Action tune for the S&W 625-8

[Dale53]

I know most of you have heard enough about my fun with the S&W 625-8 Jerry Miculek Performance Center revolver.

However, I couldn't resist another little comment or two[smilie=1:.

I previously mentioned that I had purchased a JM matched spring kit for the piece. Last evening, with nothing, and I mean NOTHING on the boob tube that I cared to watch, I sat down and carefully took the revolver down. I pulled it apart, and carefully examined the various bits and pieces (being extra careful of that evil trigger return spring and slide). I have the proper tool for removal of the slide and spring but it is still a bit of a hassle. I carefully stoned the sides where the parts were a bit rough (so much for "Custom Performance Center, etc"). I replaced the trigger return spring with the JM part and also the mainspring. I also carefully and sparingly lubed the revolver (it was bone dry) and reassembled (that dern trigger return spring and slide are a real pain to reassemble without "launching" the spring to the far side of the room). I managed to successfully get everything back together (I've done this several times before with other revolvers, so I am not a newbie).

I could not locate my trigger pull gauge so I, unfortunately, cannot give you the specs on "before and after" but I can tell you with certainty that it is MUCH smoother and requires much less effort. The double action is MUCH smoother and lighter and the single action pull is absolutely without repproach.

Of course, the proof will come when I get to shoot it. That will be Thursday, "God willing and the creeks don't rise".

I'll let you know what happens.

It would be quite helpful, if this is your first effort to consider letting a pistolsmith do it. However, if you have "good hands" and some mechanical background, it is really not all that difficult. The S&W Manual by Jerry Kuhnhausen is definitely recommended:

http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=314178

Jerry Miculek's DVD on "Trigger Job" is excellent and will keep you out of trouble.

A light touch is always recommended. Further, you don't have to do a "complete" job to get improvement. Just installing the Jerry Miculek matched spring kit will do a lot for you.

NOTE:
Jerry himself mentions that he only recommends that Federal Primers be used after the spring swap.

If this is your primary duty gun, you will want to put a bunch of loads through it after tuning to make VERY certain that it will be reliable with the ammunition of choice.

My particular piece is mostly for range use, so that is not a terribly important fact for me (although, I will NOT put up with a less than totally reliable arm for ANY purpose).

Be careful and engage your personal computer (that one that sits on top of your shoulders) before contemplating this little task.

Dale53

[9.3X62AL]

One more gushy, drippy post about that 625-8 of yours, and I'm going to banish you for a week. :-) I've been pretty quiet about the M-657 x 6" with the Cheshire & Perez action job I acquired earlier this year, so now I'm provoked into responding to this shot fired across the bow.

Just kidding........maybe the single best upgrade a S&W revolver owner can do to improve D/A trigger action is to smoothe the spring gallery surfaces inside the rebound slide. These can be REALLY rough in service-grade examples, and my usual trick is to remove the rebound slide and chuck a Q-Tip into a power drill--coat it with toothpaste--and let the coated Q-Tip smoothe things out internally with the drill run at slow speed. This takes about 3-4 Q-Tips (they last about 20-30 seconds before self-destructing), and the results in trigger smoothness are immediately apparent. As an added benefit, the powder smoke smells fresher, too. :-) I put either Break-Free (in blue-steel guns) or RIG Plus-P lube (on stainless guns) LIGHTLY on the surfaces traversed by the rebound slide inside the frame, and a VERY SMALL AMOUNT of these same lubes inside the slide's spring gallery.

All the moving parts were dry from the factory??!! HORRORS!! I don't want the thing to drip oil like a British sports car, but moving parts need a little lube. The trigger and hammer arbors and the pivot surfaces on the parts that move around them need a little love via Break-Free.

[JSH]

Dale, yours was dry huh? Mine had some lube in it, but, it was what I believe was left after machine work, along with some metal. Don't get me wrong here. I really like the gun all around. I will say though that I am disapointed in the thing over all as it came "new". I also was under the impression that this was a " S&W 625-8 Jerry Miculek Performance Center ". After talking to several folks, this is not a PC gun at all, or at least mine isn't. I am unaware if there is a 625-8 that comes through the SW PC that is marked as all the others ones with the JM, the grip barrel length etc.
I had posted else where here that I was a bit disapointed in this from the get go. I was given the website of addy of Jerry and I did send him a letter. Never got any kind of response. I have emailed and talked to SW till it has come to the point they do not reply to my emails nor return my calls. I did not feel I was bashing them either, just stating facts as I saw them.


