K frame tune up tips..

[Al Thompson]

With my recent addition of a M12, I pulled the grips and sideplate off and gave it a "tune-up" prior to my hitting the range (soon).

It occured to me that some of the folks here may enjoy knowing how to smooth out their K frames and I know there are some very savvy members who can add to this list.

Remove grips and sideplate. Slide cylinder out and separate cylinder and yoke. Remove rebound slide and spring. Remove hammer.

First, everything gets a good cleaning and inspection for cracks or obvious damage.

Then I take the rebound slide and polish the bottom and side that bears against the frame. I've used various things for this to include sandpaper (400-600 grit) and a dremal tool with cratex tips.

Once I have a mirror finish on the rebound slide, I lube the frame corner with a high tech grease. Current favorie is Tetra Gun. Reinstall hammer after lubing hammer stud with Tetra. I also hit the yoke barrel and stud (parts that go in the frame and cylinder) with grease on the stud and Tetra Lube in the cylinder and on the yoke barrel.

I don't use much grease - just enough to give me a good film. The Tetra Lube should be shaken up throughly and you only need a couple of drops to feel the difference.

Anyway, that's worked for me. Anyone have different ideas or things the average owner can do that I've missed?

 

[colubrid]

"separate cylinder and yoke. Remove rebound slide "

Everytime I see a thread to help fix or do a tune/trigger job I can never tell which part is which. How do I know what a rebound slide looks like? Yoke? ect/??

I really want to do some tunes on my revolvers and Glocks and I did try in the past. Only thing that happened after I polished the WRONG parts and it had to get sent to a smith for fixing..
arhhHHH:banghead:

 

[Blueduck]

colubrid,

I'd suggest you get Jerry Miculeks "Trigger Job" video from Brownells. It shows you proper disassembly, what parts to polish what not etc... It's not all that complicated but A LOT different than what you do with a Glock. You can mess up a S/W revolver a lot worse A LOT faster than messing with a Glock. Thier are even a lot of ways people disassemble a S/W revolver that "seem" ok that can leave your revolver a mess. Don't even take a screwdriver to the sideplate till you know exactly what your doing.

My general suggestion is ordering a set of Wolff Rebound Springs (not main springs) from Brownells as well. You get several different strength springs fairly cheap so you can try out the various weights to see what you and revolver like best. THis can make for a very nice trigger pull while leaving you with the same strength main spring for reliable ignition.

I've had poor luck lighter aftermarket mainsprings reliability wise. Maybe if I had a strictly competition revolver I'd experiment some more, but frankly I'm done with them for my uses.

Best, Blueduck

 

[colubrid]

Thanks Blueduck for the help and the warning!
If I can mess a Glock up imagine what I could do to S&W revolvers ...

 

[Standing Wolf]

I started working on Smith & Wesson revolves a long time before Jerry Kuhnhausen's The S&W Revolver: a Shop Manual was published. Now that I have a copy, I do better work, take fewer risks, and waste less time.

I can't recommend it too highly.

 

[Blueduck]

No problem colubrid. Not my intent to scare you off from do it yourself but like I said it's just not "intuitive" like the Glock. You need instructions to follow. I only know this from a personal experince $$$:

Gunsmith: "Did you know the ejector rod was a reverse thread when you tried to unscrew it?"

Me (Proudly) "Oh yeah I've read a lot about S/W's"

Smith: "Did you fill the chambers with fired cases for support as you unscrewed it?"

Me:

 

[hansolo]

Thanks. I think you lost me after, "Remove grips".

 

[mec]

what you outlined is a minimal and sensible smooting job that is probably all that should be done with the Hand Ejector action. I generally remove one coil only from the trigger return spring. This has not caused any problems and takes .5 to one full pound off the trigger. Shooting further smooths the action and seats the parts.

I can recall when the gunwriters had people taking stones and files to the hammer and trigger contact points causing the predictable problems with push-off and destruction of the case hardening.

might add that the side plate shouldn't be pried loose but bounced off by tapping the grip frame with the soft handle of a screw driver or some other non -maring object.

 

[bountyhunter]

Add this: take a popsicle stick and square off an end. Use as a sanding tool with 600# paper (and oil) and mirror finish the two frame surfaces that the rebound slide rides against. If you also mirror finish the matching RB slide faces, you will have a very smooth DA pull.

I agree Tetra grease is real good, Militec maybe a bit better. I use it on everything inside EXCEPT the hammer pivot points which get only a light liquid oil like FP-10. Heavy grease there reduces hammer strike force which I don't want because I use light springs.

 

[George Hill]

Is there a site that shows something like this step by step with pictures and arrows pointing at the right parts... and all that?

 

[Standing Wolf]

You might want to consider a replacement main spring from the good folks at Wolff: http://www.gunsprings.com/1ndex.html

You can get standard and reduced weight main springs. I just put a reduced weight model in my 1951 K-22, and it's a help. I'm not sure it'll have enough power to drive the hammer hard enough for 100% reliable ignition, but I've got a standard weight in reserve. I've found Wolff's rebound slide springs deliver better results than shortening Smith & Wesson springs. Wolff makes them in one-pound increments from eleven through fifteen pounds. I put the lightest in my K-22, and it and the new main spring have reduced the single action pull from three pounds to two—and the break is still perfect. This is the first Smith & Wesson I've ever owned whose sear isn't going to get some attention.

By the way, I've always removed the hammer before the rebound slide. I pull the hammer back about a third of the distance, then lift it straight up extremely carefully. If you wiggle it, you can bend and/or loosen the post, and replacing one of those takes a skilled professional gunsmith.

 

[BluesBear]

You can get a S&W K frame schematic and parts list here for only 99¢