Skipping chambers again

[FrankB]

Well that's interesting

There aren’t many timing videos on YouTube, but I’ve seen one or two discussing the same thing regarding trigger pull.

[OlongJohnson]

I might sacrifice a hammer spring and narrow it severely, so it only puts enough force on the hammer to move it for action-checking purposes. Then get a very light spring that fits the rebound slide spot from your local hardware store. Then test the gun with those springs installed and the side plate off so you can see what's actually going on without putting enough force on things to harm the unsupported hammer and trigger pivot pins. (The pins can be severely damaged if you cycle the gun with standard springs and no side plate.) A side benefit of "checking springs" is you can feel rough/binding/etc. spots a lot better and chase them out of wherever you find them to get the action as smooth as possible.

Example: With my M&P 340, the standard hammer and rebound springs masked the binding caused by the poorly-fit ratchets. With checking springs (and actually no hammer or hammer spring in the gun), then I could feel just the carry-up forces and the binding on 3 of 5 ratchets was obvious.

[jtcarm]

(The pins can be severely damaged if you cycle the gun with standard springs and no side plate.)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is why I there’s almost no You-Boob “experts” I can take seriously.

[03RN]

There aren’t many timing videos on YouTube, but I’ve seen one or two discussing the same thing regarding trigger pull.

Back to the trigger... I was messing around with it the other day and there was a lot of lateral play in the trigger. I would describe it as wiggly.

Im going to try some washers to see if it tightens it up. If I don't have room for both sides of the trigger is there a better side?

[FrankB]

Try both sides, and if one side works, that’s the ticket. 👍😉

[FrankB]

Back to the trigger... I was messing around with it the other day and there was a lot of lateral play in the trigger. I would describe it as wiggly.
?

I just check both of my 686 triggers, and there is zero wiggle…nada. Hope that helps.

[OlongJohnson]

Back to the trigger... I was messing around with it the other day and there was a lot of lateral play in the trigger. I would describe it as wiggly.

Im going to try some washers to see if it tightens it up. If I don't have room for both sides of the trigger is there a better side?

I'd look at the parts to see which side is rubbing more and put it there. Also, if you haven't thoroughly deburr and smooth the inside surfaces/edges of the frame and side plate.

https://triggershims.com/sw_k_l_n_frame.php

I assemble the gun, check side clearance with feeler gauges.

(clearance-0.002")/2

is my formula for selecting shim thickness. Rather than rounding up or down, I'll use shims 0.001" different thickness on the two sides. Getting the lateral play down does make a big difference in how the trigger feels.

[03RN]

0.91 hand almost works perfectly on all the chambers but not quite. 0.94 doesn't help.

When I get home tonight I'm going to put the old extractor in and try it with all the new hands.

I forget if I mentioned it but I also filed down the pad on the cylinder stop a tiny bit. I also put a new hand torsion spring in.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do next.

[jh9]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This is why I there’s almost no You-Boob “experts” I can take seriously.

FWIW, Randy Lee, Ron Power and Jerry Miculek all have videos of them doing the same thing (re: cycling the sprung action with the sideplate off).

The Ron Power and Jerry Miculek videos do this on guns with steel frames/studs. I think that's an important distinction. I think that's probably fine on steel guns. LSP972 (RIP) seems to have agreed. That said, I don't do it anymore and think of it as a proof load. If there is a material / heat treat / etc flaw in the stud, that will show it by either bending the stud or breaking it and throwing the top half across the room.

I wouldn't buy a used aluminum gun with a spring kit installed because I'd just assume they damaged the stud by "testing" the install with the sideplate off. And that's now going to let go sooner or later. We had a thread here 7 or 8 years ago where there was a rash of aluminum J-frame stud failures not that long after the Apex J-frame kits hit the market. I remember discussing it with LSP972 but I can't find it now. Bad batch of pins, bad install (cycling a sprung action w/o sideplate), or some combination of the two? Dunno.

Someone who knows more than me could probably comment on the difference between the elastic limits of bending an aluminum vs steel pin (stud).

[OlongJohnson]

Without checking the videos in question, there's a good chance that a gun Jerry would demonstrate that with would have a reduced power main spring installed.