Tigger Pull Weight And Non Federal Primers 625-8

[41mag]

I gave my hammer the weight loss treatment today, it weighed 477grs when I started and it now weighs 344grs.

I put it back in and tried the 6 lb pull again. This time it fired every one of the 12 shots I tried (federal). If you read my other reply on this tread you may remember that when I tried this with the full size hammer it barely left a mark on the primer and didnt light any of them. This proves to me that the lighter hammer slap is better. Now that being said the size of the firing pin crater left in the primer at the 6 lb pull is a little shallow for my taste, I dont know if it would be a 100% if left there.

I will post a pic when I take it back out to polish. If you look at that big triangle shaped depression on the right side of the mim hammer that is now a hole on mind and the spur is of course gone too.

41mag

[Carmoney]

"...and verily they shall come forth and walk in the light of the Dremel, and doubt no more."

Edited April 13, 2007 by Carmoney

[RePete]

"...and verily they shall come forth and walk in the light of the Dremel, and doubt no more."

I know, 'Have Dremel, will travel'.

And at the end of the verse (from 'Have Gun, will travel')

Carmoney, Carmoney.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yea, though I walk through the workshop of death, I will fear no evil.

For thou art with me,

my Dremel!

Edited April 13, 2007 by RePete

[aerosigns]

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated!

[41mag]

Mike,

Is there such thing as making the hammer to light as it pertains to lighting the primers better. I'm not talking about removing so much material that it will break during use, just if you can make it so light that it starts to trend backwards in regard to efectiveness, not lighting the primers.

I want to remove some more material from my hammer to see if it continues to get better. I am thinking about setting a 50% reduction as a bench mark.

Any comments Mike? Any body got a comment?

Thanks every one,

41mag

[Carmoney]

Don't know for sure where the point of diminishing returns might be, but my hammers are pretty light. Lighter than the Randy hammers. And they work quite well. I think you'd be fine at 50%.

[41mag]

Don't know for sure where the point of diminishing returns might be, but my hammers are pretty light. Lighter than the Randy hammers. And they work quite well. I think you'd be fine at 50%.

Thanks Mike

Today I will take more off and tommorrow I will test. (I have a 14 hour work day today!)

41mag

[41mag]

[attac

ment=8584:attachment]

Don't know for sure where the point of diminishing returns might be, but my hammers are pretty light. Lighter than the Randy hammers. And they work quite well. I think you'd be fine at 50%.

Thanks Mike

Today I will take more off and tommorrow I will test. (I have a 14 hour work day today!)

41mag

This hammer started at 477grs and now weighs 314grs.

41mag

[Carmoney]

Pretty cool-lookin' there, 41mag. I like it.

Here's what I've been running: 625 hammer

[aerosigns]

41Mag,

The hole drilling thing is a pretty cool addition to the different ways I have seen people carve a hammer up. Now everyone will have to do that too.

Next I am going to engrave the head of the hammer like Mount Rushmore. Only I am going to put the heads of Mike C., Cliff Walsh, Waltermitty, and Bubber.

[Bubber]

41Mag,

The hole drilling thing is a pretty cool addition to the different ways I have seen people carve a hammer up. Now everyone will have to do that too.

Next I am going to engrave the head of the hammer like Mount Rushmore. Only I am going to put the heads of Mike C., Cliff Walsh, Waltermitty, and Bubber.

It ain't the first time I have been considered as smart as a rock, but what a novel way of putting it.

[ster81]

41mag the trigger looks good. Thought it would.

[41mag]

41Mag,

The hole drilling thing is a pretty cool addition to the different ways I have seen people carve a hammer up. Now everyone will have to do that too.

Next I am going to engrave the head of the hammer like Mount Rushmore. Only I am going to put the heads of Mike C., Cliff Walsh, Waltermitty, and Bubber.

Thats funny, I'm cracking up! Have you ever heard the term "hammer head" ? How bout hammer heads!

Thanks guys for the nice comments on the hammer carving.

I must make a confession though and I do hope Mike won't think any less of me after , the dremel used in this carving had the name Bridgeport in it. I think they call it a milling machine.

Shot a match today at Rayners. I didn't get time to test the trigger pull weight to see how low I could go with the lighter hammer. When I test I will post the results here.

Any of you guys going to that big region 4 (?) shoot down at the Clark range in June? A new friend of mine that I've met at some local matchs and I are going down. Maybe I'll see some of you there.

