P. Plainsman
Member
I bought my 4" S&W 629 a few months ago, NIB, current production. It has become my favorite revolver, since it is highly accurate, handsome, versatile, and feels good in the hand. Plus it came with a decent trigger right out of the box, which only got better with use. Much better.
Note that I haven't touched a thing on this gun. Just shot it (c. 800-1000 rounds) and dryfired it a medium amount. In the last month, it's felt like the DA action has turned a corner -- it's noticeably smoother, lighter. My ideal revolver trigger.
So I go to the range last week to put this smooth trigger through its paces, and all of a sudden I'm getting FTFs! Light primer strikes. This happened with several different brands of .44 Special ammo -- Hornady, Speer, Cor-Bon, none of which I've previously had problems with in this gun. Indeed, the gun had never malfunctioned until last week.
The problem was particularly bad with slow double action fire -- I was getting 20-25% FTFs. Even with a fast, "combat" DA trigger pull it was at least 10% dud strikes. Primers in the non-fired rounds were visibly dented by the pin. I couldn't tell a difference visually between the pin marks in the fired cases and the failed cases.
On the other hand, when I switched to single action fire, I got proper ignition every time.
My favorite revolver is suddenly bobbling and I'm P.O.'d. I'd call this the classic scenario of a gunsmithing job gone wrong, except that there's been no gunsmithing or alteration here whatsoever. Just use.
Can a gunsmith fix my 629 without eliminating the excellent qualities of the revolver's action? Is this sort of problem fixable by, I don't know, bringing the firing pin "forward" more so it sinks deeper into the primer?
Thoughts and suggestions much appreciated.
EDIT TO ADD: The trigger return is still nice and crisp. It doesn't feel like the springs have gone flabby. It just feels like a classic, high quality S&W double action pull.
Note that I haven't touched a thing on this gun. Just shot it (c. 800-1000 rounds) and dryfired it a medium amount. In the last month, it's felt like the DA action has turned a corner -- it's noticeably smoother, lighter. My ideal revolver trigger.
So I go to the range last week to put this smooth trigger through its paces, and all of a sudden I'm getting FTFs! Light primer strikes. This happened with several different brands of .44 Special ammo -- Hornady, Speer, Cor-Bon, none of which I've previously had problems with in this gun. Indeed, the gun had never malfunctioned until last week.
The problem was particularly bad with slow double action fire -- I was getting 20-25% FTFs. Even with a fast, "combat" DA trigger pull it was at least 10% dud strikes. Primers in the non-fired rounds were visibly dented by the pin. I couldn't tell a difference visually between the pin marks in the fired cases and the failed cases.
On the other hand, when I switched to single action fire, I got proper ignition every time.
My favorite revolver is suddenly bobbling and I'm P.O.'d. I'd call this the classic scenario of a gunsmithing job gone wrong, except that there's been no gunsmithing or alteration here whatsoever. Just use.
Can a gunsmith fix my 629 without eliminating the excellent qualities of the revolver's action? Is this sort of problem fixable by, I don't know, bringing the firing pin "forward" more so it sinks deeper into the primer?
Thoughts and suggestions much appreciated.
EDIT TO ADD: The trigger return is still nice and crisp. It doesn't feel like the springs have gone flabby. It just feels like a classic, high quality S&W double action pull.