JN01
Member
When I started dating the woman who would become my wife, she got freaked out when she saw me perusing a gun catalog at her house. She had no previous experience with guns and so had a bit of fear out of ignorance. After letting her know that my interest in guns/self-defense, etc was non-negotiable, I was able to educate her and bring her around to a pro-gun stance.
Early on, I took her to the range, but she felt that my guns were kind of heavy.
So, around 1999, I thought a 4" .22 revolver might work well for her, so I picked up a Taurus M94 for her to use. Being a rimfire, I couldn't dryfire it before I bought it, so I wasn't aware of how absolutely horrible the DA trigger pull was- very heavy with a definite wall at the end that caused the muzzle to jerk as the shot broke. But she could cock it for each shot, and the SA pull was decent.
The other issues soon became apparent. After shooting a couple cylinders full, the empty cases became so tight, the ejector rod had to be smacked with a tool to get them out. Additionally, it was spitting so much lead, after firing 30 rounds or so, it was making the cylinder bind up. Even cocking the hammer was more difficult. Scrubbing it off after every couple cylinders helped somewhat, but wasn't really making for a fun shooting session.
Probably should have sent it back to Taurus, but I didn't really feel like dealing with the CS hassle and expense of shipping for a $150 gun. So I stuck it in the gun safe and mostly forgot about it.
Recently I pulled it out of the safe and decided to try and tinker with it to see what the issue was, felt I really didn't have anything to lose.
I put a rod down the bore and found that the chambers all seemed to be indexing properly. Looking at the forcing cone, it was extremely rough. I believed it was acting like a cheese grater on the bullets, causing the leading problem.
I bought a flexible hone, chucked it in an electric hand drill, and ran the tip of the hone in the forcing cone area. Then, by hand, I used progressively fine sandpaper wrapped around a short section of dowel until the forcing cone became very smooth. Then I gave the same treatment to each chamber of the cylinder.
Lastly, I got a bag of drywall anchors and proceeded to dryfire that sucker about 3000 times.
Would I have tried this Bubba gunsmithing on a $1000 Smith and Wesson? Hell, no, but since this was essentially a paper weight, I thought, why not?
The end result? Accuracy? Well, I took it to the range today, I had paper targets at 7 yds, all nine holes from a cylinder full were touching (shot single action). Didn't have a target up at the 25 yard line, but had no problem popping little pieces of clay targets. The DA trigger smoothed out drastically, seems much lighter, still a bit of wall at the end, but not disruptive. The forcing cone no longer leads at all. Empty casings easily eject even after shooting a couple hundred rounds.
So my piece of junk was apparently a kit gun (some assembly required), but now has turned into a decent plinker.
Early on, I took her to the range, but she felt that my guns were kind of heavy.
So, around 1999, I thought a 4" .22 revolver might work well for her, so I picked up a Taurus M94 for her to use. Being a rimfire, I couldn't dryfire it before I bought it, so I wasn't aware of how absolutely horrible the DA trigger pull was- very heavy with a definite wall at the end that caused the muzzle to jerk as the shot broke. But she could cock it for each shot, and the SA pull was decent.
The other issues soon became apparent. After shooting a couple cylinders full, the empty cases became so tight, the ejector rod had to be smacked with a tool to get them out. Additionally, it was spitting so much lead, after firing 30 rounds or so, it was making the cylinder bind up. Even cocking the hammer was more difficult. Scrubbing it off after every couple cylinders helped somewhat, but wasn't really making for a fun shooting session.
Probably should have sent it back to Taurus, but I didn't really feel like dealing with the CS hassle and expense of shipping for a $150 gun. So I stuck it in the gun safe and mostly forgot about it.
Recently I pulled it out of the safe and decided to try and tinker with it to see what the issue was, felt I really didn't have anything to lose.
I put a rod down the bore and found that the chambers all seemed to be indexing properly. Looking at the forcing cone, it was extremely rough. I believed it was acting like a cheese grater on the bullets, causing the leading problem.
I bought a flexible hone, chucked it in an electric hand drill, and ran the tip of the hone in the forcing cone area. Then, by hand, I used progressively fine sandpaper wrapped around a short section of dowel until the forcing cone became very smooth. Then I gave the same treatment to each chamber of the cylinder.
Lastly, I got a bag of drywall anchors and proceeded to dryfire that sucker about 3000 times.
Would I have tried this Bubba gunsmithing on a $1000 Smith and Wesson? Hell, no, but since this was essentially a paper weight, I thought, why not?
The end result? Accuracy? Well, I took it to the range today, I had paper targets at 7 yds, all nine holes from a cylinder full were touching (shot single action). Didn't have a target up at the 25 yard line, but had no problem popping little pieces of clay targets. The DA trigger smoothed out drastically, seems much lighter, still a bit of wall at the end, but not disruptive. The forcing cone no longer leads at all. Empty casings easily eject even after shooting a couple hundred rounds.
So my piece of junk was apparently a kit gun (some assembly required), but now has turned into a decent plinker.
