Primarily a S&W revolver fanatic but have wanted a Dan Wesson since the mid 70's.  Problem was that paying for college took priority over buying a revolver and after college most of my funds went into cameras or motorcycles.  About 7 or 8 years ago I became a "re-entry" shooter and have accumulated a small collection of S&W revolvers with one being the model 620, which features a Tensioned Barrel.  At the time that was as close as I could get to a Dan Wesson and it has proven to be an extremely accurate 357 Magnum.  A couple of weeks back the Cabela's in Dundee, Michigan listed a S&W 686-5 Mountain Gun and that being the only model of 686 feature a half lug barrel profile it's been one of my Grail guns.  Unfortunately, the 686 has sold by the time I got down to Dundee.  Good news is that they did have a couple of 15-2's for sale, one a 6 inch with a lot of carry wear but almost no shots fired, the cylinder didn't even have a turn ring.  BTW, that missing turn ring is now making an appearance and price paid for the 6 incher was 400 dollars.  The other sample had so much freckling that I suspect it was somebody's Boat Gun, so in spite of it being a 4 incher I passed on it.

Note, I am a Mechanical Engineer with 32 years of experience in Automotive and carried a Journeyman's rating as a machinist my last 2 years of college.  So, I know my way around mechanical assemblies and have become a rather good S&W revolver technician.  That previously mentioned 620 has a DA trigger break at 8.0 lbs and it is reliable with any name brand primer available in the US.

The first outing with the 15-2 was a bit of a mixed bag. 

Accuracy was as expected just splendid, I have no doubt whatsoever that it would take me many many weeks of constant practice to approach what it is capable of.  However, offhand and using reading glasses I was able to shoot out the 9 ring of a 5 inch shoot-n-c at 50 feet.  

The bad news was twofold. 

One, the trigger was sticking back in double action in a somewhat unpredictable manner.  Spent an evening studying the lockwork and finally caught on to it being the trigger stop screw was permitting the trigger to come back too far.  About 1/4 turn out on the screw in the trigger solved that problem 100%. 

Second issue is Misfires.  With 357 Magnums loaded using CCI 550 primers the misfire rate in double action was about 60%.   With 38 specials loaded using CCI500 primers the misfire rate in double action was about 35-40%.  BTW, in single action ignition was 100%, so the problem is most likely a lack of Mainspring power.  Just today I received 2 new mainsprings from Numrich's so I'll probably stay a bit late at work tomorrow and drop in a new mainspring.  If time permits I may also do some polishing of the Mainspring pocket to try and reduce some of the trigger stacking.  Further down the road I may make up a new cylinder bushing about 0.009 inch longer to reduce the headspacing at the rear of the cylinder which is what I would consider somewhat excessive at 0.019 inch.  Note, if anyone knows the specification for the headspacing I would appreciate knowing that tidbit.

Last Saturday I also spent some time in the machine shop at work making up a barrel wrench.  Made it out of O-1 and tempered it to about 48 Rc.  Also polished and cold blued the the body, made up a copper pilot to protect the barrel and used a 1/4 inch piece of 304 stainless for the cross handle.  All in all it turned out rather nicely.

Now, about the trigger stacking.  My trigger pull gage is a Lyman Digital and I've used check weights to confirm it's accurate.  I have no idea at all where this stuff about "light" triggers in the DW revolvers comes from but from what I have seen with my sample it's a myth.  With a slow steady pull the misfiring DA trigger breaks a bit over 11 pounds.  With a moderately quick trigger pull the weight ranges between 10.0 and 10 pounds 9 ounces and the weight is pull rate related.  This indicates that there is some friction building inside the mainspring housing.

My plan of attack for reducing the stacking will probably end up being a 2 pronged approach.  With a coil spring  that is contained in a housing the spring has a tendency to buckle and this can cause a lot of friction to build up between the spring and housing.  So, polishing the housing should help reduce the friction.  Adding a bit of high pressure grease in this area should also help.  To reduce the bucking the extension of the spring bushing that fits inside the spring also should be "sized" to allow free movement of the spring when extended or compressed but feature no more clearance than is absolutely necessary.  This means at some point I'll probably make up a new spring bushing that is a bit "tighter" than factory.  Final result is that I'll probably only be able to get the DA trigger stacking down to the 10-10.5 lbs range with a new mainspring but who knows, perhaps some of the mainspring energy is being lost to friction between the spring and housing and I'll be able to go a bit lighter.  As for polishing the lockwork recess, trigger, and hammer, that will have to wait until I get some rub marks into these areas.  I'll also be doing some shimming of the hammer and trigger to hold them on center because currently there is enough movement of both that shimming would prove beneficial.  It's sort if difficult to conceive of why a revolver with this much carry wear was actually fired so little, my hunch is that it was carried by some security guard who purchased in on the cheap in a pawnshop sometime in the 80's.

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