JimMarch1
Blackhawk
Folks,
I was doing some work in the shop that involved grinding on copper pipe. I was also cleaning my gun nearby...far enough away from flying copper chips, or so I thought.
Heh. Not.
So I put my NewVaq357 back together, go to open the loading gate, it's stiff. WTF? Go to cock it as it's still unloaded. I can work the action but there's a weird "click" in the middle.
Odd. Take it apart, check everything, put it back together, same issue.
Whaaa?
Take it down yet again. This time I don't just pull the loading gate out, I pull the hammer/pawl/transfer bar assembly and scope 'em out in detail.
A chip of copper had gone down in between the frame and the transfer bar, way low, had gotten smashed flat in there against the transfer bar and was screwing with the transfer bar's ability to go up and down. It was sticking a bit off, not enough to render the gun a total doorstop, but the transfer bar was out of position just enough to block the loading gate from opening.
Huh!
Once cleaned up it was fine.
Lesson learned: at least in the mid-frames, the channel that the transfer bar rides up and down in is a damned tight thing and if anything gets in there, it can mean trouble. If you have any "hitch" in the action, check that channel in detail with all the action parts completely out.
The good news is, with the hammer fully down this area is pretty well protected from a failure of this sort, so I don't think the SA action is any more vulnerable to "junk dropping into the guts" than any other revolver type.
I was doing some work in the shop that involved grinding on copper pipe. I was also cleaning my gun nearby...far enough away from flying copper chips, or so I thought.
Heh. Not.
So I put my NewVaq357 back together, go to open the loading gate, it's stiff. WTF? Go to cock it as it's still unloaded. I can work the action but there's a weird "click" in the middle.
Odd. Take it apart, check everything, put it back together, same issue.
Whaaa?
Take it down yet again. This time I don't just pull the loading gate out, I pull the hammer/pawl/transfer bar assembly and scope 'em out in detail.
A chip of copper had gone down in between the frame and the transfer bar, way low, had gotten smashed flat in there against the transfer bar and was screwing with the transfer bar's ability to go up and down. It was sticking a bit off, not enough to render the gun a total doorstop, but the transfer bar was out of position just enough to block the loading gate from opening.
Huh!
Once cleaned up it was fine.
Lesson learned: at least in the mid-frames, the channel that the transfer bar rides up and down in is a damned tight thing and if anything gets in there, it can mean trouble. If you have any "hitch" in the action, check that channel in detail with all the action parts completely out.
The good news is, with the hammer fully down this area is pretty well protected from a failure of this sort, so I don't think the SA action is any more vulnerable to "junk dropping into the guts" than any other revolver type.
