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Handloads.Com Forum General DiscussionRevolver checkout: how to tell if a particular specimen is any good | |
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| By Jim March: So you're buying a revolver. New, used, doesn't matter, you want a good one, right? How do check one over without firing it, right at the dealer's counter or gun show table? This is how. All of this works with DA or SA wheelguns..."close the action" on most DAs means swing the cylinder in, on SA types, close the loading gate, on break opens, close 'em. UNLOADED. WARNING: most of these tests require violation of the "finger off trigger" rule. Therefore, be extremely careful about safe muzzle direction and making sure the gun is unloaded ahead of time, PERSONALLY, as you begin handling it. Note: bring a small flashlight, something small and concentrated. A Photon or similar high-powered LED light is perfect. You also want feeler gauges if you're not used to eyeballing cylinder gaps; at a minimum, bring a .002", .004" and .006". Note 2: no dry firing is required or desired at any point. It just pisses off the gun's current owner. Cylinder play 1) With the gun UNLOADED (check for yourself!), close the action. 2) Thumb the hammer back, and while pulling the trigger, gently lower the hammer all the way down while keeping the trigger back - and KEEP holding the trigger once the hammer is down. (You've now put the gun in "full lockup" - keep it there for this and most other tests.) 3) With the trigger still back all the way, check for cylinder wiggle. Front/back is particularly undesirable; a bit of side to side is OK but it's a bad thing if you can wiggle it one way, let go, and then spin it the other way a fraction of an inch and it stays there too. At the very least, it should "want" to stop in just one place (later, we'll see if that place is any good). The ultimate is a "welded to the frame" feeling. Cylinder gap 4) Still holding the trigger at full lockup, look sideways through the barrel/cylinder gap. If you can get a credit card in there, that ain't good...velocity drops rapidly as the gap increases. Too tight isn't good either, because burnt powder crud will "fill the gap" and start making the cylinder spin funky. My personal .38 snubbie is set at .002, usually considered the minimum...after about 40 shots at the range, I have to give the front of the cylinder a quick wipe so it spins free again. I consider that a reasonable tradeoff for the increased velocity because in a real fight, I ain't gonna crank 40 rounds out of a 5-shot snub. If you're eyeballing it, you'll have to hold it up sideways against an overhead light source. SAFETY WARNING: This step in particular is where you MUST watch your muzzle direction. Look, part of what's happening here is that you're convincing the seller you know your poop . It helps the haggling process. If you do anything unsafe, that impression comes completely unglued. Timing 5) You really, REALLY want an unloaded gun for this one. This is where the light comes in. With the gun STILL held in full lockup, trigger back after lowering the hammer by thumb, you want to shine a light right into the area at the rear of the cylinder near the firing pin. You then look down the barrel . You're looking to make sure the cylinder bore lines up with the barrel. Check every cylinder - that means putting the gun in full lockup for each cylinder before lighting it up. You're looking for the cylinder and barrel holes to line up perfectly, it's easy to eyeball if there's even a faint light source at the very rear of both bores. And with no rounds present, it's generally easy to get some light in past where the rims would be. Bore (We're finally done with that "full lockup" crap, so rest your trigger finger. ) 6) Swing the cylinder open, or with most SAs pull the cylinder. Use the small flashlight to scope the bore out. This part's easy - you want to avoid pitting, worn-out rifling, bulges of any sort. You want more light on the subject than just what creeps in from the rear of the cylinder on the timing check. You also want to check each cylinder bore, in this case with the light coming in from the FRONT of each hole, you looking in from the back where the primers would be. You're looking for wear at the "restrictions" at the front of each cylinder bore. That's the "forcing cone" area and it can wear rapidly with some Magnum loads. (Special thanks to Salvo below for this bit!) Trigger 7) To test a trigger without dry-firing it, use a plastic pen in front of the hammer to "catch" it with the off hand, especially if it's a "firing pin on the hammer" type. Or see if the seller has any snap-caps, that's the best solution. Flat-faced hammers as found in transfer-bar guns (Ruger, etc) can be caught with the off-hand without too much pain . SA triggers (or of course a DA with the hammer cocked) should feel "like a glass rod breaking". A tiny amount of take-up slack is tolerable, and is common on anything with a transfer bar or hammer block safety. DA triggers are subjective. Some people like a dead-smooth feel from beginning of stroke to the end, with no "warning" that it's about to fire. Others (myself included) actually prefer a slight "hitch" right at the end, so we know when it's about to go. With that sort of trigger, you can actually "hold it" right at the "about to fire" point and do a short light stroke from there that rivals an SA shot for accuracy. Takes a lot of practice though. Either way, you don't want "grinding" through the length of the stroke, and the final stack-up at the