41mag

[Carmoney]

I must make a confession though and I do hope Mike won't think any less of me after , the dremel used in this carving had the name Bridgeport in it. I think they call it a milling machine.

If the idea is to make things easy, you might as well just switch to Open.

[David Sinko]

How does the lightened hammer theory work with the Redhawks? If "snappier is better," should this theory hold true just the same with the Redhawk? When Hamilton Bowen made my Alpine Conversion about 10 years ago I told him to completely remove the hammer spur. He said that nobody had ever asked him to do that before. When I gave him that gun it was brand new and had never been fired. When I got it back the spurless hammer would fire Winchester primers 100% of the time with the full strength spring. Then after 10 years of heavy DA use the gun finally went sour and developed some timing issues. I sent the gun back to Bowen and he commented that the lightened hammer may be compromising ignition. I replied that it worked perfectly when the gun was new. As I see it, the gun should be able to be fixed so that it will run 100% with Winchester primers once again. Obviously a Redhawk is not the same as a 625 but should it make a difference in terms of hammer fall?

Dave Sinko

[COF]

The only thing different is the type of springs used in the action. The principle is the same for both. Mass is mass, regardless.

[41mag]

How does the lightened hammer theory work with the Redhawks? If "snappier is better," should this theory hold true just the same with the Redhawk? When Hamilton Bowen made my Alpine Conversion about 10 years ago I told him to completely remove the hammer spur. He said that nobody had ever asked him to do that before. When I gave him that gun it was brand new and had never been fired. When I got it back the spurless hammer would fire Winchester primers 100% of the time with the full strength spring. Then after 10 years of heavy DA use the gun finally went sour and developed some timing issues. I sent the gun back to Bowen and he commented that the lightened hammer may be compromising ignition. I replied that it worked perfectly when the gun was new. As I see it, the gun should be able to be fixed so that it will run 100% with Winchester primers once again. Obviously a Redhawk is not the same as a 625 but should it make a difference in terms of hammer fall?

Dave Sinko

Dave,

If I recall right your way more of an expert on the RH than I am. My RH is not a 100% DA with CCI primers and you gave be a list of the different problems that the RH's can have. I still havn't got back to that gun since I got a couple of 45acp Smith's.

I just wanted to say that I don't think you could blame the bobbed hammer now if it ran fine for thousands of rounds. The hammer I would think would be a fixed none variable part of the ignition cycle. Unless of course it has become damaged some how or wore prematurely. It seems most likely that the problem would be in one of the same areas that you had mentioned to me. You would think though that Mr. Bowen would be fully aware and check for those right off the bat.

I wish I could help Dave, but as usual I will await eagerly for the your findings so that I may add that info to my data base.

Good luck,

41mag

I must make a confession though and I do hope Mike won't think any less of me after , the dremel used in this carving had the name Bridgeport in it. I think they call it a milling machine.

If the idea is to make things easy, you might as well just switch to Open.

I looked and looked thru the USPSA rule book and could find no mention of a revolver open class!

I will just have to stay in this class and just keep taking a beating from all you Master Class shooters. Congrats on your Master classification Mike!

41mag

[Carmoney]

Congrats on your Master classification Mike!

Hey, thanks! I'm pretty excited about the 2007 revolver season getting started. I have two more weeks with the 1911 (WI Sectional next weekend and then the Single Stack Classic the following weekend), then it will be time to break out the round gun and get back down to business. Checked the ammo stash last night and I should have enough to get me through the summer, glad I bought those bullets back when they were still moderately affordable. If metal prices stay high, I'll switch back to cast lead in my 625 and let Sam shoot the plated bullets in the 25-2.

I sent the gun back to Bowen and he commented that the lightened hammer may be compromising ignition.

Ignition problems are not caused by bobbed hammers.

However, that notion has been repeated so many times in gun magazines over the years that many people (including some who should know better) still believe it. Glad we were able to dispel it here.

[ffl]

I just got back from the NRA Meetings and talked to Federal Ammo people there. They said all plants are runing 24/7 and can't keep up with production requirements. there are NO Federal primers for the Civilian market except what is already in the distribution chain.

As for the shims used in a 625 or other revo I manufacture several thicknesses and sizes. I will have them available at the Sunflower Classic as well as at the NRA Bianchi Cup and IRC.

As for metals prices steel scrap is up 70% since Feb and is now at $350+ per ton. which is very high and is up 70% from last Nov. (Stamping Journal Apr 2007)

Look for higher bullets, primers and anything made from metal to be a lot higher in the future.

