason to use even a small number of the older revolvers parts, but now that they're part of my assorted bins, boxes and drawers of spare parts ... and having seen my longtime friend in that hospital bed ... and helping his widow clean out his tools and parts, and organize the guns he wanted sold through an estate agent ... it's made me consider that I don't want to put my wife or children through the same thing.
It's made me wonder at what point I'm going to decide it's time to release the collection of parts I've accumulated, back into the wild.
Then again, this is how a goodly number of parts for older firearms end up in the display cases and stock of estate agents who sell gun parts and older guns, isn't it?
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The entire issue of passing guns & related items down to somebody else is not a simple one.
My "kids" won't have a clue, they're not "steel" people.
Plastic for them, when they buy.
The ideal plan, which may or may not actually work, is a mix of educating the guys about what I have, why they're important, and what parts I have for them, combined with finding others who may appreciate a few of them.
And/or outright selling to get them into the right hands.
The hope is that there WILL be "the right hands" out there somewhere who'll understand the guns.
I can maintain that hope based on the continuing collector interest for vintage guns now, although I do have some concerns over the dwindling number of shooters in general as society weakens.
Denis
My "kids" won't have a clue, they're not "steel" people.
Plastic for them, when they buy.
The ideal plan, which may or may not actually work, is a mix of educating the guys about what I have, why they're important, and what parts I have for them, combined with finding others who may appreciate a few of them.
And/or outright selling to get them into the right hands.
The hope is that there WILL be "the right hands" out there somewhere who'll understand the guns.
I can maintain that hope based on the continuing collector interest for vintage guns now, although I do have some concerns over the dwindling number of shooters in general as society weakens.
Denis
Fastbolt
Member
Yeah, I've considered starting to keep touch with some guys who might have an interest, and who are at least 20 years younger than me.
My friend was only 11 years my senior, but he was suffering in the end stages of COPD. Another longtime and retired LE friend of his (and mine) is in his 80's and still going pretty strong. He's also a retired firearms trainer and armorer, but was best known as an outstandingly successful homicide & major crimes detective for many years. Those guys used to have a regular "range date" on Fridays as one, and then the other, retired. The couple of guys who eventually took over as the head instructor/rangemaster always made it a point to somehow schedule some Friday afternoon time for them to enjoy the LE range to themselves.
One thing I was able to share with another longtime friend was a privately made CD created many years ago by the former instructor/armorer who recently passed. In it he detailed methods for working on and improving the venerable 1911. He even made some nifty special tools for doing some of the work (he was formerly a machinist before he entered LE). He used to tell me that a lot of the tips and tricks he'd learned over the years he'd learned from Bob Chow, himself.
I was pleased to see that some of the guns handled by the estate FFL were finding good homes with people who apparently appreciated the disappearing 3rd gen guns. Of course, a few of us who were longtime friends, peers and "students" of his were notified of his desire that we select some of his prized guns, and the transfers were handled by the estate agent FFL.
While there were many guns from which to choose, the one that meant the most to me was a pristine M65 3" that he'd made when he went back to the S&W factory for his revolver armorer class. He said when asked to select a revolver to use as his student gun, he'd picked the 3" 65. They gave him a frame w/barrel and a yoke (ground and polished to that frame), and he selected all of the other parts from which to build a completed revolver, which he bought at the end of the class. (The factory box is marked as a"Special", BTW.)
We'd often discussed our shared appreciation of revolvers (even if I enjoyed occasionally bugging him by owning Ruger Security/Service/Speed-Sixes
), and the older revolver days of LE. One of my regrets is not having taken advantage of an offer from him several years ago, when he offered to make me an old-style PPC gun if I bought some used & abused K-frame for him to use as the basis. He had a hobby of turning out some beautiful PPC guns, and was our go-to guy for fine-tuning older Colt and S&W wheelies (before he finally told me to take care of such mundane S&W revolver armorer chores once I'd gotten a revolver certificate, to put to use all those hours standing at his elbow, at his bench, learning my way around the inside of a S&W revolver. He always thought more of my abilities than I did, though.So, yes, getting back almost on-topic, I hope I'm able to arrange to pass on some parts, books, notes and such to some other folks once I reach the point where I'm eventually forced to grudgingly accept that my shooting and armorer days really are behind me. My hope, of course, if that that time won't occur for another 20 years, as I'd like to be able to remain competent and handy at it throughout at least my middle 80's.
My condolences on the loss of your friend FastBolt.
I hope you have at least another 30 years of shooting and enjoying guns FastBolt!
I learn something new everytime you post. Yes, I think you writing a book is an EXCELLENT idea! Best regards, 18DAI
I hope you have at least another 30 years of shooting and enjoying guns FastBolt!
I learn something new everytime you post. Yes, I think you writing a book is an EXCELLENT idea!
Best regards, 18DAI
Fastbolt
Member
My condolences on the loss of your friend FastBolt.
I hope you have at least another 30 years of shooting and enjoying guns FastBolt!
I learn something new everytime you post. Yes, I think you writing a book is an EXCELLENT idea!
Thanks. Same gentleman I mentioned over in the other forum, within the last couple of months. I still think of him almost everyday, though, especially when I'm at (or pass) my bench.
While I appreciate your enthusiasm for writing a book about gun maintenance and repair, it's really something that ought to be written by someone who is an actual gunsmith, and not just some factory-trained armorer/cobbler.