end (if any) shouldn't be overly pronounced. Detecting Bad Gunsmithing: 8) OK, so it's got a rock-solid cylinder, a .002" or .003" gap, and the trigger feels great. Odds are vastly in favor of it being tuned after leaving the factory. So was the gunsmith any good? Look at the screws. Ideally, they should be untouched, meaning that the gun has not been messed with. If the screw heads are battered and worn, it means the sideplate has been off, probably many times. A gun like that may have a smooth trigger, but the parts may have been polished out of time or (if a S&W) the case hardening cut through so the parts will wear out rapidly. Many guns subjected to amateur gunsmithing turn up on the used gun market when the guy realizes he has messed up. Next, cock it, then grab the hammer and "wiggle it around" a bit. Not too hard, don't bang on it, but give it a bit of up/down, left/right and circular action with finger off trigger and WATCH your muzzle direction. You don't want that hammer slipping off an overly polished sear. You REALLY don't want that . It can be fixed by installing factory parts but that'll take modest money (more for installation than hardware costs) and it'll be big time unsafe until you do. The other thing that commonly goes wrong is somebody will trim the spring, especially coil springs. You can spot that if you pull the grip panels, see if the spring was trimmed with wire cutters. If they get too wild with it, you'll get ignition failures on harder primers. But the good news is, replacement factory or Wolf springs are cheap both to buy and have installed. There's also the legal problems Ayoob frequently describes regarding light triggers. If that's a concern, you can either swap back to stock springs, or since you bought it used there's no way to prove you knew it was modified at all . In perspective: Timing (test #5) is very critical...if that's off, the gun may not even be safe to test-fire. And naturally, a crappy barrel means a relatively pricey fix. Cylinder gap is particularly critical on short-barreled and/or marginal caliber guns. If you need every possible ounce of energy, a tight gap helps. Some factory gaps will run as high as .006"; Taurus considers .007" "still in spec" (sigh). You'll be hard-pressed to find any new pieces under .004" - probably because the makers realize some people don't clean 'em often (or very well) and might complain about the cylinder binding up if they sell 'em at .002". The guns in a dealer's "used pile" are often of unknown origin, from estate sales or whatever. Dealers don't have time to check every piece, and often don't know their history. These tests, especially cylinder gap and play, can spot a gun that's been sent off for professional tuning...like my snubbie, the best $180 I ever spent . As long as the gun is otherwise sound (no cracks, etc) a gunsmith can fix any of this. So these tests can help you pick a particularly good new specimen, or find a good used gun, or help haggle the price down on something that'll need a bit of work. This article was originally a webboard post athttp://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57816 by Jim March and re-published with permission and has had minor changes from the original post based on additional information contributed by others in that discussion thread. You can find Jim online at http://www.ninehundred.com/~equalccw/ | |
John We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces, singing; whiskey for my men, beer for my horses Molon Labe! | |
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| great info johnk, thanks for posting. | |
"If it’s about the lives of my men and their safety, I’d go through hell with a gasoline can," Lt. Col. Allen West, U.S. Army, Tikrit, Iraq | |
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| Thanks, JohnK................I copied that post with Printscreen2000..........My old cptr died a few wks ago so I've been incommunicado till now. | |
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| I think you'll find that Hodgdon's Universal {approx. same speed as Unique} will meter much better than Unique -- meaning with less variation my first handloading experiences were with Blue dot and Unique, using a Dillon 550, and no matter what I did, the powder drop varied by approx. 0.2 grains, sometimes more, but rarely -- most of the ball powders seem to be able to meter within 0.1 grain, ........maybe I had an unusual experience, but from what I have read, and heard from others, it was normal for those flake powders -- after that I searched for other powders to use -- {this was all for handgun loads -- and only lately have I done any rifle loading} | |
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| Look for tight lock up and wear on the forcing cone. | |
The Virginian | |
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| TY for the great thread. I've been wondering about my 696 Smith, though I knew it locked up tight, I ran the checks you suggested. The cyl timing is fine, and all else except, lacking any feelers handy, I used a few strips of printer paper on the BBL/CYL gap, and found it was more than two sheets and less than three, then I mic'd the paper, and found that translated to more than .008, less than .012 (UGH!) Not what I wanted to see. I had been considering sending it off to Performance center to have it gone over, now I just might, on that alone. | |
