S&W 649-1 Bodyguard: broken hammer stud!
First of all congratulations to all the Members of The Never Ending Thread: Part Three…amazing!
Unfortunately I have to post an unbelievable problem occurred, last week, to my beloved S&W 649-1 Bodyguard.
Since it was the gun I always kept loaded when I was at home (just because it NEVER failed me before), I was checking everything worked well, as I periodically did. After a few dryfires, the trigger was not returning fully forward, stopping itself at about 2/3 of the travel; I only had to touch the hammer spur and the trigger always returned to the rest position. So I decided to remove the side plate thinking it was an easy fix (something connected to the hammer block safety lever snagging somewhere, I was guessing) and SURPRISE: the hammer stud was broken!
After a close inspection I’ve discovered that the hammer stud was defective from day one: as you can see on the pics I’ve posted (second pic, red circle), there was only a thiny portion of steel in the central diameter of the stud itself that was “working” and was evidently not enought…
The steel around that area appears to be porous and of low density just like a pot metal toy car: a casting defect, I guess.
The serial number of the gun is BEU34XX,but I don’t know the manufacturing year because I’ve purchased it used from the first owner, two years ago,in like new conditions (only 5 rounds fired, no drag line on the cylinder, no drops signs, etc.). I put only 800 rounds from it since and dryfired it probably 1600 times. And I’ve always treated the gun like it was made of gold. Considering the “internal” conditions of the stud, it’s been a miracle that the gun is been able to fire 800 rounds and withstand some dryfiring…
It is the first time I’ve seen and heard a breakage like that and the smith that inspected the gun, that has 30 years of experience, told me the very same thing.
Now the gun is back to the S&W's italian importer and I hope it will be fixed well and quickly. Anyway I’ll report you everything once it will be at home again.
The breakage occurred to my gun has changed my mind about the Internal Lock: as someone said, there are too many parts can fail instead of the Lock. That was the case on my no-Lock, no-MIM S&W…
Does anyone experienced the same issue on a S&W revolver (dropped guns apart)?.
Best regards, 5-SHOTS.