Brute Force is Always the Answer

With Chris Byrne’s help, I got the side plate off my revolver.

Everyone on the web says not to pry it, but he gave me the go-ahead, so I gave it a try. I stuck a flat screwdriver in the hammer slot and twisted very gently, and the plate slid off.

I put Wolff springs in the gun. The kit came with three trigger springs, ranging from 13 pounds to 15 pounds. That doesn’t mean the trigger pull will be that heavy. All of the springs were noticeably lighter than the original. I decided to try the 14-pound spring.

The trigger pull seems half as hard as it used to be. Much better. I exercise my hands every day so I’ll shoot well, but the original trigger on the 27-2 was way too stiff to shoot with any kind of confidence.

Let me horrify you by telling you how I got the gun back together. There’s a doodad in there that fits in a groove on the side plate. It seems like the best way to make it line up was to put it in the groove, hold the revolver with the plate side down, and raise the plate and the doodad into the gun.

The plate would not go on all the way. It turns out the Pachmayr grip I bought (on Jim’s advice) makes a very good rubber mallet, but it wasn’t enough to do the job. So I used…a VISE.

Yes, that’s right. I put my nice excellent-condition Smith & Wesson 27-2 revolver in a vise. With rubber jaws. And I put paper towels between the gun and the jaws, in case there was grit on the rubber. I mashed the gun twice, and then I tightened the screws one at a time–carefully–until the plate went on.

I can see how this would be a bad thing to do, if the parts inside didn’t line up. But the gun was functioning fine before I mashed it, and I was sure the parts were aligned. It’s amazing how tightly the side plate fits.

I just wish I hadn’t taken so many other parts of the gun off, trying to find the nonexistent fourth screw that held the plate on. But I learned a whole lot about how the gun is put together.