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I'd be interested to hear what the PC has to say about that, it seems their standards aren't exactly top notch anymore. I've read they don't consider .01" gap to be excessive or than 4" @ 25 yards is out of spec for accuracy with some models.  If the gun is accurate and reliable as it is I'd leave it alone rather than send it off to have someone mess with it. | |
John We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces, singing; whiskey for my men, beer for my horses Molon Labe! | |
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| Well, I did two things. first, I called Smith customer service, (same number as performance center) and got the word that .004 to .010 is the tolerance. I told him I guessed I was right at .010, having A) used paper which I later mic'd to measure, and B) having not cleaned the gun, which had a significant buildup on the CYL face. He said if I sent it in for warantee, .010 was within limits, if at the edge but if I chose to pay for service through performance ctr, they'd do whatever I wanted in terms of bringing it down. I thought about it a while, and decided to get a brush and some hoppes and clean off the crud, and went about finding a shim that was just a fit into the gap. A piece of card stock that was a snug .010 between the mics went in just about the same in the BC gap as into the mics, ( from either side, so at least it is square enough, and tried several charge holes, all the same, so stuff is at least square.) Now, my question is, this is a 3 yr old gun with maybe a 3.5 lb SA trigger, shoots ok, but has a generous BC blast, ( duh, wonder why) and I am debating on if I should send it in. If I did, it wouldn't pay for a pkg of services I mostly don't need, but I would like opinions on having the action done to slick it a bit, bring the trigger down to a 2.5 Lb trigger ( they said more than the weight of gun was their rule, and I agree a good one) check forcing cone, and reduce BC gap down to .004 or so. Is this a reasonable strategy? They mentioned chamfering charge holes as a popular option, but dang, the walls on the L frame .44 are thin, do I want this? I shoot this gun both as a target gun offhand and over bags for fun, and also carry it hiking and as a winter carry gun. I just want it as good as it can be, but don't wanna try to make it a performance ctr gun, as it is a carry piece, and not a show piece, so aestetics don't interest me, I'd only mar it, LOL. Waddaya guys think? P/S, how do they adjust BC gap? | |
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| adirondakjack, I just checked a Mod 66, Trooper MK V and a Security Six for gap between the cylinder and forcing cone. Being too lazy to go out to the shop for some feeler gauges, I used paper like you did. I found business cards range from .009" - .013", card stock is about .009", a credit card is .033" and a bank deposit form in the back of a check book is about .004". I have used a business card on Briggs & Stratton points as .018" and it always worked, but you don't shoot a B&S even though you might want to shoot at it. Well, I couldn't stand it, so I got the tools and measured the three guns. I couldn't get .004" paper to go in any of the gaps. The Mod 66 took a .009" feeler gage, the Security Six a .004" and the MK V .002" (all with max lockup and cylinder forced back). Believe it or not, all three are magnetic. So I set up a magnetic base dial indicator to measure the movement of the three cylinders. The MK V moved .007", the other two moved .005" all measuring from max forward to max backward. It's all sort of like measuring the crankshaft end play on a VW bettle. All three cylinders can be heard moving back and forth, so that doesn't help either. The moral of the story is, something lied and the paper wasn't even in the running. BTW, the Mod 66 shoots the best of the three even though it has a 4" barrel and the other two are 6". | |
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| Hi John, thanks for the used-gun buying tips...darn good information. So now I have another question for you. What are your feelings on buying used handguns off the internet? I have purchased a couple of revolvers from gunbrokers in the past and have so far had good luck with them. I tend to e-mail the seller if I have questions that aren't addressed in the description. I was leary the first time I bid, as like most anyone else, I prefer to "see" what I'm getting first hand, but I have managed to get some good deals, and haven't been screwed yet. Just curious if you purchase off the internet, and/or if you have any advice on doing so...questions to ask, etc. Thanks in advance, Flint | |
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Quote I've bought 3 from people online so far. 1 4" M29, quite used. I don't care for the aftermarket rear sight on it, but otherwise it's been a decent gun. The other two were from the same person about a year apart who I knew from another forum. A NIB 357 Redhawk and one of the limited 5.5" stainless 45 Colt Bisleys. So far so good, haven't been burned yet. What questions to ask is a good one. One I like to ask is "why are you selling it?" You can't gaurentee an honest answer, but how they answer the question can tell you a lot. You could ask if they've used handloads in it, what their favorite ones that kind of thing and see if they brag about the ultra hot loads they've fired in it. If that's the case you might want to think twice about buying it. | |
John We’ll raise up our glasses against evil forces, singing; whiskey for my men, beer for my horses Molon Labe! | Handloads.Com ForumGeneral DiscussionRevolver checkout: how to tell if a particular specimen is any good |
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