I sometimes got light primer strikes in double action mode on my 714 Dan Wesson 357.

It would happen with hard primer factory ammo, or reloads using CCI primers rather than Win or Federal primers.

I could always set off the cartridge the second time around in single action mode, after manually cocking the hammer, but since the majority of my shooting is in double action mode it really annoyed me.

I verified that I did not have a grip screw problem simply by firing the gun without the grip screw installed. Once I had ruled that problem out, I went and added a couple of extra washers to the grip screw so it would not become a problem in the future, and then reinstalled the grip screw.

I was concerned that I possibly did not have enough firing pin protrusion to get a deep enough, solid double action primer strike.

I purchased 2 replacement firing pins from Numrich. Then I removed the factory firing pin, cleaned the firing pin channel, and compared the stock pin with the replacement firing pins – they were very similar.

I wanted to rule out firing pin protrusion depth as my problem, so I turned down the firing pin stop washer portion of a replacement firing pin. The end result of my firing pin modification looked like this.

I swapped out the firing pin spring as well at this point, I figured I might as well rule that out as a problem.

Not having enough firing pin protrusion did not seem to be my problem, as I still occasionally got light strikes in double action with my "new and improved" firing pin installed.

So I tore apart the Dan Wesson again.

Pardon the terrible pictures, they were mostly for my own reference so I could go back later and look at where everything went for re-assembly.

While the gun was apart this time, I performed the excellent and highly recommended average Joe tune up.

https://www.danwessonforum.com/forum/reloading/tuning-up-your-15-2-the-average-joe-method/

I also got a small parts kit from EWK and a replacement spring kit. I went over the whole gun pretty well cleaning it up, de-gunking all the internals, and replacing springs.

I replaced what I assumed was the original mainspring in my gun, with a Wolf reduced power 7.5lb spring. I also found out during the tear down that the mainspring in my revolver had been cut down by someone at a previous point in time.. It was MUCH lighter, shorter and also missing some of the end coils than the replacement 7.5lb reduced power spring that I installed.

I still got a few light strikes in double action with the 7.5lb spring installed, but not as many as before. So I swapped the 7.5 with an 8lb reduced power Wolf spring.

I only had a single light strike in double action out of 50 shots fired using the 8lb spring with Winchester White Box ammo, which had at that point had become my standard base line ammunition for testing. While an improvement, it was still one to many for me as far as I was concerned, unless I intended on using only hand loads with Federal primers in the gun.

I wanted a factory standard weight 10, or 9 lb mainspring to test with, but I had a hard time finding a replacement spring in that weight. Wolf Springs, and the other usual sources only carry reduced power springs for the Dan Wesson revolver. I ended up ordering a factory mainspring from CZ USA/Dan Wesson. (a 9 lb spring)

The next time I took the Dan apart to swap out the hammer/mainspring I smoothed it up, and lightly polished all of the internals really well. I polished the insides of the side plates, trigger contact surfaces, and pretty much anything that could possibly rub using Flitz metal polish, very carefully trying not to remove any metal. I put a little Mobile 1 synthetic oil on a Q-tip and sparingly applied it to the now clean and polished moving parts, and then reassembled the gun with the new factory CZ 9 lb spring installed.

I had wanted to do this during my first tear down, but I had been more concerned with firing pin and spring replacement for double action reliability than smoothing things up… Heck I was a little nervous tearing into the gun the first time as well, but by now I had become pretty familiar with how the internals worked, after taking it apart and reassembling it a couple of times. I would also like to thank whoever mentioned that you can capture the mainspring using the side plate screw. That little tip helped SO much!

Fast forward to today. It's now been a year or two since I did all this stuff.

I have put quite a few 100 rounds through the gun with the factory 9 lb spring installed. The revolver now functions great, and seems to be even more accurate than it was before. I recommend to anyone else who is having light hammer strike problems, and has tried all the usual suspects to try using a standard power main spring to remedy the issue instead the lighter replacement "reduced power" Wolf springs.

I know many others have good results using the reduced power Wolf springs, (so have I in other guns) but they just were not 100% for me in this gun.

Even with the heavier spring installed, after the internal polish and clean up my trigger feels so much better now than it did with the cut spring installed, AND it is reliable as well.

Because of the experience I had with light double action strikes, I tend to look at all the posts where folks are having similar problems to see if there was something easy that I hadn't thought of trying. Hopefully some of what I tried, and wrote about here will be useful to others who have the same kind of problem.

- Bullwolf

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