[Gregg K]

My chopped hammer is somewhere in between Carmoney's and 41Mag's. It weighs in at 290 grains. I haven't tried to see how low it will go but it's 100 % at 5.5 lbs.

[41mag]

My chopped hammer is somewhere in between Carmoney's and 41Mag's. It weighs in at 290 grains. I haven't tried to see how low it will go but it's 100 % at 5.5 lbs.

5.5 lbs...thats cool!

Hard to believe thats only 25grs lighter than mine! But 25 is a lot. All the holes you see drilled in mine removed 30 grs.of material.

I was messing with pull weight today and anything less than 6 1/2 on mine gun isn't reliable even with my lighter hammer. I think I've got problems elsewhere. My hammer rubs and I wonder if thats part of it.

When testing a cylinder full of rounds, all the same, its odd that the ones that fire have a nice dent in the primer and the ones that don't fire have a very shallow dent. This has to mean somthing....hammer impacting at different speed in relation to how much it rubbed the frame that shot on its way to the firing pin....or the primers vary that much and it only shows up when I get to low on the spring weight?

I have up to about 7 oz of ES on 15 consecutive trigger scale pulls, I would assume most of this is operator error. Any of you folks with a trigger scale see the same kind of spread?

I even dug out my old Lee hand primer and reseated some rounds, still could'nt stay any lower on the pull weight.

Don't get me wrong, I can live just fine with even a seven pound pull but if I could light Federals at 5 or 6 lb maybe I could load Winchester's and shoot at 7 lb. Seven pounds is about as heavy as I want to go, if I can keep it there and use somthing besides the Federals I'd be happy.

Going to get some of those shim washers and try to fix up the hammer.

If you folks got any other ideas I'm all ears.

41mag

[COF]

.41, A primer that didn't ignite is always going to look shallow compared to a fired round because you didn't have any cartridge setback upon firing. This setback causes a deeper indentation in the primer.

The hammer rubbing is definitely going to impact your consistency. Do you have Jerry's revolver action video? Just follow the video and look at all the things he covers. I'm sure Dr Dremel has even more tips available

[DougCarden]

Take a look and make sure that your hammer is sitting upright in the proper presentation and that it is not leaning to one side or the other. Look at the sideplate and look for some rubbing. If there is it means that the pivot pin is bent, and the shims wont help.

When I had one and watched the SW armorer fix it I almost fainted....he used a lead bobit thing and eyeballed it, then wacked it a couple of times until it was straight....

Obviously be careful if you have this problem and try this....DO not use a hammer. Use a chunk of lead that will not impart much force to the part....Use at your own discretion and I will disavow this if SW starts getting a bunch of guns to replace the pins.....

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing......

DougC

[41mag]

.41, A primer that didn't ignite is always going to look shallow compared to a fired round because you didn't have any cartridge setback upon firing. This setback causes a deeper indentation in the primer.

The hammer rubbing is definitely going to impact your consistency. Do you have Jerry's revolver action video? Just follow the video and look at all the things he covers. I'm sure Dr Dremel has even more tips available

Yes, your right, I forgot about the cartridge and the primer being pushed back against the recoil shield during firing. So the ones that did fire were hit just as light but barely ignited and the primer flowed around the firing pin causing the nice indentation, got you.

Yea, I got to find that video! I looked for it once and than got side tracked I guess.

thank you,

41mag

[Carmoney]

Yea, I got to find that video! I looked for it once and than got side tracked I guess.

You're welcome to borrow my Trigger Job video, it's travelled all over the country. (Now I wish I'd had all the borrowers sign the DVD case!) However, I'm not sure it will be all that helpful in getting that extra little bit of weight off your trigger pull, the DVD is more about general action smoothing. Jerry knows his revolvers, that's for sure, but he's not really a gunsmith and it's only in the fairly recent past that he has begun running lighter actions in his own guns.

My thoughts: Make sure your primers are being impacted dead-center. Make sure you have no significant endshake. Make sure you have good firing pin protrusion. I'm not a big fan of the C&S pin (others have had good luck, but I've had several which became deformed and one that broke in two), but you might want to experiment with the shape of the end of your factory pin--some have found that slightly sharpening the firing pin will concentrate the energy on the primer. Try to identify anything that could create friction or slop between the falling hammer and the primer, and correct it.

Finally, you might want to take even more weight off your hammer. Gregg's made it down to a reliable 5.5#, and that's about what my DA pull weighs now too.