Charity Gunsmithing...

This fellow at work came to me and asked my fee for some Gunsmithing, there is no one in our area. To him free. I told him I'd see what I could do. He paid a guy $80 for a Heritage SA .22 that had faux pearl grips and had been literally painted black with hardware store rattle can. Unless they come from the factory that way. The sides of the hammer, trigger, and even the mainspring all were painted and had several thousandths of paint built up on them.

Custom upper hex grip screws. Self tapping too!

Seems it lacked sufficient snap to fire. He asked if he did OK on it. I told him yeah, if it goes bang it was worth $80, we just needed to make it go bang. I took it apart and polished all the paint off the surfaces that rub. The hammer was also too tight in the frame. The frame needed filing and polishing were the hammer pivoted. I got it fitted correctly. I'm not sure if you could tighten a hammer bolt tight enough to pinch a frame but it does not need to be that tight anyway. I also brass shimmed the flat mainspring as that was the only way I saw to give it more power to snap. I put it together and went to test fire. I thin discovered it was a "Magnum" cylinder! I shot (4) LR through it and two WMR, all fired fine. Job completed, enough.

I'll give it back to him tomorrow. It's the only handgun his family has, but now it shoots! I'm going to clean the bore and cylinder chambers first. I'm sure he'll be happy as a clam. Ignorance can be bliss.