Question for you revolver guys.

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jsalcedo

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My Taurus 66 went out of time due to my own careless handling.

Used the shooting table to push the ejector rod to extract stuck cases.

Anyhow I did not want to send my cherished first gun back to Taurus due to the horror stories of several month wait times. So I took it to my local smith who has done well in the past.

$35 and the gun is working properly again or so I thought. I hardly ever fire it double action preferring accurate target work.

I tried some fast double action shooting and all I got was click click click.

The gun felt right but apparently did not hit the firing pin hard enough to set off the primers. single action works fine.

Should I take it back to the smith or is there something I can do myself?
 
Two words: warranty voided.

Since you had the gun modified by somebody other than the factory, the factory will probably charge you for fixing it... if they take it at all. That being the case, you probably should just (a) make the guy really fix it, or (b) find a revolver 'smith who actually has a clue to fix it.

So I took it to my local smith

Unfortunately, based on my experiences, and those of others, the local 'smith is usually mentally retarded and has a personality disorder or two. Unless you are lucky enough to live next to Ted Yost or something.
 
Did you have the smith do a trigger job? If so he probably cut a few too many coils off of the main spring. Taurus has a coil main spring right? Either way, its usually a weak main spring when you don't get a strong enough DA hit.

Or it can be that the timing is way off and when the double action stroke lets the hammer fall the cylinder hasn't rotated enough to place the primer under the firing pin which is good because it also hasn't rotated enough to line up the cylinder with the barrel and lock it in place. We'll need alittle more info.

Since the warranty is voided anyway you might as well have this guy try to make it right before it goes for a long expensive trip to the factory.
 
Well that sucks.

I paid $154 for it new in 86 and it has had well over 30k through it.

It still looks brand new.

It can still be used as a single action as that is 99% of what I do with it.

This particular example has the sweetest out of box trigger I've ever encountered and have been told the same by other gun guys.

I doubt the smith did a trigger job but I'll take it back to him and see what he says.
 
Does the gun have a strain screw in the front strap? Most of the larger Smiths have a flat mainspring and use a strain screw to put tension on it. Sometimes it works loose or a well meaning person backs it off as it makes the trigger pull lighter. Unfortunately, it also makes it unreliable. Check it out. HTH
 
I'm no expert but i've handled a revo or three...
what does pushing the casings out have to do with timing.? Did yoiu bend the crane or the cylinder spindle?I think th'as what it's called......the part the cylinder spins on? If so,I can't see how going inside the revo would fix it.
"timing" is the bolt locking into the cylinder as the hammer reaches full cock.....or close to that anyway.Bending something 'could' make the bolt not engage,but you'd have to replace the crane I'm thinking to fix the problem
UH,why did the shells stick so bad.Overloaded handloads,or??
 
A crane/yoke can be bent and it can be adjusted back (usually a wedge shaped piece of wood is used for this). If as you say you shoot SA 99 % of the time maybe this problem has been arround longer than you think.

How about providing us with some basic diagnostic information.
1. What did the primer indents, if any look like?
2. what brand of ammo were you using? (I just went through this with some hard primered Fiocchi 357).
3. Does the crane/yoke still close easily and lock into place? If so it is unlikely that any real damage was done and even more unlikely that timing was effected.

This really sounds like a weak main spring especially if it has a great trigger pull.
 
UH,why did the shells stick so bad.Overloaded handloads,or??

Old old .38 nickle cased handloads I found in the garage. Ended up split cases.

The reason I took it to the smith in the first place was because it was spitting lead and jacket material out the sides. I figured it was from me bending the crane. (maybe timing wasn't the proper nomenclature)

The double action failure to fire was with Winchester White box
I just went through the cylinder single action and fired them off without looking then put the gun away.
 
Well, 30k+ rounds and spitting lead sounds like a timing problem, but also sounds very unlikely to be the result of either bending the ejector rod or anything your smith did to fix it. Odds are decent that it's just plain wear. If you needed a valve job at 200k miles, you wouldn't be too surprised...this may be the same thing. Send it to Taurus for a well-deserved refurb.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Taurus just went ahead and fixed it. Thirty thousand rounds is quite an accomplishment and might have created enough end float to account for the da light stroaks.

Mark Twain probably didn't use local gunsmiths or he would have put them even lower on the human scale than employees of the southern pacific railroad or the French. A local guy was telling me that he was loading .45 acp 200 grain cast swc on the local gun wallah's lee progressive. " He has it set for nine grains of 231 and man, it sure is loud and I had to use a lewis lead remover to get the lead out of the barrel."

I advised him not to go near the local GS's reloading set-up without a silver crucifix. Six grains of 231 is a good 900+ fps load with that bullet and nine only prooves how hard it is to blow up a 1911.
 
I paid $154 for it new in 86 and it has had well over 30k through it
It still looks brand new..

I'd say you got your money's worth out of it.

I'd say go ahead and send it in to Taurus.

Does the gun have a strain screw in the front strap? Most of the larger Smiths have a flat mainspring and use a strain screw to put tension on it.

The model 66 (and prob. other Tauri) use a coil spring, and have no strain screw.
 
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