SP101 with hammer to SP101 hammerless

[Slim934]

Salutations all!

I am the happy new owner of a snub nose 357 magnum SP101. I absolutely adore. A big overengineered brick of steel. Makes me proud to be an American.

On another note, there is one thing I would like to do: my model currently has a full hammer. I would like very much to make it into a hammerless variant, but I would rather not have the current hammer despurred.

I am thinking that I should be able to simply purchase the fixins for a spurless hammer setup (the spurless hammer, any other doodads involved) from Ruger. I realize I may need to have these parts fitted to my particular piece, but that is fine by me. The question I have is: what all components would I need inorder to do that?

Thanks much for your consideration!

 

[rammerjammer]

Why not just purchase the spurless version first off?

 

[Thel]

The spurless hammer besides lacking the spur does not have a cocking notch on it thus preventing cocking the gun for single action. There should be no major fitting required. The problem is Ruger will not sell certain components of their guns and this includes hammers. This would require finding a spurless hammer on the used component market such as at Numrich, when available and this may take
a while to do.

 

[Slim934]

"Why not just purchase the spurless version first off?"

I did not think it would really be an issue to get a 2nd hammer after the fact and install it given how disassembly friendly ruger revolvers are. Then I would have 2 hammers that I could swap out when the inkling arised to do so.

@ Thel: "The spurless hammer besides lacking the spur does not have a cocking notch on it thus preventing cocking the gun for single action."

That is precisely why I want one. The idea is to have something nice and concealment friendly that I am forced to practice DA only with.

Now, would I just need the spurless hammer? There is nothing else different about ti compared to a standard hammer such that it might need different internal parts?

 

[louiethelump]

I have a spurless hammer gun and would trade you for your spur hammer. But, like you, I can no more easily buy a hammer with a spur than you can buy one without. It is allegedly all in the hammer and all that is needed is a hammer swap. Mine is a factory spurless hammer by the way, on the outside chance you may be interested.

Louie

 

[contender]

As noted above, Ruger doesn't sell hammers & other parts that require gunsmith fitting for liability reasons. If you were to get a part from them, install it yourself, decide you wanted it "lighter" or whatever, and you got injured, a lawyer would try to afix the blame on Ruger. (Always sue the deepest pockets!) If you got killed, your heirs would be the ones sueing. To prevent spending a lot of money on lawsuits, Ruger has the policy to not sell critical fire control parts. Too many kitchen table gunsmiths that butcher things.

Now, to get a spurless hammer, you'll have to buy one off a gun parts company or sleezbay etc.

 

[chris_]

While Ruger will not sell Sp101 hammers, you can buy single action hammers from them all day long. Never been able to figure that one out.

 

[Bear Paw Jack]

I'd still contact Ruger about a hammer. I just bought 2 sbh hammers from them. I've seen this happen before where people just advertised on the classifieds and traded their hammers.

 

[flcracker64]

I have also been interested in doing this but never got around to it. A gunsmith suggested that since Ruger will not fit a spurless hammer to a gun that was originally manufactured with a spur, the solution would be to remove your hammer, send the gun to Ruger for a replacement, then bob one and keep one for future restoration to original condition if it ever had to go back for repair.

 

[JmE]

I got my spurred hammer the same way that louiethelump is proposing... A forum user and I swapped hammers years ago; a simple drop in deal for us. I sure wish Ruger would start selling some of these parts!

 

[Wayne74]

I have a SP101 357 and would like to bob the hammer spur and use it dao. Has anyone done this and are there problems with ignition with the lighter hammer?

Thank you.
Wayne

 

[JmE]

Everything that I read, back a few years, indicated that it didn't affect ignition due to light hammer strikes. My gunsmith friend speculated that since the factory spurless hammer was heavy enough, a lopped hammer should be as well. He also told me that he had, in his profession, also bobbed hammers on S&Ws without any ill effect.

 

[berettapistols]

Several years back I found a DAO hammer & was able to swap it back & forth on my 2 1/4" 9mm SP101 no problem..
It seems that whenever you find a parts set anymore it seems they,re all the DA/SA, They are out there, Look on eBay & Gunbroker..
Also since the newer trigger are hollow the parts kits seem to bring a premium.