Back in '93, I bought a short-barrelled ruger blackhawk in .41, and every screw that gun had was loose when I bought it, including the red dot and the mounts.
The previous owner said that he could never hit anything with it.
I got a sweet deal on it, and loctited all the screws with loc-tite.
Problem solved, accuracy was great.
Fast forward to '98 or '99.
I was shooting the gun and the base pin popped forward enough to cause cylinder binding.
D'oh, I forgot to loc-tite the base pin detent spring and mating bolt/nut.
A trip to the gunsmith for a few parts, and I was back in business.
But not before I loc-tited the new one in place.
Short barrelled magnum revolvers need their screws loc-tited, if it wasn't done at the factory.
Why check them every trip to the range when you can loc-tite 'em once and be done with it?
I also had an old skool S&W 627 do the same trick as yours, except the gun bound up and just wouldn't open at the range.
Then it wouldn't close.
I took it home to clean it, figuring some dirt was under the ejector star, took it apart, and it fell in 3 peices!!!
I turned it over and the screw just over the trigger fell out.
Interesting.
Not to be confused with cool, for instance.
Anyway, I put it together, and it sufferred no ill effects from that day.
The star still unscrews, and I haven't figured out whether I want to loctite the star or not, but it works fine.