Besides, my writing projects are more involved in addressing my martial arts experience and a bit of firearms training experiences. Believe it or not, just yesterday I got the sudden urge to write 4 more pages of poetry involving some aspects of my arts. I haven't done that since the late 90's, I think. (Some things are best approached and addressed in verse, rather than narrative text. Probably wouldn't work quite as well for firearms training & maintenance, though.
)I've got some 1400-odd pages of assorted stuff on those 2 topics I wrote and put away toward the end of the 90's. The only exposure they've seen was when a friend coaxed me into letting him publish them in some group newsletter he self-published back then. One of those New Age journals, so it's not like it would've likely been seen by anyone here.
I remember when I sometimes helped him at his vendor booth at some Expo's and conferences, and he asked about my martial arts background. he was a bit uncomfortable with how easily someone could train to create violence ... but at least he stopped wincing when he suddenly hugged me and felt my belt gun. I used to ask me why I'd ever feel the need to carry a weapon at a New Age type expo, to which I'd ask if he'd ever taken a close look around at the assorted people who actually appeared and walked around at them?
I obviously share your hope of another 30 years, but then I also remember hearing my oncologist tell me that it was her job to try and give me another 25-30 years of a good life ... except that was 8 years ago.
Time flies. I'm really starting to feel my age when I run headlong into an example of how the flexibility in my legs is diminished from my grasshopper days of 40 years ago. Damn, right?
Jeppo
Member
Also email back from S&W saying they no longer sell those mags, but they would be very happy to sell me some muffs at 20% off.
Denis
Are those 9mm muffs?
I hope that I don't get flamed for this...but if you finely polish the V-notch in the draw bar and slightly round and polish the sharp engagement surface on the trigger you will NOT need a new draw bar spring to eliminate the "click"..the trigger engagement will smoothly slide right down into the V-notch..However this is more difficult than just replacing the spring...
Jeppo
Member
I’m doing my level best to absorb the bountiful technical knowledge available on this forum. However, sometimes that absorption is at odds with the “Oldtimers” that afflicted my ancestors. I read all the posts on this thread and even made a comment or two. Fast forward to this afternoon.
Another forum member and I are shooting and I pull out my new to me CS45. He gets the honor of running the first magazine and then I take my turn. After the first shot, I ask him, “What the * is that click?”
He reminds me of this thread and says, “Yes, it’s THAT click”. He bent the spring and resolved the issue for me. But, I guess I’ll be ordering springs, rivets, files and Valium.
Another forum member and I are shooting and I pull out my new to me CS45. He gets the honor of running the first magazine and then I take my turn. After the first shot, I ask him, “What the * is that click?”
He reminds me of this thread and says, “Yes, it’s THAT click”. He bent the spring and resolved the issue for me. But, I guess I’ll be ordering springs, rivets, files and Valium.
Fastbolt
Member
You generally only notice it if you're going slow and doing slow-fire target shooting/plinking, trying to "sneak up" on the trigger break during a slow press.
Running the gun at speed, concentrating on maintaining controllability and sight alignment for accurate shot strings, is usually a bit different.
Even the lack of a trigger play spring (with the attendant bit of "trigger slop" in SA) typically isn't noticed by someone running the gun in a real shooting incident, or simulating real shooting conditions, and using a solid trigger technique.
For example, I once decided to do a bit extra drill work than normal over the course of working 2 consecutive range sessions, using one of my issued guns, an early production 6906. (For quite a while I had a couple of issued guns, being compact and full-size.) I fired a bit more than 800rds during those 2 sessions, without cleaning the gun or inspecting it. It ran like a top and delivered its usual accuracy, reliability and ammo tolerance.
At the end of the second day I decided to clean the gun and give it a once-over. I was mildly surprised when I discovered that the trigger play spring (the old style) was broken off, meaning both sides/leafs were missing, with only the riveted base still present. I had no idea at what point during those 2 days that the spring had decided to part company with the drawbar, but then I'd been a LOT of shooting and hadn't especially been using "kid gloves" when briskly manipulating the trigger press in either DA or SA. (Since I shoot for defensive purpose I shoot to trigger recovery, not trigger reset, whether the gun is DA, SA or DAO-ish - which has long been how we were required to teach, for liability concerns when our people might be using guns in high stress situations in public.)
I replaced the spring, of course, because that was how our guns were maintained.
Running the gun at speed, concentrating on maintaining controllability and sight alignment for accurate shot strings, is usually a bit different.
Even the lack of a trigger play spring (with the attendant bit of "trigger slop" in SA) typically isn't noticed by someone running the gun in a real shooting incident, or simulating real shooting conditions, and using a solid trigger technique.
For example, I once decided to do a bit extra drill work than normal over the course of working 2 consecutive range sessions, using one of my issued guns, an early production 6906. (For quite a while I had a couple of issued guns, being compact and full-size.) I fired a bit more than 800rds during those 2 sessions, without cleaning the gun or inspecting it. It ran like a top and delivered its usual accuracy, reliability and ammo tolerance.
At the end of the second day I decided to clean the gun and give it a once-over. I was mildly surprised when I discovered that the trigger play spring (the old style) was broken off, meaning both sides/leafs were missing, with only the riveted base still present. I had no idea at what point during those 2 days that the spring had decided to part company with the drawbar, but then I'd been a LOT of shooting and hadn't especially been using "kid gloves" when briskly manipulating the trigger press in either DA or SA. (Since I shoot for defensive purpose I shoot to trigger recovery, not trigger reset, whether the gun is DA, SA or DAO-ish - which has long been how we were required to teach, for liability concerns when our people might be using guns in high stress situations in public.)
I replaced the spring, of course, because that was how our guns were maintained.
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