I have since then put several hours into the "fixing" of this gun to live up to what I thought it would be out of the box. I swapped springs and did clean up the inside just a we bit and used some good quality lube. I was going to polish the rebond slide as recommended above, but after a bit of looking it was in very good shape and didn't feel this one needed that. I finally got it put back together and was satisfied for the most part. The DA still needs some work IMHO. I have had several folks look at it and the tend to want me to "wear it in a bit.
I did shoot 100+ rounds of ball ammo through it. My thoughts were to burnish any edges down that may be present from final machine work. The first 1/8" of forcing cone/barrel fouled pretty bad. I did finally get that all cleaned out and have ran around 200 rounds of CB's through it. I was pretty sure it would foul, but did n't know how bad it would get. It didn't let me down. I have a bit of a mess to get taken care of. It looks, to my eye, that the forcing cone cutter may have picked up a chip, it looks almost threaded. I am going to get it cleaned up and run it over to a local fellow here that has put together several dandy SW's in the past.
BTW, another thing I was not real excited about was the serated trigger. I ran about 100 through it all DA. I work with my hands daily and came away from the DA with as close to a blister as you could get with out having an open wound. I have pretty much decided that these will be gone in the future. I brought this up to one fellow and he said JM prefered this trigger? All I can think is JM gets more trigger and range time in a week as most do in a year. He must have a pretty thick calouse.
I will stay after this as I have comited myself thus far and results have been pretty good. My spring kit was from Wilson, but I did end up putting a Powers hammer spring in. I tried some factory ammo and everything shot fine, no misfires. All of my handloads are using federal primers.
Jeff

[JMax]

I have known Jerry for more than a decade and have shot with him from Second Chance to the IRC. Yes he does have thick calouse on his trigger finger and a very firm hand shake. He is a prime example of perfect practice makes perfect. I would also add a Cylinder and Slide long firing pin to those revolvers. As a side note I went to Smith school and spent 4 weeks w/Ron Powers learning trigger jobs and use none of the kits and use Winchester primers.

[Dale53]

Al,
I am MOST happy to see the responses to my post. One thing I will do the next time I have the revolver apart is to check the interior of the rebound slide (I confess it has been some time since I had one apart and I, frankly, forgot to look at it). I lubed the action with a discrete amount of a special lube that I happened to have on hand. I believe that I will convert to Dexron II or III for gun oil. That is a very sophisticated mix that is inexpensive simply because of the amount that is used in this country (it is really synthetic sperm oil). It also has the very properties that we need in a really GOOD gun oil. As always, I recommend that you give any oil that is used for duty use (whether you are a LEO are using for self defense) the "freezer test" to see if it is compatible with low temperatures.

We MEED to hear from you regarding the 657. Tell us all about it. We can't own everything (although my wife suggests it might be otherwise) but we can sure live vicariously through others experiences :roll: :-D .

I am very happy with what I have now but "just a bit better" might be OK, too[smilie=1:.

As I have stated before, I am NOT a professional pistolsmith but rather, a semi-educated serious amateur:-D . I try to make a point of not getting over my head in a project (yes, I DO know my limitations:-D).

J-Max;
I was already considering a "Cylinder & Slide" firing pin. Now, that you have spoken, I'll make that a definite. I have never been one to put "form before function" and when I finish, my revolver will at least still be 100% reliable. I am just a bit envious (well, maybe a little more than "a bit":-D ) of your work experience. You are now and will be in the future an asset to us on the forum.

One thing that I am most happy with. After shooting several hundred cast and swaged bullets (some over thirty years old) I had not one little bit of leading. The accuracy has been exemplary. I just ran a patch through the barrel and cylinder, wet with Ed;s Red and wrapped around a sub caliber brass brush and it wiped entirely clean. That is one slick barrel. The cylinder throats cleaned right up, also.

It will be interesting to see what happens when I shoot with the "tune-up". If it's reliable, I'll pretty much have what I want (but will be putting a new firing pin and will also polish the inside of the rebound slide, shortly).

In the meantime, I have a 624 4" that will be getting a new firing pin (the old style hammer mounted firing pin - it broke). Fortunately, my local pistol smith had the firing pins and "pivot rivet" in stock.

Good dialogue, fellows and gals!:drinks:

Dale53


.

