Dan Wessson 744 Magnum

[pistolman44]

I got a Dan Wesson SS 44Mag. Bought a 8" barrel amd shroud for it. My revolver was made at the Palmer plant and the 8" shroud came from Norwich made gun. The 8" shroud wll not go on far enouh to fit tight to the frame. The roll pin that the shroud fits on is too long on my Plamer made gun. Now should I short'n the roll pin on my frame or should I drill the roll pin hole deeper in the shroud? I guess I could file the pin down about 1/8" so the shroud slides up to the frame. The Nowich plant guns came after the Plamer plant made guns. I guess they figured that the roll pin need not be as long as the early made Palmer plant guns. I hope, if I decide to short'n the pin.

[S.R.Custom]

Before you do anything, take a brass hammer and see if you can't tap the pin in a bit further; it may have just come out some. If no joy...

It'd be easier to just shorten the pin. All the stress is in shear at the joint, so the length of the pin is irrelevant. Just don't take off any more than is necessary to get a good fit.

[pistolman44]

Got a plastic hammer and gave the roll pin a few tapps and it moved back far enough for the shroud to butt up against the frame. Now I discovered another problem after I got the barrel and shroud on is that the cut out in the shroud isn't cut long enough for the cylinder ejection rod to fit in when clinder is closed. Now I have to have the ejection rod cut out made longer. There difinately is a difference in guns made at the Palmer plant and the Norwich plant. This is not the bargain I thought I had.

[S.R.Custom]

Yup. I ran into that mixing and matching barrels & shrouds on the SuperMags...

There's two ways to go about fixing that-- (1) Extending the slot on a mill. Easy enough if you have access to a mill, and not that big of a deal if the material in question is Stainless Steel. (2) Trim the ejector rod... Unscrew it, trim by the necessary amount, and re-thread the end. (This will require turning down an equivalent amount on the fat part of the rod.) I've also cut the knob off the other end, threaded that end, and screwed on another knob of my own making.

This all assumes, of course, acccess to mills and/or other fabricating tools. YMMV. If it's an issue, keep in mind yours truly owns & operates a gunsmith/custom shop. :D

[pistolman44]

Thanks for the info, greatly appreciated. There is a gun smith close to me that has a milling machine. He did all my machining for fitting sights on the various 1911's slides I have built. It is stainless steel. I'll have him lenth'n the ejection rod cut out in the shroud. If that rod screws out of the cylinder, wonder if DW/CZ parts dept. would have the shorter ejection rod.

[S.R.Custom]

Good Luck with that... While the CZ folks are pretty good when it comes to customer service, the first thing they did when they acquired DW was discontinue the revolvers. I doubt they schooled themselves on the subtle differences in MFRing between the previous owners.

Give it a shot, tho. I'd love to be wrong on that count.

[tepeecreeper]

In the classified section of gun list mag there was a guy who advertized carring large inventory of DW parts.