I have had some revolver mishaps over the years and have primarily been a semi auto shooter. This time, my pre-lock K-Frame snapped the hammer nub off. Moneys tight these days and I'm pretty handy in general plus I recently bought the 250 ish Magna Bit Brownells set that has like 100 different flat head tips so you can always get the right one.
So I decided to try my hand at it. First problem was getting the side plate off. I am fortunate to have watched YouTube videos first or I might have tried to pry it. On Youtube, I learned to hammer the frame with the back of a screwdriver and after 30 seconds of hammering gently, the slide plate builds enough looseness to fall off on its own.
I never saw the inside of a DA revolver before and I learned the names of the some of the parts, like the hand, which I've heard controls timing. Well, now that I've taken it apart and analyzed things up close, I can see how the hand controls timing and where it interacts with the cylinder.
In my experiments, my hand dropped out of my trigger and I spent 20 minutes figuring out how to get the spring back in, but everything worked out and the gun seems to be back together.
This isnt a gun I would rely my life on so I am using this as a learning experience. I really enjoyed it and I wonder how hard it is to get into revolver tuning? My understanding is that I can go to a place like Power Customs, get an oversized hand, or a few parts that control fitment like the nub that locks the cylinder in place. Those parts come "big" by a few thousands of an inch I think, and you very slowly remove material and test fit every 1/1000 of an inch you remove until everything fits perfect. Am I right about that?
Could someone like me who has a lot of free time lately being out of work, a basic competence in engineering principles, and a willingness to try, be able to tune my gun? And maybe if I got good at it, buy and flip used revolvers after I tune them? I assume thats how the famous old revolver gun smiths got into it. I dont have inclinations of becoming famous or getting rich off this but it seems fun and I enjoy working with my hands and honestly if I could break even buying a gun, spending several hours tuning it to perfection and selling it breaking even on parts, Id be a happy man just to get the experience and enjoy it.
I used to think Id need lots of specialized tools but it seems like I can basically take apart the Kframe with a screwdriver and misc tools like a punch to get some springs to fit into place.