[JMax]

J-Max;
I was already considering a "Cylinder & Slide" firing pin. Now, that you have spoken, I'll make that a definite. I have never been one to put "form before function" and when I finish, my revolver will at least still be 100% reliable. I am just a bit envious (well, maybe a little more than "a bit":-D ) of your work experience. You are now and will be in the future an asset to us on the forum.

I was a Sheriffs department armorer and firearms instructor for 18 years. Had to be certified in all arms and got to go to all the schools including S&W revolver school a couple of times. Shot a lot of PPC and built a number of match revolvers hence the Ron Powers time. Had a gunsmith business on the side for more than 15 years and have worked on a lot of revolvers and now only touch S&W. I shot bowling pins at Second Chance and got my HG master rating shooting revolvers using 230 gr wad cutters out of 686's. I still shoot in competition at the IRC (International Revolver Championship) and Steel Challenge each year. Older now and a bit slow running but accurate.

All my floating firing pin center fire Smiths have the long firing pin. I believe that Brownells has a 3 pak to save a few bucks. My 617 uses the stock pin but the tip has been beveled or chamfered on each side to reduce the contact area increasing #'s/square inch retaining reliable ignition with reduced DA trigger pull.

[targetshootr]

Several years ago one of the Brownell newsletters had a tip about the return spring. The guy clipped a couple of coils off it to ease to pull and filed flat the cut edges. To make up the space difference he used a small ball bearing in front of the spring. So I rounded up the correct size bearing and tried it on a m19 and it worked like a champ. But the next time I tried to do it I could never get the spring and bearing in place.

[JMax]

Use full length 12# rebound springs.

[9.3X62AL]

+1 to J Max--I leave springs alone. If I found a deputy's revo with a clipped rebound slide spring--usually given away by sluggish trigger return--the gun got DQ'ed for service until a certified armorer or gunsmith returned the revolver to stock spring rates--and SIGNED THE INVOICE CONFIRMING SAME. This invoice stayed in the weapons file to document the incident.

J Max--check for PM.

[leftiye]

Al,
I've got a Wolfe trigger return spring for an S&W on my taurus 454. Much better!

[9.3X62AL]

Recreational firearms are a whole 'nuther ball game than defensive tools. I have used spring kits in a few of my toy guns, too--but if the gun is used on 2- or 4-legged predators, the MOST I'll do or recommend is to remove no metal, just polish the metal already in place. I want the piece to work--EVERY TIME. The better armsmakers invest a LOT of money in making their products reliable and dependable, and I don't think I have any business "hacksawing" a S&W revolver or a Glock pistol--or a Bushmaster AR-15.

[45 2.1]

I want the piece to work--EVERY TIME. The better armsmakers invest a LOT of money in making their products reliable and dependable, and I don't think I have any business "hacksawing" a S&W revolver or a Glock pistol--or a Bushmaster AR-15.

You forgot lawsuit-proof. Another reason custom smiths do a booming business because of really heavy uncontrollable triggers on various pieces. :mrgreen:

[9.3X62AL]

Very true, 45--sadly enough.

[leftiye]

Youse guys are welcome to any trigger you like, ditto for me. I'll choose the ones that I can shoot best. Maybe lawyer proof, but that's the manufacturer's problem. I don't have any reliability problems.

[Dale53]

This is a "follow up" on my S&W 625-8 .45 ACP tune up.

I got to the range this morning and shot eight targets (80 rounds). Everything worked quite well. The tune job raised my score from 100x100 to 120x100 NOT. Actually, I wasn't holding all that well this A.M. but averaged just a bit less than normal. I had several 99's but no cigar (for those late arrivals I was shooting standing at the 25 yards timed fire target at 25 yards).

It was a GLORIUS day at the range. As most of you know, I have been complaining about the drought and over 100 degree temps around here (we had, I think, 26 or 7 days over 90 degrees with several well over 100 degrees with humidity levels as high as 94%0.

This morning started off at about 50 degrees. For the first time since about March, I had a light jacket on for an hour or so. Loved it!!

Back to business. I was shooting H&G 130 cast bullets, lubed with NRA Alox ahead of 4.5 grs of Win 231 sparked by Winchester LP primers. Nary a problem.

Pretty happy camper!

Dale53

[targetshootr]

Most factory guns need tuning. I'll take a custom gun over a stock one any day.