My meaning was in that that many trigger pulls likely smoothed things up considerably before the Apex parts. Sorry if I didn't express myself adequately.
My meaning was in that that many trigger pulls likely smoothed things up considerably before the Apex parts. Sorry if I didn't express myself adequately.
"It's surprising how often you start wondering just how featureless a desert some people's inner landscapes must be."
-Maple Syrup Actual
No worries, I'm a prior service Marine so I can be quite dense at times and I'm sure it was me misunderstanding you.Originally Posted by Chuck Whitlock
I agree that 1000+ trigger pulls smoothed things out and likely lessened the wow factor the Apex parts would/may have produced. I just added another 100+ dry fires today working on my left-hand trigger control.
If the op will buy Flitz polish and use it to clean up the revolver's internals and do so by hand, he will see immediate improvement. He needs the polish, cloth, Q-Tips and a solvent to clean everything with when he finishes. The last step with the solvent is essential. He can set the yoke and cylinder to one side as it does not require attention. The rebound slide's ventral surface can be placed on glass(because its flat)or some other flat surface for polishing. Obviously the slide is rubbed against some other surface for polishing. Leather treated with the Flitz works great. Or he can treat cloth or brown rough shop paper towel for this purpose. Use a Q-Tip to polish the rebound slide's interior. Now for a most important step. The slide's lateral and ventral surfaces travel against the frame. We touched on the ventral surface polishing already. The bottom lateral surface left the factory with a sharp edge. This edge will dig into the frame and be felt as roughness. Break this edge by lightly stroking it with a stone. Not having a stone, using Flitz with some muscle power will suffice.
Humps felt when cycling the action can be caused by the rebound spring hanging within the rebound slide. This fact is one reason to polish the interior. Cut and not dressed springs are big offenders. The uncut end must enter the slide first. Oddly, sometimes the slide is installed improperly in such a way that it does not move back and forth perfectly straight. This screwup can occur when the slide is not installed straight to start with and to make matters worse, the side plate is not pushed squarely against the frame but is then tightened. Extremely slight variations from normal dimensions involving lockwork can be felt. When I wrote that the rebound slide may not be moving back and forth in a perfectly straight manner, I was not implying gross dimensions.
New shooters must remember not to pry the slide plate away from the frame but instead to hit the bare grip with a plastic or wood screwdriver handle and let the frame and plate bounce apart.
Finally, wash off the parts and frame with a solvent and then restore oil to ferrous parts. I like to hit them with Rem Oil and then blow it out. Non Chlorinated brake parts cleaner is a good solvent but make certain it is NON chlorinated.
The op's J frame will smooth up and become noticeably lighter.
By the way. I got another one for Christmas--a non lock 642 that was born smooth. I got lucky.
Thank you for the information. At this point my 442 mechanically exceeds my ability to shoot it - basically any action improvement at this point won't result in better shooting - so I need to improve my shooting abilities.
Fixed it for me.
Shooting the J's smooths them anyway. Enjoy.
I bought a 642 in 04 or 05, has the lock on it, it was good enough out of the box, smooth and light enough to shoot. bought another a couple years ago, no lock on this one. trigger pull on this one heavy about like a Ruger 101. I ordered a standard spring from Wolfe. Not it's about like the other 642. No need to polish either one, just shoot them. My take, the springs that S&W use in their revolvers vary a lot, the leaf springs in the large revolvers vary a lot from gun to gun. The Wolfe spring is lighter in most cases and always smoother in my experience. You can also get lighter springs from Wolfe and others but you may end up with misfires with the lighter springs. I do not lighten the rebound very much if at all. I have 1 or 2 with slow trigger return causes me to short shuck it.
Well, the Apex kit is no more. In the 83 rounds I fired with it installed I had 3 misfires. Previous to that I had zero. I swapped the parts back and 50 rounds of 158 +P Speer FMJs all went bang with no hitch.
Was that with the extended firing pin installed as well?
It was.
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