sloppy “action job” done on it, or was poorly assembled at the factory, or has experienced a lot of wear. Since most experts believe a combat revolver should be double-action only anyway, and a good plan is to have the single-action cocking notch removed after you’ve bought it, this may not matter to you. Keep in mind, however, that it’s an early warning sign that something else might be wrong with the gun.
With the cylinder out of the frame, spin it. Watch the ejector rod. If it remains straight, it’s in alignment. If it wobbles like the wheels of the Toonerville Trolley, it’s not, and there’s a fairly expensive repair job in its immediate future.
Close the cylinder. Looking at the gun from the front, push leftward on the cylinder as if you were opening it, but without releasing the cylinder latch. Watch the interface between the crane or yoke, the part on which the cylinder swings out, with the rest of the frame. If it stays tight, the gun is in good shape. If there’s a big gap, it tells you that some bozo has been abusing the gun by whipping the cylinder out of the frame like Humphrey Bogart. This will have a negative effect on cylinder alignment and will mean another pricey repair job. A big gap in this spot always means, “don’t buy it.”
The cylinder of S&W 686 is opened, then spun. Watch the ejector rod. If it wobbles, it’s out of line and may need replacement.
The author drops a pencil, eraser-end first, down barrel of cocked and empty S&W 4506. Note hammer is back, and decocking lever up…
…when the decocking lever on the left side is depressed the pencil stays in place. This shows that the decocking mechanism is working properly.
With the cylinder still closed and the muzzle still in a safe direction, take a firing grasp with your dominant hand. Cup the gun under the trigger guard with your support hand, and with the thumb of that hand, apply light pressure to the cylinder. Use about the same pressure you’d use to take your pulse at the wrist. This will effectively duplicate the cylinder drag of cartridge case heads against the frame at the rear of the cylinder window if the gun was loaded.
Now, slowly, roll the trigger back until the hammer falls. Hold the trigger back. With the thumb, wiggle the cylinder. If it is locked in place, then at least on that chamber, you have the solid lockup you want. If, however, this movement causes the cylinder to only now “tick” into place, it means that particular chamber would not have been in alignment with the bore when an actual shot was fired. Armorers call this effect a DCU, which stands for “doesn’t carry up.” You want to repeat this check for every chamber in the gun.
When the revolver’s chambers don’t lock into line with the bore, the gun is said to be “out of time.” The bullets will go into the forcing cone at an angle. This degrades accuracy, and causes lead shavings to spit out to the sides, endangering adjacent shooters on the firing line. As it gets worse, the firing pin will hit the primer so far off center the gun may misfire. With powerful loads, it will quickly lead to a split forcing cone. It definitely needs to be fixed. (When you get an estimate, if the armorer or gunsmith says you need a new ratchet, get a second opinion. Maybe five out of six times, all the gun needs is to have a new cylinder hand stoned to fit. Replacing an extractor is at least four times as expensive.)
Do all that again, and this time, once each chamber locks into place, wiggle the cylinder. If there’s a lot of slop and play, there’s a good chance that perfect chamber/bore alignment will be a chancy thing, and accuracy will suffer. This is generally a sign of bad workmanship in a cheaply made gun, and excessive wear in one of the big-name brands.
With magazine removed, hammer cocked, and safety off, the trigger is pulled on an empty Browning Hi-Power. Hammer does not move, demonstrating that magazine disconnector safety is functioning as designed.
In a test that will make you cringe, unloaded pistol begins at slidelock with finger on slide release lever…
…and the hammer remains cocked as the slide slams forward. This shows Kimber Custom .45’s sear mechanism to be in good working order. However…
…if the hammer had “followed” slide to the half-cock position as replicated here, gun would need repairs before being worthy of purchase.
A less abusive test for hammer-follow on an auto is to hold it as shown and repeatedly flick the hammer back with the free hand thumb.
Push the cylinder back and forth; front to back and vice versa. A lot of slop means excessive headspace. Particularly with a big-bore or a Magnum, it may be a sign that the gun has been shot so much it’s approaching the end of its useful life. A good gunsmith can fix this with some cylinder shims, however.
Check to see if magazines insert and drop out cleanly. This HK USP40 Compact passes the test.
Get some light on the other side of the gun, so you can look through the gap between barrel and cylinder. Hold the hammer back with your thumb until the bolt drops, and then rotate the cylinder, watching the gap. If you examine enough guns, you will find some that actually touch the forcing cone of the barrel. This is unacceptable; the cylinder will bind, the trigger pull will become uneven, hard, and “grating” as your finger works to force the cylinder past the bind point, and eventually the gun will lock up and stop working. On the other end of the spectrum, you may see a barrel/cylinder gap so wide that you could probably spit through it without touching metal. You can expect poor accuracy and nasty side-spit from such a gun. Reject it unless the seller is willing to pay for the repairs to bring it up to spec.
If the cylinder comes closer to the barrel on some chambers than others, the front of the cylinder is probably not machined true. Most experts would pass by such a revolver.
Autoloaders
With any autoloader, double check that it is empty and keep the muzzle in a safe direction. Try the action a few times. When you rack the slide, everything should feel smooth. The slide should go all the way into battery – that is, all the way forward – without any sticking points that require an extra nudge. If the gun binds when it’s empty, you know it’s going to bind when the mechanism has
